tural tendency of his habit, and
reduce himself to thinness, he was, almost every year, as we have
seen, subject to attacks of indisposition, by more than one of which
his life was seriously endangered. The capricious course which he at
all times pursued respecting diet,--his long fastings, his expedients
for the allayment of hunger, his occasional excesses in the most
unwholesome food, and, during the latter part of his residence in
Italy, his indulgence in the use of spirituous beverages,--all this
could not be otherwise than hurtful and undermining to his health;
while his constant recourse to medicine,--daily, as it appears, and
in large quantities,--both evinced and, no doubt, increased the
derangement of his digestion. When to all this we add the wasteful
wear of spirits and strength from the slow corrosion of sensibility,
the warfare of the passions, and the workings of a mind that allowed
itself no sabbath, it is not to be wondered at that the vital
principle in him should so soon have burnt out, or that, at the age
of thirty-three, he should have had--as he himself drearily expresses
it--"an old feel." To feed the flame, the all-absorbing flame, of his
genius, the whole powers of his nature, physical as well as moral,
were sacrificed;--to present that grand and costly conflagration to
the world's eyes, in which,

"Glittering, like a palace set on fire,
His glory, while it shone, but ruin'd him!"[1]

[Footnote 1: Beaumont and Fletcher.]

It was on the very day when, as I have mentioned, the intelligence of
his sister's recovery reached him, that, having been for the last
three or four days prevented from taking exercise by the rains, he
resolved, though the weather still looked threatening, to venture out
on horseback. Three miles from Missolonghi Count Gamba and himself
were overtaken by a heavy shower, and returned to the town walls wet
through and in a state of violent perspiration. It had been their
usual practice to dismount at the walls and return to their house in
a boat, but, on this day, Count Gamba, representing to Lord Byron how
dangerous it would be, warm as he then was, to sit exposed so long to
the rain in a boat, entreated of him to go back the whole way on
horseback. To this however, Lord Byron would not consent; but said,
laughingly, "I should make a pretty soldier indeed, if I were to care
for such a trifle." They accordingly dismounted and got into the boat
as usual.

About two hours