eive at the intervals when he came back
from his various social excitements and pleasures. That his nerves were
exacerbated by violent extremes of abstinence and reckless indulgence;
that he was often day after day drunk, and that drunkenness made him
savage and ferocious,--such are the facts clearly shown by Mr. Moore's
narrative. Of the natural peculiarities of Lord Byron's temper, he thus
speaks to the Countess of Blessington:--

'I often think that I inherit my violence and bad temper from my poor
mother, not that my father, from all I could ever learn, had a much
better; so that it is no wonder I have such a very bad one. As long
as I can remember anything, I recollect being subject to violent
paroxysms of rage, so disproportioned to the cause as to surprise me
when they were over; and this still continues. I cannot coolly view
any thing which excites my feelings; and, once the lurking devil in me
is roused, I lose all command of myself. I do not recover a good fit
of rage for days after. Mind, I do not by this mean that the ill
humour continues, as, on the contrary, that quickly subsides,
exhausted by its own violence; but it shakes me terribly, and leaves
me low and nervous after.'--Lady Blessington's Conversations, p.142.

That during this time also his irritation and ill temper were increased
by the mortification of duns, debts, and executions, is on the face of
Moore's story. Moore himself relates one incident, which gives some idea
of the many which may have occurred at these times, in a note on p.215,
vol. iv., where he speaks of Lord Byron's destroying a favourite old
watch that had been his companion from boyhood, and gone with him to
Greece. 'In a fit of vexation and rage, brought upon him by some of
these humiliating embarrassments, to which he was now almost daily a
prey, he furiously dashed this watch on the hearth, and ground it to
pieces with the poker among the ashes.'

It is no wonder, that, with a man of this kind to manage, Lady Byron
should have clung to the only female companionship she could dare to
trust in the case, and earnestly desired to retain with her the sister,
who seemed, more than herself, to have influence over him.

The first letter given by 'The Quarterly,' from Lady Byron to Mrs. Leigh,
without a date, evidently belongs to this period, when the sister's
society presented itself as a refuge in her approaching confinement. Mrs
Leigh