The following descriptions of Newstead will be found interesting:

It was somewhat remarkable that Lord Byron foundland dog, to try whose sagacity and fidelity and Miss Chaworth should both have been under he used to let himself fall out of the boat, as if | the guardianship of Mr White. This gentleman by accident, when the dog would seize him, and I particularly wished that his wards should be drag him ashore. On losing this dog, in the I united in marriage; but Miss C., as young ladies autumn of 1808, he caused a monument to be generally do in such circumstances, differed from erected, with an inscription commemorative of him, and was resolved to please herself in the its attachment. (See page 532.) choice of a husband. The celebrated Mr M., commonly known by the name of Jack M., was at this time quite the rage, and Miss C. was not subtle enough to conceal the penchant she had for him: it was in vain that Mr W. took her from one watering-place to another; still the lover, like an evil spirit, followed; and at last, being somehow more persuasive than the child of song, he carried off the lady, to the great grief of Lord Byron. The marriage, however, was not a happy one, the parties soon separated; and Mrs M. afterwards proposed an interview with her former lover, which, by the advice of his sister, he declined.

This abbey was founded in the year 1170, by | Henry II, as a priory of Black Canons, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It continued in the family of the Byrons until the time of our poet, who sold it first to Mr Claughton for the sum of 140,000l., and on that gentleman's not being able to fulfil the agreement, and paying 20,000l. of a forfeit, it was afterwards sold to another person, and most of the money vested in trustees for the jointure of the Hon. Mrs Byron. The greater part of the edifice still remains. The present possessor, Major Wildman, is, with genuine taste, repairing this beautiful specimen of Gothic architecture. The late Lord Byron repaired a considerable part of it; but, forgetting the roof, he turned his attention to the inside, and the consequence was that, in a few years, the rain penetrating to the apartments, soon destroyed all those elegant devices which his lordship contrived. Lord Byron's own study was a neat little apartment, decorated with some good classic busts, a select collection of books, an antique cross, a sword in a gilt case, and, at the end of the room, two finely polished skulls on a pair of light fancy stands. In the garden, likewise, there was a great number of these skulls, taken from the burial-ground of the abbey, and piled up together; but they were afterwards recommitted to the earth. A writer, who visited it soon after Lord Byron had sold it, says: « In one corner of the servant's hall lay a stone coffin, in which were fencing-gloves and foils, and on the walls of the ample but cheerless kitchen was painted in large letters, Waste not-want not., During the minority of Lord Byron, the abbey was in the possession of Lord G-, his hounds, and divers colonies of jackdaws, swallows, and starlings. The internal traces of this Goth were swept away; but without, all appeared as rude and unreciaimed as he could have left it. With the exception of the dog's tomb, a conspicuous and elegant object, I do not recollect the slightest trace of culture or improvement. The late When Lord Byron bade adieu to the university, lord, a stern and desperate character, who is never he took up his residence at Newstead Abbey, mentioned by the neighbouring peasants without where his pursuits were principally those of a significant shake of the head, might have reamusement. Among others he was extremely fond turned and recognized every thing about him, of the water. In his aquatic exercises he had except, perhaps, an additional crop of weeds. seldom any other companion than a large New-There still slept that old pond, into which he is

From Harrow Lord Byron was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge: there, however, he did not mend his manners, nor hold the sages of antiquity in higher esteem than when under the command of his reverend tutor at Harrow. He was above studying the poets, and held the rules of the Stagyrite in as little esteem as in after life he did the invariable principles » of the Rev. Mr Bowles. Reading after the fashion of the stu| dious men of Cam was to him a bore, and he held a senior wrangler in the greatest contempt. Persons of real genius are seldom candidates for college prizes, and Byron left them to those plodding characters who, perhaps, deserve them, as the guerdon of the unceasing labour necessary to overcome the all but invincible dulness of their intellects. Instead of reading what tutors pleased, Byron read what pleased himself, and wrote what could not fail to displease those connected with the university. He did not admire their system of education, and they, as is the case with most scholars, could admire no other. He took to quizzing them, and, as no one likes to be laughed at, doctors frowned, fellows fumed, and Byron at the age of nineteen left college without a degree.

Among other means which he adopted to show his contempt for academical honours, he kept a young bear in his room for some time, which he | told all his friends was in training for a fellowship!

The following detailed description of Byron's paternal abode is extracted from A Visit to Newstead Abbey, in 1828,» in the London Literary Gazette:

<<< It was on the noon of a cold, bleak day in February, that I set out to visit the memorable Abbey of Newstead, once the property and abode of the immortal Byron. The gloomy state of the weather, and the dreary aspect of the surrounding country, produced impressions more appropriate to the view of such a spot than the cheerful season and scenery of summer. The estate lies, on the left hand side of the high north road, eight miles beyond Nottingham; but, as I approached

Near this spot

Are deposited the remains of one
Who possessed beauty without vanity,
Strength without insolence,

Courage without ferocity,

And all the virtues of man without his vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning dattery
If inscribed over buman ashes,
Is bat a just tribute to the memory of
BOATSWAIN, a dog,

Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
And died at Newstead, November 18th, 1808.

upon which are inscribed those splendid verses :Start not, nor deem my spirit fled, etc.

People often suppose, from the name, that the
cup retains all the terrific appearances of a death's
head, and imagine that they could

Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
The

gay recess of wisdom and of wit:

not at all—there is nothing whatever startling in it. It is well polished; its edge is bound by a broad rim of silver; and it is set in a neat staud of the The whole edifice is a quadrangle, enclosing a same metal, which serves as a handle, and upon court, with a reservoir and jet d'eau in the middle, the four sides of which, and not upon the skull and the cloister, still entire, running round the itself, the verses are engraved. It is in short, in four sides. The south, now the principal front, appearance, a very handsome utensil, and one | looks over a pleasure garden to a small lake, which from which the most fastidious person might has been opened from the upper one since Byron's (in my opinion) drink without scruple. It was time. The entrance door is on the west, in a always produced after dinner when Byron had, small vestibule, and has nothing remarkable in company at the Abbey, and a bottle of claret ut. Ou entering, I came into a large stone hall, and poured into it. An elegant round library table ¦ turning to the left, went through it to a smaller, is the only article of furniture in this room that beyond which is the staircase. The whole of belonged to Byron, and this he constantly used. this part has been almost entirely rebuilt by Co-Beyond the refectory, on the same floor, is Bylone! Wildman: indeed, during Byron's occuparon's study, now used as a temporary diuing-room, tion, the only habitable rooms were some small the entire furniture of which is the same that ones in the south-east angle. Over the cloister, was used by him: it is all very plain-indeed, on the four sides of the building, runs the gallery, ordinary. A good painting of a battle, over the from which doors open into various apartments, sideboard, was also his. This apartment, pernow fitted up with taste and elegance for the ac- haps beyond all others, deserves the attention commodation of a family, but then empty, and of the pilgrim to Newstead, as more intimately fast going to decay. In one of the galleries hang connected with the poetical existence of Byron. two oil paintings of dogs, as large as life: one a It was here that he prepared for the press those red woll-dog, and the other a black Newfound-first effusions of his genius, which were published land with white legs - the celebrated Boatswain. at Newark under the title of Hours of Idleness. » They both died at Newstead. Of the latter By- It was here that he meditated, planned, and for ron felt the loss as of a dear friend. These are the most part wrote, that splendid retort to the almost the only paintings of Byron's that resevere critique they had called down, which main at the Abbey.-From the gallery I entered stamped him as the keenest satirist of the day. the refectory, now the grand drawing-room- And it was here that his tender and beautiful an apartinent of great dimensions, facing south, verses to Mary, and many of those sweet pieces with a fine vaulted roof and polished oak found among his miscellaneous poems, were comdoor, and splendidly furnished in the modern posed. His bed-room is small, and still remains style. The walls are covered with full-length in the same state as when he occupied it. It conportraits, of the old school. As this room has tains little worthy of notice besides the bed, been made fit for use entirely since the days of which is of common size, with gilt posts, surmounByron, there are not those associations connected ted by coronets. Over the fire-place is a picture with it which are to be found in many of the of Murray the old family servant, who accompanied others, though of inferior appearance. Two ob- Byron to Gibraltar when he first went abroad. jects there are, however, which demand obser- A picture of Henry VIII, and another portrait vation. The first that caught my attention was in this room, complete the enumeration of all the the portrait of Byron, by Phillips, over the fire-furniture or paintings of Byron's remaining at the place, upon which I gazed with strong feelings: Abbey. In some of the rooms are very cuis certainly the handsomest and most pleasing riously carved mantel-pieces with grotesque filikeness of him I have seen. The other is a thing gures, evidently of old date. In a corner of one about which every body has heard, and of which of the galleries there still remained the fencingfew have any just idea. In a cabinet at the end foils, gloves, masks, and single-sticks, he used in of the room, carefully preserved and concealed his youth; and in a corner of the cloister lies a in a sliding-case, is kept the celebrated skull cup, stone coffin taken from the burial-ground of the

b

Abbey. The ground floor contains some spacious halls, and divers apartments for domestic offices; and there is a neat little private chapel in the cloister, where service is performed on Sundays. Byron's sole recreation here was his boat and dogs, and boxing and fencing for exercise, and to prevent a tendency to obesity-which he dreaded.

His constant employment was writing, for which he used to sit up as late as two or three o'clock in the morning. His life here was an entire seclusion, devoted to poetry."

years,

Lord Byron showed, even in his earliest
that nature had added to the advantages of high
descent the richest gifts of genius and of fancy.
His own tale is partly told in two lines of Lara:

Left by his sire, too young, such loss to know,
Lord of himself, that heritage of woe.

which he afterwards advanced. All men should travel at one time or another, he thought, and he had then no connexions to prevent him; when he returned he might enter into political life, for which travelling would not incapacitate him, and he wished to judge of men by experience.

At length, in July, 1809, in company with John Cam Hobhouse, Esq. (with whom his acquaintance commenced at Cambridge), Lord Byron embarked at Falmouth for Lisbon, and thence proceeded, by the southern provinces of Spain, to the Mediterranean. The objects that he met with as far as Gibraltar seem to have occupied his mind, to the temporary exclusion of his gloomy and misanthropic thoughts; for a letter

which he wrote to his mother from thence coutains much playful description of the scenes through which he had passed. At Seville, Lord Byron lodged in the house of two ladies, one of whom was about to be married, and who, though he remained there only three days, paid him the most particular attention. At parting, she em

lock of his hair, and presenting him with one of her own. With this specimen of Spanish female manners, he proceeded to Cadiz, where various incidents occurred to confirm the opinion he had formed at Seville of the Andalusian belles, aud which made him leave it with regret, but with a determination to return to it. He wrote to his mother from Malta, announcing his safety, and again from Previsa, in November. Upon ar

Ilis first literary adventure and its fate are well remembered. The poems which he published in his minority had, indeed, those faults of conception and diction which are inseparable from juvenile attempts, and may rather be considered as imi-braced him with great tenderness, cutting off a tative of what had caught the ear and fancy of the youthful author, than as exhibiting originality of conception and expression. Yet though there were many, and those not the worst judges, who discerned in his « Hours of Idleness" some depth of thought and felicity of expression, the work did not escape the critical lash of the Scotch Reviewers, who could not resist the opportunity of pouncing upon a titled poet, and of seeking to entertain their readers with a flip-riving at Yanina, he found that Ali Pacha was with pant article, without much respect to the feelings of the author, or even to the indications of merit which the work displayed. The review was read, and excited mirth; the poems were neglected, the author was irritated, and took his revenge in keen iambics, which at once proved the injustice of the critic and the ripening talents of the bard. Having thus vented his indignation against the reviewers and their readers, and drawn all the laughers to his side, Lord Byron went abroad, and the controversy was for some years forgotten.

It was at Newstead, just before his coming of age, that he planned his future travels; and his original intention included a much larger portion of the world than that which he afterwards visited.

his troops in Illyrium, besieging Ibrahim Pacha in Berat; but the vizier, having heard that an English nobleman was in his country, had given orders at Yanina to supply him with every kind of accommodation free of expense. From Yanina Lord Byron went to Tepaleen. Here he was lodged in the palace, and the next day introduced to Ali Pacha, who declared that he knew him to be a man of rank from the smallness of his ears, his curling hair, and his white hands. ¦

In going in a Turkish ship of war, provided by Ali Pacha, from Previsa, intending to sail for Patras, Lord Byron was very nearly lost in a moderate gale of wind, from the ignorance of the Turkish officers and sailors, and was driven on the coast of Suli, where an instance of disinterHe first thought of Persia, to which idea ested hospitality in the chief of a Suliote village indeed he for a long time adhered. He after- occurred. The honest Albanian, after assisting wards meant to sail for India; and had so far him in his distress, supplying his wants, and contemplated this project as to write for infor- lodging him and his suite, refused to receive any mation to the Arabic professor at Cambridge, remuneration. When Lord Byron pressed him and to ask his mother to inquire of a friend who to accept some money, he said, I wish you to had lived in India, what things would be neces- love me, not to pay me! At Yanina, on his sary for his voyage. He formed his plan of tra- ¦ return, he was introduced to Hussein Bey and velling upon very different grounds from those Mahmout Pacha, two young children of Ali Pa

cha. He afterwards visited Smyrna, whence Le went in the Salsette frigate to Constantinople.

he also bought a new boat for a fisherman who had lost his own in a gale, and he often gave Greek testaments to the poor children.

wards a recovery from the morbid state of apathy which it had previously evinced; and the grati fication he manifested on observing the superiority of England over other countries, proved that patriotism was far from being extinct in his bosom. The embarrassed state of his affairs at

rived in the Volage frigate on the ad of July, 1811, having been absent two years. His health had not suffered by his travels, although it had been interrupted by two sharp fevers, in consequence of which he put himself on a vegetable diet, and drank no wine.

On the 3d of May, 1810, while the Salsette was lying at anchor in the Dardanelles, Lord Byron, It was not until after Lord Byrou arrived at accompanied by Lieutenant Ekenhead, swam Constantinople that he decided on not going to across the Hellespont from the European shore Persia, but to pass the following summer in the to the Asiatic-about two miles wide. The tide Morea. At Constantinople, Mr Hobhouse left of the Dardanelles runs so strong, that it is im-him to return to England. On losing his compossible either to swim or to sail to any given panion, Lord Byron went alone, to many of the point. Lord Byron went from the castle to Aby-places which he had already visited, and studied dos, landing full three miles below his meditated scenery and manners, especially those of Greece, place of approach. He had a boat in attendance with the searching eye of a poet. His mind apall the way; so that no danger could be appre-peared occasionally to have some tendency tohended, even if his strength had failed. His lordship records, in one of his minor poems, that he got the ague by the voyage; but it was well known, that after landing, he was so much exhausted, that he gladly accepted the offer of a Turkish fisherman, and reposed in his hut for several hours. He was then very ill, and as Lieute-length induced him to return home; and he ar| nant Ekenhead was compelled to go on board his frigate, he was left alone. The Turk had no idea of the rank or consequence of his inmate, but paid him most marked attention. His wife was his nurse, and, at the end of five days, he left this asylum, completely recovered. When about to embark, the Turk gave him a large loaf, a cheese, a skin filled with wine, and a few paras (about a penny each), prayed Allah to bless him, and wished him safe home. When his lordship arrived at Abydos, he sent over his man Stefano | and from the disappointment of not seeing her to the Turk, with an assortment of fishing-nets, before her death; and while his feelings on the a fowling-piece, a brace of pistols, and twelve subject were still acute, he received the intelliyards of silk to make gowns for his wife. The gence that a friend, whom he highly esteemed, poor Turk was astonished. « What a noble return, had been drowned in the Cam. Not long before said he, for an act of humanity!» He then formed he had heard of the death, at Coimbra, of a the resolution of crossing the Hellespont, in order school-fellow, to whom he was much attached. to thank his lordship in person. His wife ap-These three melancholy events, occurring within proved of the plan; and he had sailed about half the space of a month, had a powerful effect on way across, when a sudden squall upset his boat, Lord Byron's feelings. and the poor Turkish fisherman found a watery grave. Lord Byron was much distressed on hearing of the catastrophe, and, with all that kindness of heart which was natural to him, he sent the widow fifty dollars, and told her he would ever be her friend. This anecdote, so highly honourable to his lordship's memory, is very little known. Lieutenant Hare, who was on the spot at the time, furnished the particulars; and added that, in the year 1817, Lord Byron, then pro-are seldom maintained. In February, 1812, the ceeding to Constantinople, landed at the same spot, and made a handsome present to the widow and her son.

When residing at Mitylene he portioned eight young girls very liberally, and even danced with them at the marriage feast; he gave a cow to one man, horses to another, and cotton and silk to several girls who lived by weaving these materials:

Soon after his arrival, the serious illness of his mother summoned him to Newstead; but on reaching the Abbey, he found that she had breathed her last. He suffered much from this loss,

Towards the termination of his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, the noble author had de|clared, that it was his intention to break off, from that period, his newly-formed connexion with the Muses, and that, should he return in safety from the minarets of Constantinople, the maidens of Georgia, and the « sublime snows » of Mount Caucasus, nothing on earth should tempt him to resume the pen. Such resolutions

.

first two cantos of « Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
(with the manuscript of which he had presented
Mr Dallas) made their appearance, and produced
an effect on the public equal to that of any work
which has been published within this or the last
century.

The indications of a powerful and original mind which glance through every line of Childe