er is that
of a son, performing, strictly and conscientiously, what he deems to be
his duty, without the intermixture of any sentiment of cordiality to
sweeten the task. The very title of "Madam," by which he addresses
her,--and which he but seldom exchanges for the endearing name of
"mother[15],"--is, of itself, a sufficient proof of the sentiments he
entertained for her. That such should have been his dispositions towards
such a parent, can be matter neither of surprise or blame,--but that,
notwithstanding this alienation, which her own unfortunate temper
produced, he should have continued to consult her wishes, and minister
to her comforts, with such unfailing thoughtfulness as is evinced not
only in the frequency of his letters, but in the almost exclusive
appropriation of Newstead to her use, redounds, assuredly, in no
ordinary degree, to his honour; and was even the more strikingly
meritorious from the absence of that affection which renders kindnesses
to a beloved object little more than an indulgence of self.

But, however estranged from her his feelings must be allowed to have
been while she lived, her death seems to have restored them into their
natural channel. Whether from a return of early fondness and the
all-atoning power of the grave, or from the prospect of that void in
his future life which this loss of his only link with the past would
leave, it is certain that he felt the death of his mother acutely, if
not deeply. On the night after his arrival at Newstead, the
waiting-woman of Mrs. Byron, in passing the door of the room where the
deceased lady lay, heard a sound as of some one sighing heavily from
within; and, on entering the chamber, found, to her surprise, Lord
Byron, sitting in the dark, beside the bed. On her representing to him
the weakness of thus giving way to grief, he burst into tears, and
exclaimed, "Oh, Mrs. By, I had but one friend in the world, and she is
gone!"

While his real thoughts were thus confided to silence and darkness,
there was, in other parts of his conduct more open to observation, a
degree of eccentricity and indecorum which, with superficial observers,
might well bring the sensibility of his nature into question. On the
morning of the funeral, having declined following the remains himself,
he stood looking, from the abbey door, at the procession, till the whole
had moved off;--then, turning to young Rushton, who was the only person
left besides himself, he desired him