or several evenings he had not
left his house, I therefore went to him. His first question was relative
to the courier he had despatched for tidings of his daughter, and whose
delay disquieted him. After a short interval of suspense, with every
caution which my own sorrow suggested, I deprived him of all hope of the
child's recovery. 'I understand,' said he,--'it is enough, say no more.' A
mortal paleness spread itself over his face, his strength failed him, and
he sunk into a seat. His look was fixed, and the expression such that I
began to fear for his reason; he did not shed a tear, and his countenance
manifested so hopeless, so profound, so sublime a sorrow, that at the
moment he appeared a being of a nature superior to humanity. He remained
immovable in the same attitude for an hour, and no consolation which I
endeavoured to afford him seemed to reach his ears, far less his heart.
But enough of this sad episode, on which I cannot linger, even after the
lapse of so many years, without renewing in my own heart the awful
wretchedness of that day. He desired to be left alone, and I was obliged
to leave him. I found him on the following morning tranquillized, and with
an expression of religious resignation on his features. 'She is more
fortunate than we are,' he said; 'besides her position in the world would
scarcely have allowed her to be happy. It is God's will--let us mention it
no more.' And from that day he would never pronounce her name; but became
more anxious when he spoke of Ada,--so much so as to disquiet himself when
the usual accounts sent him were for a post or two delayed."

The melancholy death of poor Shelley, which happened, as we have seen,
also during this period, seems to have affected Lord Byron's mind less
with grief for the actual loss of his friend than with bitter indignation
against those who had, through life, so grossly misrepresented him; and
never certainly was there an instance where the supposed absence of all
religion in an individual was assumed so eagerly as an excuse for the
entire absence of truth and charity in judging him. Though never
personally acquainted with Mr. Shelley, I can join freely with those who
most loved him in admiring the various excellencies of his heart and
genius, and lamenting the too early doom that robbed us of the mature
fruits of both. His short life had been, like his poetry, a sort of bright,
erroneous dream,--false in the general principles on which it proc