cations, which he bore, however, with more temper than he did the blind headlong assault on his genius, by the Edinburgh Review. Unaccustomed to female society, he at once dreaded and abhorred it; and spoke of women, such I mean as he neither dreaded nor abhorred, more as playthings than companions. As for domestic happiness, he had no idea of it. A large family,' he said, ' appeared like opposite ingredients mixed perforce in the same salad, and he never relished the composition.' Unfortunately, having never mingled in family circles, he knew nothing of them; and, from being at first left out of them by his relations, he was so completely disgusted that he avoided them, especially the female part. 'I consider,' said he,collateral ties as the work of prejudice, and not the bond of the heart,

.

as

which must choose for itself unshackled.' It was in vain for me to argue that the nursery, and a similarity of pursuits and enjoyments in early life, are the best foundations of friendship and of love; and that, to choose freely, the knowledge of home was In requisite as that of wider circles. those wider circles he had found no friend, and but few companions, whom he used to receive with an assumed gaiety, but real indifference at his heart, and spoke of with little regard, sometimes with sarcasm. used to talk of one young man, who had been his schoolfellow, with an affection, which he flattered himself was returned. I occasionally met this friend at his apartments, before his last excursion to Newstead. Their portraits, by capital painters, were elegantly framed, and surmounted with their

He

respective coronets, to be exchanged. However, whether taught by ladies in revenge to neglect Lord Byron, or actuated by frivolous inconstancy, he gradually lessened the number of his calls, and their duration. Of this, however, Lord Byron made no complaint, till the very day I went to take my leave of him, which was the one previous to his departure. I found him bursting with indignation. 'Will you believe it,' said he, 'I have just met ***, and asked him to come and sit an hour with me; he excused himself; and what do you think was his excuse? He was engaged with his mother and some ladies, to go shopping! And he knows I set out to-morrow, to be absent for years, perhaps never to return! Friendship! -I do not believe I shall leave behind me, yourself and family excepted, and perhaps

my mother, a single being who will care what becomes of me.

"At this period of his life, his mind was full of bitter discontent. Already satiated with pleasure, and disgusted with those companions who have no other resource, he had resolved on mastering his appetites: he broke up his harems; and he reduced his palate to a diet the most simple and abstemious; but the passions of the heart were too mighty, nor did it ever enter his mind to overcome them; resentment, anger, and hatred, held full sway over him, and his greatest gratification, at that time, was in overcharging his pen with gall, which flowed in every direction, against individuals, his country, the world, the universe, creation, and the Creator."

His misfortunes in regard to his early

friends, according to Medwin, were not confined to the estrangement of their affections. The latter represents him as saying, "Almost all the friends of my youth are dead; either shot in duels, ruined, or in the gallies.". On another occasion, Byron said to him :

'I was at this time a mere Bond-street lounger; a great man at lobbies, coffee and gambling-houses; my afternoons were passed in visits, luncheons, lounging and boxingnot to mention drinking! If I had known you in early life, you would not have been alive now. I remember Scrope Davies, and myself, clubbing nineteen pounds, all we had in our pockets, and losing it at a hell in St. James's-street, at chicken-hazard, which may be called fowl; and afterwards getting drunk together till

H