to express most clearly and forcibly a sense of the gratitude and esteem with which he was affected.

“But this task was great, and every day seemed to make it more difficult,-for what could be said of an earthly being whose merit was not to be conceived in thought, or expressed in words?

"But when, in the spring of 1823, Mr.

S a young man of amiable and engaging manners, brought direct from Genoa to Weimar a few words under the hand of this estimable friend, by way of recommendation, and when, shortly after, a report was spread that the Noble Lord was about to consecrate his great powers and varied talents to high and perilous enterprize, I had no longer a plea for delay, and addressed to him the following hasty

'One friendly word comes fast upon another

From the warm South, bringing communion

sweet,―

Calling us amid noblest thoughts to wander

Free in our souls, though fetter'd in our feet.

How shall I, who so long his bright path traced,
Say to him words of love sent from afar?
To him who with his inmost heart hath struggled,
Long wont with fate and deepest woes to war?

May he be happy!-thus himself esteeming,
He well might count himself a favour'd one!
By his loved Muses all his sorrows banish'd,
And he self-known,-e'en as to me he's known!'

"These lines arrived at Genoa, but found him not. My excellent friend had already sailed; but, being driven back by contrary winds, he landed at Leghorn, where this

effusion of my heart reached him. On the eve of his departure, July 23d, 1823, he found time to send me a reply, full of the most beautiful ideas and the noblest sentiments, which will be treasured as an invaluable testimony of worth and friendship among the choicest documents which I pos

sess.

"What emotions of hope and joy did not that paper once excite!—now it has become, by the premature death of the noble writer, an inestimable relic-a source of unspeakable regret; for it increases in me particularly, to no small degree, that mourning and melancholy which pervade the whole moral and poetical world,-in me, who looked forward (after the success of his great efforts) to the prospect of being blessed with the sight of this master-spirit of the age—this friend so

fortunately acquired; and of having to welcome, on his return, the most humane of

conquerors.

"Yet I am consoled by the conviction, that his country will instantly awake, and shake off, like a troubled dream, the partialities, the prejudices, the injuries, and the calumnies with which he has been assailed,causing them to subside and sink into oblivion, -that she will at length universally acknowledge that his frailties, whether the consequence of temperament, or the defect of the times in which he lived, (against which even the best of mortals wrestle painfully,) were fleeting and transitory; whilst the imperishable greatness to which he has raised her name now remains, and will for ever remain, boundless in its glory, and incalculable in its

consequences.

There is no doubt that a

nation so justly proud of her many great sons, will place BYRON, all radiant as he is, by the side of those who have conferred on her the highest honour."