e of the party. The lady who mentioned to me this
circumstance, and who was well acquainted with Mrs. Byron at that
period, adds the following remark in the communication with which she
has favoured me:--"At Bath I saw a good deal of Lord Byron,--his
mother frequently sent for me to take tea with her. He was always very
pleasant and droll, and, when conversing about absent friends, showed
a slight turn for satire, which after-years, as is well known, gave a
finer edge to."

We come now to an event in his life which, according to his own
deliberate persuasion, exercised a lasting and paramount influence
over the whole of his subsequent character and career.

It was in the year 1803 that his heart, already twice, as we have
seen, possessed with the childish notion that it loved, conceived an
attachment which--young as he was, even then, for such a
feeling--sunk so deep into his mind as to give a colour to all his
future life. That unsuccessful loves are generally the most lasting,
is a truth, however sad, which unluckily did not require this instance
to confirm it. To the same cause, I fear, must be traced the perfect
innocence and romance which distinguish this very early attachment to
Miss Chaworth from the many others that succeeded, without effacing it
in his heart;--making it the only one whose details can be entered
into with safety, or whose results, however darkening their influence
on himself, can be dwelt upon with pleasurable interest by others.

On leaving Bath, Mrs. Byron took up her abode, in lodgings, at
Nottingham,--Newstead Abbey being at that time let to Lord Grey de
Ruthen,--and during the Harrow vacations of this year, she was joined
there by her son. So attached was he to Newstead, that even to be in
its neighbourhood was a delight to him; and before he became
acquainted with Lord Grey, he used sometimes to sleep, for a night, at
the small house near the gate which is still known by the name of "The
Hut."[35] An intimacy, however, soon sprang up between him and his
noble tenant, and an apartment in the abbey was from thenceforth
always at his service. To the family of Miss Chaworth, who resided at
Annesley, in the immediate neighbourhood of Newstead, he had been made
known, some time before, in London, and now renewed his acquaintance
with them. The young heiress herself combined with the many worldly
advantages that encircled her, much personal beauty, and a disposition
the most amiable and attach