15th of February, seized him. He was sitting, at about eight o'clock, with only Mr. Parry and Mr. Hesketh, in the apartment of Colonel Stanhope,— talking jestingly upon one of his favourite topics, the differences between himself and this latter gentleman, and saying that "he believed, after all, the author's brigade would be ready before the soldier's printing-press." There was an unusual flush in his face, and from the rapid changes of his countenance it was manifest that he was suffering under some nervous agitation. He then complained of being thirsty, and, calling for some cider, drank of it; upon which, a still greater change being observable over his features, he rose from his seat, but was unable to walk, and, after staggering forward a step or two, fell into Mr. Parry's arms. In another minute, his teeth were closed, his speech and senses gone, and he was in strong convulsions. So violent, indeed, were his struggles, that it required all the strength both of Mr. Parry and his servant Tita to hold him during the fit. His face, too, was much distorted; and, as he told Count Gamba afterwards, "so intense were his sufferings during the convulsion, that, had it lasted but a minute longer, he believed he must have died." The fit was, however, as short as it was violent; in a few minutes his speech and senses returned; his features, though still pale and haggard, resumed their natural shape, and no effect remained from the attack but excessive weakness. "As soon as he could speak," says Count Gamba, he showed himself perfectly free from all alarm; but he very coolly asked whether his attack was likely to prove fatal. "Let me know,' he said: do not think I am afraid to die- I

am not."

This painful event had not occurred more than half an hour, when a report was brought that the Suliotes were up in arms, and about to attack the seraglio, for the purpose of seizing the magazines. Instantly Lord Byron's friends ran to the arsenal; the artillery-men were ordered under arms; the sentinels doubled, and the cannon loaded and pointed on the approaches to the gates. Though the alarm proved to be false, the very likelihood of such an attack shows sufficiently how precarious was the state of Missolonghi at this moment, and in what a scene of peril, confusion, and uncomfort, the now nearly numbered days of England's poet were to close.

On the following morning he was found to be better, but still pale and weak, and complained much of a sensation of weight in his head. The doctors, therefore, thought

it right to apply leeches to his temples; but found it difficult, on their removal, to stop the blood, which continued to flow so copiously, that from exhaustion he fainted. It must have been on this day that the scene thus described by Colonel Stanhope occurred :"Soon after his dreadful paroxysm, when, faint with over-bleeding, he was lying on his sick bed, with his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous Suliotes, covered with dirt and splendid attires, broke into his apartment, brandishing their costly arms, and loudly demanding their wild rights. Lord Byron, electrified by this unexpected act, seemed to recover from his sickness; and the more the Suliotes raged, the more his calm courage triumphed. The scene was truly sublime."

Another eyewitness, Count Gamba, bears similar testimony to the presence of mind with which he fronted this and all other such dangers. "It is impossible," says this gentleman, " to do justice to the coolness and magnanimity which he displayed upon every trying occasion. Upon trifling occasions he was certainly irritable; but the aspect of danger calmed him in an instant, and restored to him the free exercise of all the powers of his noble nature. A more undaunted man in the hour of peril never breathed."

The letters written by him during the few following weeks form, as usual, the best record of his proceedings, and, besides the sad interest they possess as being among the latest from his hand, are also precious, as affording proof that neither illness nor disappointment, neither a worn-out frame nor even a hopeless spirit, could lead him for a moment to think of abandoning the great cause he had espoused; while to the last, too, he preserved unbroken the cheerful spring of his mind, his manly endurance of all ills that affected but himself, and his everwakeful consideration for the wants of others.

"February 21. "I am a good deal better, though of course weakly; the leeches took too much blood from my temples the day after, and there was some difficulty in stopping it, but I have since been up daily, and out in boats or on horseback. To-day I have taken a warm bath, and live as temperately as can well be, without any liquid but water, and without animal food.

"Besides the four Turks sent to Patras, I have obtained the release of four-and-twenty women and children, and sent them at my own expense to Prevesa, that the English

Consul-General may consign them to their relations. I did this by their own desire. Matters here are a little embroiled with the Suliotes and foreigners, &c., but I still hope better things, and will stand by the cause as long as my health and circumstances will permit me to be supposed useful.

"I am obliged to support the Government here for the present."

The prisoners mentioned in this letter as having been released by him and sent to Prevesa, had been held in captivity at Missolonghi since the beginning of the Revolution. The following was the letter which he forwarded with them to the English Consul at Prevesa.

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LETTER 544.

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TO MR. MAYER.

Sir, Coming to Greece, one of my principal objects was to alleviate as much as possible the miseries incident to a warfare so cruel as

the present. When the dictates of humanity are in question, I know no difference between Turks and Greeks. It is enough that those who want assistance are men, in order to claim the pity and protection of the meanest pretender to humane feelings. I have found here twenty-four Turks, including women and children, who have long pined in distress, far from the means of support and the consolations of their home. The Government has consigned them to me; I transmit them to Prevesa, whither they desire to be sent. I hope you will not object to take care that they may be restored to a place of safety, and that the Governor of your town may accept of my present. The best recompence I can hope for would be to find that I had inspired the Ottoman commanders with the same sentiments towards those unhappy Greeks who may hereafter fall into their hands.

"I beg you to believe me, &c."

going on hopefully for the present, considering circumstances.

"We shall have work this year, for the Turks are coming down in force; and, as for me, I must stand by the cause. I shall shortly march (according to orders) against Lepanto, with two thousand men. I have been here some time, after some narrow escapes from the Turks, and also from being shipwrecked. We were twice upon the rocks; but this you will have heard, truly or falsely, through other channels, and I do not wish to bore you with a long story.

"So far I have succeeded in supporting the Government of Western Greece, which would otherwise have been dissolved. If you have received the eleven thousand and odd pounds, these, with what I have in hand, and my income for the current year, to say nothing of contingencies, will, or might, enable me to keep the sinews of war' properly strung. If the deputies be honest fellows, and obtain the loan, they will repay the 4000l. as agreed upon; and even then I shall save little, or indeed less than little, since I am maintaining nearly the whole machine-in this place, at least- at my own cost. But let the Greeks only succeed, and I don't care for myself.

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'I have been very seriously unwell, but am getting better, and can ride about again; so pray quiet our friends on that score.

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It is not true that I ever did, will, would, could, or should write a satire against Gifford, or a hair of his head. I always considered him as my literary father, and myself as his 'prodigal son;' and if I have allowed his 'fatted calf' to grow to an ox before he kills it on my return, it is only because 1 prefer beef to veal. Yours, &c."

LETTER 546.

TO MR. BARFF.

"February 23.

My health seems improving, especially from riding and the warm bath. Six Englishmen will be soon in quarantine at Zante they are artificers 2, and have had enough of Greece in fourteen days. If you could recommend them to a passage home, I would thank you; they are good men enough, but do not quite understand the little discrepancies in these countries, and are not used to see shooting and slashing in a domestic quiet way, or (as it forms here) a part of housekeeping.

2 The workmen who came out with Parry; and who, alarmed by the scene of confusion and danger they found at Missolonghi, had resolved to return home.

country:

1

artificers mutinied, under pretence that their lives were in danger, and are for quitting the - they may. "On Saturday we had the smartest shock of an earthquake which I remember, (and I have felt thirty, slight or smart, at different periods; they are common in the Mediterranean,) and the whole army discharged their arms, upon the same principle that savages beat drums, or howl, during an eclipse of the moon :-it was a rare scene altogether —if you had but seen the English Johnnies, who had never been out of a cockney workshop before!or will again, if they can help it-and on Sunday, we heard that the Vizier is come down to Larissa, with one hundred and odd thousand men.

"In coming here, I had two escapes; one from the Turks, (one of my vessels was taken, but afterwards released,) and the other from shipwreck. We drove twice on the rocks near the Scrofes (islands near the coast).

"I have obtained from the Greeks the release of eight-and-twenty Turkish prisoners, men, women, and children, and sent them to Patras and Prevesa at my own charges. One little girl of nine years old, who prefers remaining with me, I shall (if I live) send, with her mother, probably, to Italy, or to England, and adopt her. Her name is Hato, or Hatagée. She is a very pretty lively child. All her brothers were killed by the Greeks, and she herself and her mother merely spared by special favour and owing to her extreme youth, she being then but five or six years old.

"Missolonghi, Western Greece, March 4. 1824. 'My dear Moore,

"Your reproach is unfounded - I have received two letters from you, and answered both previous to leaving Cephalonia. I have not been quiet' in an Ionian island, but much occupied with business, as the Greek you. Neither deputies (if arrived) can tell have I continued Don Juan,' nor any other poem. You go, as usual, I presume, by some newspaper report or other. 2

"When the proper moment to be of some use arrived, I came here; and am told that my arrival (with some other circumstances) has been of, at least, temporary advantage to the cause. I had a narrow escape from the Turks, and another from shipwreck, on my passage. On the 15th (or 16th) of February had an attack of apoplexy, or epilepsy,

1 This was a fresh, and, as may be conceived, serious disappointment to Lord Byron. "The departure of these men," says Count Gamba, "made us fear that our laboratory would come to nothing; for if we tried to supply the place of the artificers with native Greeks, we should make but little progress."

? Proceeding, as he here rightly supposes, upon newspaper authority, I had in my letter made some allusion to his imputed occupations, which, in his present sensitiveness on the subject of authorship, did not at all please him. To this circumstance Count Gamba alludes in a passage of his Narrative; where, after mentioning a remark of Byron's, that "Poetry should only occupy the idle, and that in more serious affairs it would be ridiculous," he adds—" Mr. Moore, at this time writing to him, said, that he had heard that 'instead of pursuing heroic and warlike adventures, he was residing in a delightful villa, continuing Don Juan.' This offended him

the physicians have not exactly decided which, but the alternative is agreeable. My constitution, therefore, remains between the two opinions, like Mahomet's sarcophagus between the magnets. All that I can say is,

for the moment, and he was sorry that such a mistaken judgment had been formed of him."

It is amusing to observe that, while thus anxious, and from a highly noble motive, to throw his authorship into the shade while engaged in so much more serious pursuits, it was yet an author's mode of revenge that always occurred to him, when under the influence of any of these passing resentments. Thus, when a little angry with Colonel Stanhope one day, he exclaimed, "I will libel you in your own Chronicle;" and in this brief burst of humour I was myself the means of provoking in him, I have been told, on the authority of Count Gamba, that he swore to "write a satire" upon me.

Though the above letter shows how momentary was any little spleen he may have felt, there not unfrequently, I own, comes over me a short pang of regret to think that a feeling of displeasure, however slight, should have been among the latest I awakened in him. Ss