e," &c.
]

[Footnote 16: Napoleon.]

[Footnote 17: In a letter, written between two and three months after
his mother's death, he states no less a number than six persons, all
friends or relatives, who had been snatched away from him by death
between May and the end of August.]

[Footnote 18: In continuation of the note quoted in the text, he says of
Matthews--"His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater
honours, against the _ablest candidates_, than those of any graduate on
record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot
where it was acquired." One of the candidates, thus described, was Mr.
Thomas Barnes, a gentleman whose career since has kept fully the promise
of his youth, though, from the nature of the channels through which his
literary labours have been directed, his great talents are far more
extensively known than his name.]

[Footnote 19: It had been the intention of Mr. Matthews to offer
himself, at the ensuing election, for the university. In reference to
this purpose, a manuscript Memoir of him, now lying before me, says--"If
acknowledged and successful talents--if principles of the strictest
honour--if the devotion of many friends could have secured the success
of an 'independent pauper' (as he jocularly called himself in a letter
on the subject), the vision would have been realised."]

* * * * *

Of this remarkable young man, Charles Skinner Matthews[20], I have
already had occasion to speak; but the high station which he held in
Lord Byron's affection and admiration may justify a somewhat ampler
tribute to his memory.

There have seldom, perhaps, started together in life so many youths of
high promise and hope as were to be found among the society of which
Lord Byron formed a part at Cambridge. Of some of these, the names have
since eminently distinguished themselves in the world, as the mere
mention of Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. William Bankes is sufficient to testify;
while in the instance of another of this lively circle, Mr. Scrope
Davies[21], the only regret of his friends is, that the social wit of
which he is such a master should in the memories of his hearers alone be
like to leave any record of its brilliancy. Among all these young men of
learning and talent, (including Byron himself, whose genius was,
however, as yet, "an undiscovered world,") the superiority, in almost
every department of intellect, seems to have been, by the