transparent show of indifference, he
confesses to have drunk three bottles of claret on the evening of its
appearance. But the wound did not mortify into torpor; the Sea-Kings'
blood stood him in good stead, and he was not long in collecting his
strength for the panther-like spring, which, gaining strength by its
delay, twelve months later made it impossible for him to be contemned.

The last months of the year he spent at Newstead, vacated by the tenant,
who had left the building in the tumble-down condition in which he found
it. Byron was, by his own acknowledgment, at this time, "heavily dipped,"
generosities having combined with selfish extravagances to the result; he
had no funds to subject the place to anything like a thorough repair, but
he busied himself in arranging a few of the rooms for his own present and
his mother's after use. About this date he writes to her, beginning in his
usual style, "Dear Madam," saying he has as yet no rooms ready for her
reception, but that on his departure she shall be tenant till his return.
During this interval he was studying Pope, and carefully maturing his own
Satire. In November the dog Boatswain died in a fit of madness. The event
called forth the famous burst of misanthropic verse, ending with the
couplet,--

To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but _one_, and _here_ he lies;--

and the inscription on the monument that still remains in the gardens of
Newstead,--

Near this spot,
Are deposited the remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the virtues of Man without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
If inscribed over human ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
Boatswain, a Dog,
Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey, November 18, 1808.

On January 22, 1809, his lordship's coming of age was celebrated with
festivities, curtailed of their proportions by his limited means. Early in
spring he paid a visit to London, bringing the proof of his satire to the
publisher, Cawthorne. From St. James's Street he writes to Mrs. Byron, on
the death of Lord Falkland, who had been killed in a duel, and expresses a
sympathy for his family, left in destitute circumstances, whom he
proceeded to relieve with a generosity only equalled by the