d pliableness with which his life abounded. We have seen, too, from
the manner in which he mentions the circumstance in one of his
note-books, that the reconcilement was of that generously
retrospective kind, in which not only the feeling of hostility is
renounced in future, but a strong regret expressed that it had been
ever entertained.

Not content with this private atonement to Dr. Butler, it was his
intention, had he published another edition of the Hours of Idleness,
to substitute for the offensive verses against that gentleman, a frank
avowal of the wrong he had been guilty of in giving vent to them. This
fact, so creditable to the candour of his nature, I learn from a loose
sheet in his handwriting, containing the following corrections. In
place of the passage beginning "Or if my Muse a pedant's portrait
drew," he meant to insert--

"If once my Muse a harsher portrait drew,
Warm with her wrongs, and deem'd the likeness true,
By cooler judgment taught, her fault she owns,--
With noble minds a fault, confess'd, atones."

And to the passage immediately succeeding his warm praise of Dr.
Drury--"Pomposus fills his magisterial chair," it was his intention to
give the following turn:--

"Another fills his magisterial chair;
Reluctant Ida owns a stranger's care;
Oh may like honours crown his future name,--
If such his virtues, such shall be his fame."
]

[Footnote 118: Lord Byron used sometimes to mention a strange story,
which the commander of the packet, Captain Kidd, related to him on the
passage. This officer stated that, being asleep one night in his
berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something heavy on his
limbs, and, there being a faint light in the room, could see, as he
thought, distinctly, the figure of his brother, who was at that time
in the naval service in the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and
stretched across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the
senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to sleep. But still the
same pressure continued, and still, as often as he ventured to take
another look, he saw the figure lying across him in the same position.
To add to the wonder, on putting his hand forth to touch this form, he
found the uniform, in which it appeared to be dressed, dripping wet.
On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out
in alarm, the apparition vanished; but in a few months after he
received the startling