world, and he bore away no inconsiderable, on the lake of Geneva- a visit of no share of their own glory: common interest in the life of both of them, "The curiosity of curiosities was our own for it was just after the noble poet had Wellington, on a white horse, in a plain blue quitted England for ever, in consequence frock-coat, a white neckcloth, and a round hat. of those painful domestic occurrences in He was riding between General Stewart and which Hobhouse had played a most confiLord Castlereagh. As soon as his presence was dential, conciliatory, and honourable part; known there was a great bustling and whisper-and it was then that the third canto of ing. A friend of mine, who was in the window" Childe Harold" was written. Hobhouse with the Sovereigns, told me that when it was first known he was there, the Emperors and Kings stretched forward to get a sight of him. I saw the Duchesse d'Angoulême point him out to them; and when Platow and Sacken were in and excursions commemorated in the imaccompanied Byron in many of the scenes mortal stanzas of that poem; he shared with him the animated society of Madame troduced to him, they would hardly let his hand de Staël's château at Coppet; he entered go. I heard afterwards that Platow had said, Italy with his friend; and he subsequently Had you been here we should have done this contributed the valuable and interesting sooner;' to which the Duke replied, The busi- notes to the fourth canto of "Childe ness could not have been in better hands.' I Harold," which are no unworthy addition felt, for my own part, an insatiable desire to see to the work, and will probably be the most him, and ran many chances of being kicked and enduring of Mr. Hobhouse's literary pertrampled down to get near our big man. Two formances. Nor can it here be omitted, Englishmen near me showed as much eagerness though he makes no mention of the fact in as myself to approach him, and one of them as his Memoirs, that the fourth canto of he passed by me said, 'Oh, for God's sake, let Childe Harold" was dedicated to himself me see him! — I know you will excuse me, Sir, in language which confers by the hand of friendship an imperishable fame. Lord Byron described him as one "whom he had known long, accompanied far; whom he had found wakeful over his sickness and kind in his sorrow; glad in his prosperity and firm in his adversity; true in counsel, and trusty in peril; a friend often tried, and never found wanting; a man of learning, of talent, of shrewdness, and of honour." for this, but I must see him!' Mr. Hobhouse passed the autumn of 1816 with Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati To Italy Hobhouse more than once returned. He was versed in Italian literature, and well acquainted with the character of the Italian people. One of his latest publications, entitled "Italy in 1816," was given to the world after his retirement from office in 1860, and has been reviewed in these pages. It may readily be believed that a young man of fashion and talent, who had seen so much of Europe and of the East before he was thirty, and was in some manner associated with the finest poem and the greatest events of the age-professing advanced liberal opinions and gifted with agreeable social qualities soon became a welcome guest at Holland House and in the best society of London. In 1814 he was thrown into the full tide of the Lon don world, associated with most of the re-preserved of the spirit and gaiety of such markable men of the day, and had no meetings, even when noted by a contemreason to complain of neglect from either of porary pen:the dominant political parties. Amongst his recollections of this period those of Sheridan, then verging to his decline, are some of the most curious. For example: · "I went in Byron's carriage at seven, and dined at Holland House. There I met Miss Fox, and Martin Archer Shee, the painter and poet. There, too, was Kean, a very handsome Kean "Sheridan told us several stories of Kean, then at the height of his fame. Some one made Kean a present of a fine horse on which he was prancing along the Strand. 'Take care,' said a friend; you are a good actor, but But what?' asked Kean; you don't know that I was paid 301. for breaking three horses last year at Brighton.' Another time a friend, hearing he was about to give readings of Milton between the acts, at Drury Lane, said, Kean, stick to "Shee talked a great deal; I thought, too Shakspeare; don't meddle with Milton.' much. Why Lady H. asked Kean why all the actors not?' asked Kean; I gave readings from Mil- said Give me the hand,' as if thy' were ton three times a week at Exmouth.' As a the.' Kean said that he never pronounced proof of the universality of his genius, it was Kean said that Iago was three lengths mentioned that he had been a fencing-master longer than Othello.' A length is forty-two and a dancing-master, and at Jersey had an- lines. Lord Holland mentioned that he had nounced that he should quit the stage and set seen a letter from a midshipman on board the up a school. He told Mr. Sheridan that when Undaunted' frigate, in which Napoleon saile 1 a child he had been applied to in order to bring to Elba. The boy said that Boney was so him out as a rival to Master Betty; but that good-humoured, and laughed and talked, and Sheridan had interposed, saying, No! one bub- was so agreeable, but that the world had been ble at a time is enough; if you have two, they under a great mistake in thinking him a clever will knock against each other, and burst.' man: he was just like anybody else.' "Amongst my reminiscences of the year 1814, I find it recorded that Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, and myself, went to the orchestra at Drury Lane Theatre on the 19th of May, 1814, and saw Kean in Othello.' After the play we went to the green-room, and Byron and I were introduced to the great actor. it so. "When the women went the conversation turned on public speaking. Grattan gave us a specimen of Lord Chatham's way, which, he said, was colloquial, and, when he saw him, leaning on his crutch, and sometimes dozing; but, when roused by opposition, overpoweringly eloquent.* He was, however, inferior to modern speakers. Pitt, his son, was a better rhetorician. Lord Holland told us that Fox once said to him that Sheridan's speech on the Begums was the finest ever heard in Parliament. Lord H. asked him if his own speech on the Peace was not as good. That was a damned good speech, too,' was the ingenuous reply of this truly great man. Fox used to praise Pitt's speech on the Slave-trade as a fine specimen of eloquence. ་ When we went to the ladies the conversa "I became afterwards well acquainted with Kean, and heard something of his performances from his own mouth. On December 14, 1814, I dined at Mr. Kinnaird's, in company with him and Lord Byron; and on that occasion he mentioned that at Stroud, in Gloucestershire, on one night, he acted Shylock, danced on the tight-rope, sang a song then in vogue called the Storm,' sparred with Mendoza, and then acted Three-fingered Jack. Kean also told us that one night he forgot his part, and repeated the Allegro' of Milton without being detected by tion was addressed to Kean. Lady Holland the audience. He gave us admirable imitations asked him if he was not a capital SCRUB.' of Incledon, of Kemble, of Sinclair, and Master Kean replied that he had not the slightest acBetty. He concluded the amusements of the even-quaintance with the part; indeed, he was no ing by dressing up his hand with a napkin, and painting it with cork so as to look like a man, and dancing a hornpipe with two fingers, imitating at the same time a bassoon so wonderfully, that we looked round to see if there was no one playing that instrument in the room with us. I should not think these matters worthy of record, if Kean had not been by far the greatest actor I had ever seen." (Vol. i. p. 76.) Here is a memorandum of a dinner at Holland House. Alas! how little can be comedian, except, perhaps, that he could play Tyke in the School of Reform,' which was a sort of sentimental character. Lord Ebrington and Major Stanhope left us, and then Grattan began to give us, in his inimitably grotesque, forcible, and theatrical manner, the characters of some Irishmen who had figured at Grattan was a student of Middle Temple in 1770, and entered the Parliament of Ireland in 1775. Chatham died in 1778. Grattan may therefore have American War. heard the celebrated speeches delivered during the "At a little after eight o'clock on the morning of Friday, May 14, I was awakened by a loud rapping at my bedroom door, and, getting up, had a packet of letters put into my hand, signed Sidney Osborne,' and headedBy exThere was also a note from Douglas Kinnaird; and, on opening it, I found that BYRON WAS DEAD. The despatch was from Corfu. These letters were from Lord Sidney Osborne to me, from Count Gamba to me, from Count Gamba to Lord Sidney Osborne, and from the Count to the English Consul at Zante. Besides these, there were letters from Fletcher, Byron's valet, to Fletcher's wife, to Mrs. Leigh, and to Captain George Byron; also there were four copies of a Greek proclamation by the Greek Government at Missolonghi, with a translation annexed. The proclamation contained the details which have been often published the ten days' illness of my dear friend, the public anxiety during those days of hope and fear his death - the universal dejection and almost despair of the Greeks around him. The proclamation next decreed that the Easter festival should be suspended; that the shops should be closed for three days; that a general mourning for twenty days should be observed; and that at sunrise the next morning, the 20th of April, thirty-seven minute-guns should be fired from the batteries to indicate the age of the deceased. the end of the last century. . . . He said that | "How much soever the Greeks of that day may have differed on other topics, there was no difference of opinion in regard to the loss they had sustained by the death of Byron. Those who have read Colonel Leicester Stanhope's interesting volume, 'Greece in 1823 and 1824,' and more particularly Colonel Stanhope's Sketch,' and Mr. Finlay's Reminiscences' of Byron - will have seen him just as he appeared to me during our long intimacy. I liked him a great deal too well to be an impartial judge of his character; but I can confidently appeal to the impressions he made upon the two above-mentioned witnesses of his conduct, under very trying circumstances, for a justification of my strong affection for him - an affection not weakened by the fifty years of a busy and chequered life that have passed over me since I saw him laid in his grave. These volumes do not contain many memorials of Hobhouse's intimate and affectionate friendship with Lord Byron. They are recorded in another place, which we do not propose to touch upon now. Suffice it here to say, that whatever may have been the recklessness and selfishness of Byron to others, he was always the warm and grateful friend of Hobhouse. The last time they met was at Pisa, in September 1822, when Byron took leave of him with the touching words, "Hob"The influence he had acquired in Greece house, you should never have come, or you should never go." At the close of the was unbounded, and he had exerted it in a manSession of 1823 and early in 1824, Hob-borne, writing to Mrs. Leigh, said, that if Byron ner most useful to her cause. Lord Sidney Oshouse became one of the most active had never written a line in his life, he had done members of the Greek Committee in Lon- enough, during the last six months, in Greece, don, when his gifted friend was preparing to immortalize his name. He added, that no at Cephalonia and Missolonghi for a more one unacquainted with the circumstances of the active championship of the Greek cause. case could have any idea of the difficulties he Whilst soldiers like Colonel Leicester had overcome: he had reconciled the contending Stanhope were intent on providing the parties, and had given a character of humanity Greeks with the newest constitutions out and civilization to the warfare in which they of Bentham, Lord Byron was all for fight- were engaged, besides contriving to prevent them ing, and had actually resolved to attack from offending their powerful neighbours in the the Castle of Lepanto as soon as he could Ionian Islands. I heard that Sir F. Adam, in a collect a sufficient body of troops. How despatch to Lord Bathurst, bore testimony to his great qualities, and lamented his death as soon were these hopes doomed to be an- depriving the Ionian Government of the only nihilated! man with whom they could act with safety. Mavrocordato, in his letter to Dr. Bowring, called him a great man,' and confessed that he was almost ignorant how to act when deprived of such a coadjutor. "After the removal of the corpse into the coffin, and the arrival of the order from the Custom-house, I accompanied the undertaker in the barge with the coffin. There were many boats round the ship at the time, and the shore "On Thursday, July 1, I heard that the was crowded with spectators. We passed 'Florida,' with the remains of Byron, had ar- quietly up the river, and landed at Palace Yard rived in the Downs, and I went, the same even- stairs. Thence the coffin and the small chest ing, to Rochester. The next morning I went to containing the heart were carried to the house Standgate Creek, and, taking a boat, went on in George Street, and deposited in the room preboard the vessel. There I found Colonel Leices-pared for their reception. The room was deter Stanhope, Dr. Bruno, Fletcher, Byron's cently hung with black, but there was DO valet, with three others of his servants. Three other decoration than an escutcheon of the dogs that had belonged to my friend were play-Byron arms, roughly daubed on a deal board. ing about the deck. I could hardly bring my- "On reaching my rooms in the Albany, I self to look at them. The vessel had got under found a note from Mr. Murray, telling me that weigh, and we beat up the river to Gravesend. he had received a letter from Dr. Ireland, poI cannot describe what I felt during the five or litely declining to allow the burial of Byron in six hours of our passage. I was the last person Westminster Abbey; but it was not until the who shook hands with Byron when he left Eng- next day that, to my great surprise, I learnt, land in 1816. I recollected his waving his cap on reading the doctor's note, that Mr. Murray to me as the packet bounded off on a curling had made the request to the Dean in my name; wave from the pier-head at Dover, and here II thought that it had been settled that Mr. Gifwas now coming back to England with his ford should sound the Dean of Westminster previously to any formal request being made. I wrote to Mr. Murray, asking him to inform the Dean that I had not made the request. Whether he did so, I never inquired. corpse. "Poor Fletcher burst into tears when he first saw me, and wept bitterly when he told me the particulars of my friend's last illness. These have been frequently made public, and need not "I ascertained from Mrs. Leigh that it was be repeated here. I heard, however, on un-wished the interment should take place at the doubted authority, that, until he became delirious, he was perfectly calm; and I called to mind how often I had heard him say, that he was not apprehensive as to death itself, but as to how, from physical infirmity, he might behave at that inevitable hour. On one occasion he said to me, "Let no one come near me when I am dying, if you can help it, and we happen to be together at the time.' family vault at Hucknall in Nottinghamshire. The utmost eagerness was shown, both publicly and privately, to get a sight of anything connected with Byron. Lafayette was at that time on his way to America, and a young Frenchman came over from the General at Havre, and wrote me a note requesting a sight of the deceased poet. The coffin had been closed, and his wishes could not be complied with. A "The Florida anchored at Gravesend, and young man came on board the Florida,' and I returned to London; Colonel Stanhope accom-in very moving terms besought me to allow him panied me. This was on Friday, July 2. On to take one look at him. I was sorry to be the following Monday I went to Doctors' Com- obliged to refuse, as I did not know the young mons and proved Byron's will. Mr Hanson man, and there were many round the vessel did so likewise. Thence I went to London who would have made the same request. He Bridge, got into a boat, and went to London Docks Buoy, where the Florida' was anchored. I found Mr. Woodeson, the undertaker, on board, employed in emptying the spirit from the large barrel containing the box that held the corpse. This box was removed and placed on deck by the side of a leaden coffin. I stayed whilst the iron hoops were knocked off the box, but I could not bear to see the remainder of the operation, and went into the cabin. Whilst there I looked over the sealed packet of papers belonging to Byron, which he had deposited at Cefalonia, and which had not been opened since he left them there. Captain Hodgson of the Florida,' the captain's father, and Fletcher were with me: we examined every paper, and did not find any will.* Those present signed a document to that effect. This is at variance with the preceding statement that Hobhouse had just proved Byron's will. It probably means that there was no other testamentary instrument. was bitterly disappointed; and when I gave him a piece of the cotton in which the corpse had been wrapped, he took it with much devotion, and placed it in his pocketbook. Mr. Phillips, the Academican, applied for permission to take a likeness, but I heard from Mrs. Leigh that the features of her brother had been so disfigured by the means used to preserve his remains, that she scarcely recognized them. This was the fact; for I had summoned courage enough to look at my dead friend; so completely was he altered, that the sight did not affect me so much as looking at his handwriting, or anything that I knew had belonged to him." (Vol. i. pp. 140-143.) The funeral started from Nottingham on the 16th July. Hodgson the translator of Juvenal, and Colonel Wildman of Newstead, attended as mourners. "The Mayor and Corporation of Notting ham joined the funeral procession. It ex- d'un autre.' We shall therefore content tended about a quarter of a mile, and, moving ourselves with transcribing the following very slowly, was five hours on the road to paragraph, which is decisive as to Mr. Hucknall. The view of it as it wound through Hobhouse's opinion on the subject: the villages of Papplewick and Lindly excited sensations in me which will never be forgotten. As we passed under the hill of Annesley, crowned with the peculiar diadem of trees immortalized by Byron, I called to mind a thousand particulars of my first visit to Newstead. It was dining at Annesley Park that I saw the first interview of Byron, after a long interval, with his early love, Mary Anne Chaworth. "The churchyard and the little church of Hucknall were so crowded that it was with difficulty we could follow the coffin up the aisle. The contrast between the gorgeous decorations of the coffin and the urn, and the humble village-church, was very striking. I was told afterwards that the place was crowded until a late hour in the evening, and that the vault was not closed until the next morning. "At this time (April and May, 1830) I had much of my time taken up by looking after Lord Byron's affairs, and taking advice as to the expediency of giving some public refutation to a charge made, as was stated, by Lady Byron, in regard to the separation between Byron and his wife. The attack on Lord Byron, on the authority of Lady Byron, was countenanced by Tom Campbell, who was a first-rate poet, no doubt, but a very bad pleader, even in a good cause, and made therefore a most pitiable figure when he had no case at all. I consulted friends, and amongst them Lord Holland, who strongly recommended silence; and did not scruple to say that the lady would be more annoyed if she were left unnoticed, than if, whether wrong or right, she had to figure in a controversy. I was far from wishing to annoy her at all; my sole wish was to do my duty by my friend; and I hope I have done that sufficiently by leaving behind me, to be used if nec "I returned to Bunny Park. The corporation of Nottingham offered me the freedom of the town, but I had no inclination for the ceremonies with which the acceptance of the hon-essary, a full and scrupulously accurate acour would have been accompanied; I therefore declined it. "I should have mentioned that I thought Lady Byron ought to be consulted respecting the funeral of her husband; and I advised Mrs. Leigh to write to her, and ask what her wishes might be. Her answer was, if the deceased had left no directions she thought the matter might be left to the judgment of Mr. Hobhouse. There was a postscript, saying, 'If you like you may show this.' "I was present at the marriage of this lady with my friend, and handed her into the carriage which took the bride and bridegroom away. Shaking hands with Lady Byron, I wished her all happiness. Her answer was, If I am not happy it will be my own fault."" (Vol. i. p. 145.) count of the transaction in question. I shall content myself here with asserting that it was not fear, on the part of Lord Byron, that persuaded him to separate from his wife. On the contrary, he was quite ready to go into court,' as they call it." (Vol. i. p. 441 ) The death of Byron placed the Greek Committee in considerable embarrassment, and at one moment Hobhouse himself was on the point of starting for Greece to manage the loan. Difficulties were, however, raised by Mr. Joseph Hume, and this plan was abandoned. The following picture of that individual, who was so much better known to the last generation than he is to the present, is not a flattering one; but it would be hard for anyone who knew him well to dispute the truth of it: · We have not thought ourselves called upon in this Journal to take any part in the controversy which recently occupied "Joseph Hume had many valuable qualities, several of our contemporaries as to the mixed up with some eccentricities which boralleged causes of Lady Byron's alienation dered upon moral perversity. As a political asfrom her husband. The curiosity and cre- sociate he was unsafe, and, although his asdulity which prey upon the remains of saults were vigorous and successful enough, it genius and explore the recesses of forgot- was better to have to deal with him as an ten slanders are not to our taste. When enemy than a friend. As he cared little for inHobhouse read the horrible libels pub-vectives against himself, he was not aware of lished after Lord Byron's death, by a the effects which his own intemperate talk ruffian who had extorted money from him, his first impulse was to take this thankless villain in hand himself. But he adds: "I did not do this. I remembered what was said to the assassin who tried to murder Harley, and who asked the Duke of Ormond to kill him at once: Ce n'est pas l'affaire des honnetes gens; c'est l'affaire might produce on others. Not only was his language coarse and absurdly inaccurate, but his intellect was obtuse to a degree seldom, if ever, found in a man who had been busily employed his whole life in affairs of the utmost importance. He was of great service, previously to passing the Reform Bill, in sifting and exposing occasionally the estimates; and being a man of indefatigable industry, collected a vast |