who will miss his master; poor boy, he was very unwilling to return. I trust you are well and happy. It will be a pleasure to hear from you.-Believe me, yours very sincerely, BYRON.

P.S.--How is Joe Murray?

P.S.-I open my letter again to tell you that Fletcher having petitioned to accompany me into the Morea, I have taken him with me, contrary to the intention expressed in my letter.

TO MR. HODGSON

Ixviii

Constantinople, July 4, 1810.

My dear Hodgson,-Twice have I written-once in answer to your last, and a former letter when I arrived here in May. That I may have nothing to reproach myself with, I will write once more—a very superfluous task, seeing that Hobhouse is bound for your parts full of talk and wonderment. My first letter went by an ambassadorial express; my second by the Black John lugger; my third will be conveyed by Cam, the miscellanist. I shall begin by telling you, having only told it you twice before, that I swam from Sestos to Abydos. I do this that you may be impressed with proper respect for me, the performer; for I plume myself on this achievement more than I could possibly do on any kind of glory, political, poetical, or rhetorical. Having told you this I will tell you nothing more, because it would be cruel to curtail Cam's narrative, which, by-theby, you must not believe till confirmed by me, the eye-witness. I promise myself much pleasure from

contradicting the greatest part of it. He has been plaguily pleased by the intelligence contained in your last to me respecting the reviews of his hymns. I refreshed him with that paragraph immediately, together with the tidings of my own third edition, which added to his recreation. But then he has had a letter from a Lincoln's Inn Bencher full of praise of his harpings, and vituperation of the other contributions to his Missellingany, which that sagacious person is pleased to say must have been put in as FOILS (horresco referens!); furthermore he adds that Cam 'is a genuine pupil of Dryden,' concluding with a comparison rather to the disadvantage of Pope.

I have written to Drury by Hobhouse; a letter is also from me on its way to England intended for that matrimonial man. Before it is very long I hope we shall again be together; the moment I set out for England you shall have intelligence, that we may meet as soon as possible. Next week the frigate sails with Adair; I am for Greece, Hobhouse for England. A year together on the 2nd July since. we sailed from Falmouth. I have known a hundred instances of men setting out in couples, but not one of a similar return. Aberdeen's party split; several voyagers at present have done the same. I am confident that twelve months of any given individual is perfect ipecacuanha.

The Russians and Turks are at it, and the Sultan in person is soon to head the army. The Captain Pacha cuts off heads every day, and a Frenchman's ears; the last is a serious affair. By-the-by I like the Pachas in general. Ali Pacha called me his son,

desired his compliments to my mother, and said he was sure I was a man of birth, because I had 'small ears and curling hair.' He is Pacha of Albania, six hundred miles off, where I was in October-a fine portly person. His grandson Mahmout, a little fellow ten years old, with large black eyes as big as pigeon's eggs, and all the gravity of sixty, asked me what I did travelling so young without a Lala (tutor)?

Good-night, dear H. I have crammed my paper, and crave your indulgence. Write to me at Malta. I am, with all sincerity, yours affectionately,

BYRON.

lxix

TO THE HONOURABLE MRS. BYRON

Athens, July 25, 1810.

Dear Mother, I have arrived here in four days from Constantinople, which is considered as singularly quick, particularly for the season of the year. Your northern gentry can have no conception of a Greek summer; which, however, is a perfect frost compared with Malta and Gibraltar, where I reposed myself in the shade last year, after a gentle gallop of four hundred miles, without intermission, through Portugal and Spain. You see, by my date, that I am at Athens again, a place which I think I prefer, upon the whole, to any I have seen.

My next movement is to-morrow into the Morea, where I shall probably remain a month or two, and then return to winter here, if I do not change my plans, which, however, are very variable, as you may suppose; but none of them verge to England.

The Marquis of Sligo, my old fellow-collegian, is here, and wishes to accompany me into the Morea. We shall go together for that purpose, but I am wofully sick of travelling companions, after a year's experience of Mr. Hobhouse, who is on his way to Great Britain. Lord S. will afterwards pursue his way to the capital; and Lord B., having seen all the wonders in that quarter, will let you know what he does next, of which at present he is not quite certain. Malta is my perpetual post-office, from which my letters are forwarded to all parts of the habitable globe :-by-the-by, I have now been in Asia, Africa, and the east of Europe, and, indeed, made the most of my time, without hurrying over the most interesting scenes of the ancient world. Fletcher, after having been toasted and roasted, and baked, and grilled, and eaten by all sorts of creeping things, begins to philosophise, is grown a refined as well as a resigned character, and promises at his return to become an ornament to his own parish, and a very prominent person in the future family pedigree of the Fletchers, who I take to be Goths by their accomplishments, Greeks by their acuteness, and ancient Saxons by their appetite. He (Fletcher) begs leave to send half a dozen sighs to Sally his spouse, and wonders (though I do not) that his illwritten and worse spelt letters have never come to hand; as for that matter, there is no great loss in either of our letters, saving and except that I wish you to know we are well, and warm enough at this present writing, God knows. You must not expect long letters at present, for they are written with the

sweat of my brow, I assure you. It is rather singular that Mr. Hanson has not written a syllable since my departure. Your letters I have mostly received, as well as others; from which I conjecture that the man of law is either angry or busy.

I

I trust you like Newstead, and agree with your neighbours; but you know you are a vixen-is not that a dutiful appellation? Pray, take care of my books and several boxes of papers in the hands of Joseph; and pray leave me a few bottles of champagne to drink, for I am very thirsty ;-but I do not insist on the last article, without you like it. suppose you have your house full of silly women, prating scandalous things. Have you ever received my picture in oil from Sanders, London? It has been paid for these sixteen months: why do you not get it? My suite, consisting of two Turks, two Greeks, a Lutheran, and the nondescript, Fletcher, are making so much noise, that I am glad to sign myself yours, etc. etc., BYRON.

lxx

TO THE HONOURABLE MRS. BYRON

Patras, July 30, 1810.

Dear Madam,—In four days from Constantinople, with a favourable wind, I arrived in the frigate at the island of Teos, from whence I took a boat to Athens, where I met my friend the Marquis of Sligo, who expressed a wish to proceed with me as far as Corinth. At Corinth we separated, he for Tripolitza, I for Patras, where I had some business with the consul, Mr. Strané, in whose house I now write.