ence of opinion into which he afterwards broke
loose might have been averted. His scepticism, if not wholly removed,
might have been softened down into that humble doubt, which, so far
from being inconsistent with a religious spirit, is, perhaps, its best
guard against presumption and uncharitableness; and, at all events,
even if his own views of religion had not been brightened or elevated,
he would have learned not wantonly to cloud or disturb those of
others. But there was no such monitor near him. After his departure
from Southwell, he had not a single friend or relative to whom he
could look up with respect; but was thrown alone on the world, with
his passions and his pride, to revel in the fatal discovery which he
imagined himself to have made of the nothingness of the future, and
the all-paramount claims of the present. By singular ill fortune, too,
the individual who, among all his college friends, had taken the
strongest hold on his admiration and affection, and whose loss he
afterwards lamented with brotherly tenderness, was, to the same extent
as himself, if not more strongly, a sceptic. Of this remarkable young
man, Matthews, who was so early snatched away, and whose career in
after-life, had it been at all answerable to the extraordinary
promise of his youth, must have placed him upon a level with the first
men of his day, a Memoir was, at one time, intended to be published by
his relatives; and to Lord Byron, among others of his college friends,
application, for assistance in the task, was addressed. The letter
which this circumstance drew forth from the noble poet, besides
containing many amusing traits of his friend, affords such an insight
into his own habits of life at this period, that, though infringing
upon the chronological order of his correspondence, I shall insert it
here.

LETTER 19.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, 9bre 12. 1820.

"What you said of the late Charles Skinner Matthews has set me to my
recollections; but I have not been able to turn up any thing which
would do for the purposed Memoir of his brother,--even if he had
previously done enough during his life to sanction the introduction of
anecdotes so merely personal. He was, however, a very extraordinary
man, and would have been a great one. No one ever succeeded in a more
surpassing degree than he did, as far as he went. He was indolent,
too; but whenever he stripped, he overthrew all antagonists. His
conquests will be found reg