sten, with a few of his
brother warriors, to receive their noble ally on his landing in a
manner worthy of the generous mission on which he came. The above
letter, however, preceded but by a few hours his death. That very
night he penetrated, with but a handful of followers, into the midst
of the enemy's camp, whose force was eight thousand strong, and after
leading his heroic band over heaps of dead, fell, at last, close to
the tent of the Pasha himself.

The mention made in this brave Suliote's letter of Lord Byron's care
of his fellow-citizens refers to a popular act done recently by the
noble poet at Cephalonia, in taking into his pay, as a body-guard,
forty of this now homeless tribe. On finding, however, that for want
of employment they were becoming restless and turbulent, he
despatched them off soon after, armed and provisioned, to join in the
defence of Missolonghi, which was at that time besieged on one side
by a considerable force, and blockaded on the other by a Turkish
squadron. Already had he, with a view to the succour of this place,
made a generous offer to the Government, which he thus states himself
in one of his letters:--"I offered to advance a thousand dollars a
month for the succour of Missolonghi, and the Suliotes under Botzari
(since killed); but the Government have answered me, that they wish
to confer with me previously, which is in fact saying they wish me to
expend my money in some other direction. I will take care that it is
for the public cause, otherwise I will not advance a para. The
opposition say they want to cajole me, and the party in power say the
others wish to seduce me, so between the two I have a difficult part
to play; however, I will have nothing to do with the factions unless
to reconcile them if possible."

In these last few sentences is described briefly the position in
which Lord Byron was now placed, and in which the coolness,
foresight, and self-possession he displayed sufficiently refute the
notion that even the highest powers of imagination, whatever effect
they may sometimes produce on the moral temperament, are at all
incompatible with the sound practical good sense, the steadily
balanced views, which the business of active life requires.

The great difficulty, to an observer of the state of Greece at this
crisis, was to be able clearly to distinguish between what was real
and what was merely apparent in those tests by which the probability
of her future success o