looks gloomy, and the sailors grumble aloud.” He adds at the end, "I walked along the streets this evening, and the people asked me after Lord Byron !!!" In a Letter to the London Committee of the same date, Colonel Stanhope says, "All are looking forward to Lord Byron's arrival, as they would to the coming of the Messiah."

Of this anxiety, no inconsiderable part is doubtless to be attributed to their great impatience for the possession of the loan which he had promised them, and on which they wholly depended for the payment of the fleet. "Prince Mavrocordato and the Admiral (says the same gentleman) are in a state of extreme perplexity: they, it seems, relied on your loan for the payment of the fleet; that loan not having been received, the sailors will depart immediately. This will be a fatal event indeed, as it will place Missolonghi in a state of blockade; and will prevent the Greek troops from acting against the fortresses of Nepacto and Patras."

In the mean time Lord Byron was preparing busily for his departure, the postponement of which latterly had been, in a great measure, owing to that repugnance to any new change of place which had lately so much grown upon him, and which neither love, as we have seen, nor ambition, could entirely conquer. There had been also considerable pains taken by some of his friends at Argostoli to prevent his fixing upon a place of residence so unhealthy as Missolonghi; and Mr. Muir, a very able medical officer, on whose talents he had much dependence, endeavoured most earnestly to dissuade him from such an imprudent

the

step. His mind, however, was made up, proximity of that port, in some degree, tempting him,--and having hired, for himself and suite, a light, fast-sailing vessel, called the Mistico, with a boat for part of his baggage, and a larger vessel for the remainder, the horses, &c. he was, on the 26th of December, ready to sail. The wind, however, being contrary, he was detained two days longer, and in this interval the following letters were written.

LETTER 532. TO MR. BOWRING.

"10bre 26. 1823.

"Little need be added to the enclosed, which arrived this day, except that I embark to-morrow for Missolonghi. The intended operations are detailed in the annexed documents. I have only to request that the Committee will use every exertion to forward our views by all its influence and credit.

"I have also to request you personally from myself to urge my friend and trustee, Douglas Kinnaird (from whom I have not heard these four months nearly), to forward to me all the resources of my own we can muster for the ensuing year; since it is no time to ménager purse, or, perhaps, person. I have advanced, and am advancing, all that I have in hand, but I shall require all that can be got together;—and (if Douglas has completed the sale of Rochdale, that and my year's income for next year ought to form a good round sum,)- as you may perceive that there will be little cash of their own amongst the Greeks (unless they get the Loan), it is the more necessary

that those of their friends who have any should risk it.

"The supplies of the Committee are, some, useful, and all excellent in their kind, but occasionally hardly practical enough, in the present state of Greece; for instance, the mathematical instruments are thrown away-none of the Greeks know a problem from a poker-we must conquer first, and plan afterwards. The use of the trumpets, too, may be doubted, unless Constantinople were Jericho, for the Helenists have no ears for bugles, and you must send us somebody to listen to them.

"We will do our best-and I pray you to stir your English hearts at home to more general exertion; for my part, I will stick by the cause while a plank remains which can be honourably clung to. If I quit it, it will be by the Greeks' conduct, and not the Holy Allies or holier Mussulmans-but let us hope better things.

"Ever yours,

N. B.

"P. S. I am happy to say that Colonel Leicester Stanhope and myself are acting in perfect harmony together he is likely to be of great service both to the cause and to the Committee, and is publicly as well as personally a very valuable acquisition to our party on every account. He came up (as they all do who have not been in the country before) with some high-flown notions of the sixth form at Harrow or Eton, &c.; but Col. Napier and I set him to rights on those points, which is absolutely necessary to prevent disgust, or perhaps return; but now we can set our shoulders soberly to the wheel, without

quarrelling with the mud which may clog it occasionally.

"I can assure you that Col. Napier and myself are as decided for the cause as any German student of them all; but like men who have seen the country and human life, there and elsewhere, we must be permitted to view it in its truth, with its defects as well as beauties,— more especially as success will remove the former gradually. "P. S. As much of this letter as you please is for the Committee, the rest may be ، entre nous. '

N. B.

999

"Cephalonia, December 27. 1823. « I received a letter from you some time ago. I have been too much employed latterly to write as I could wish, and even now must write in haste.

"I embark for Missolonghi to join Mavrocordato in four-and-twenty hours. The state of parties (but it were a long story) has kept me here till now; but now that Mavrocordato (their Washington, or their Kosciusko) is employed again, I can act with a safe conscience. I carry money to pay the squadron, &c., and I have influence with the Suliotes, supposed sufficient to keep them in harmony with some of the dissentients; for there are plenty of differences, but trifling.

"It is imagined that we shall attempt either Patras or the castles on the Straits; and it seems, by most accounts, that the Greeks, at any rate, the Suliotes, who are in affinity with me of bread and

*

salt,'-expect that I should march with them, and -be it even so! If any thing in the way of fever, fatigue, famine, or otherwise, should cut short the middle age of a brother warbler,-like Garcilasso de la Vega, Kleist, Korner, Joukoffsky (a Russian nightingale-see Bowring's Anthology), or Thersander, or, or somebody else—but never mind— pray you to remember me in your smiles and wine.'

I

"I have hopes that the cause will triumph; but whether it does or no, still honour must be minded as strictly as milk diet.' I trust to observe both, "Ever," &c.

It is hardly necessary to direct the attention of the reader to the sad, and but too true anticipation expressed in this letter—the last but one I was ever to receive from my friend. Before we accompany him to the closing scene of all his toils, I shall here, as briefly as possible, give a selection from the many characteristic anecdotes told of him, while at Cephalonia, where (to use the words of Colonel Stanhope, in a letter from thence to the Greek committee,) he was "beloved by Cephalonians, by English, and by Greeks ;" and where, approached as he was familiarly by persons of all classes and countries, not an action, not a word is recorded of him that does not bear honourable testimony to the benevolence and sound

* One of the most celebrated of the living poets of Russia, who fought at Borodino, and has commemorated that battle in a poem of much celebrity among his countrymen.