very other containing an allusion to the low rank of his young
companion, is omitted; while, in the added parts, the introduction of
such language as

"What, though thy sire lament his failing line,"

seems calculated to give an idea of the youth's station in life,
wholly different from that which the whole tenour of the original
epitaph warrants. The other poem, too, which I have mentioned,
addressed evidently to the same boy, and speaking in similar terms, of
the "lowness" of his "lot," is, in the "Hours of Idleness," altogether
omitted. That he grew more conscious of his high station, as he
approached to manhood, is not improbable; and this wish to sink his
early friendship with the young cottager may have been a result of
that feeling.

As his visits to Southwell were, after this period, but few and
transient, I shall take the present opportunity of mentioning such
miscellaneous particulars respecting his habits and mode of life,
while there, as I have been able to collect.

Though so remarkably shy, when he first went to Southwell, this
reserve, as he grew more acquainted with the young people of the
place, wore off; till, at length, he became a frequenter of their
assemblies and dinner-parties, and even felt mortified if he heard of
a rout to which he was not invited. His horror, however, at new faces
still continued; and if, while at Mrs. Pigot's, he saw strangers
approaching the house, he would instantly jump out of the window to
avoid them. This natural shyness concurred with no small degree of
pride to keep him aloof from the acquaintance of the gentlemen in the
neighbourhood, whose visits, in more than one instance, he left
unreturned;--some under the plea that their ladies had not visited his
mother; others, because they had neglected to pay him this compliment
sooner. The true reason, however, of the haughty distance, at which,
both now and afterwards, he stood apart from his more opulent
neighbours, is to be found in his mortifying consciousness of the
inadequacy of his own means to his rank, and the proud dread of being
made to feel this inferiority by persons to whom, in every other
respect, he knew himself superior. His friend, Mr. Becher, frequently
expostulated with him on this unsociableness; and to his
remonstrances, on one occasion, Lord Byron returned a poetical answer,
so remarkably prefiguring the splendid burst, with which his own
volcanic genius opened upon the world, that as the volu