ke also of Greece, saying,
'I have given her my time, my means, my health--and now I give her my
life!--what could I do more?'"[1]

[Footnote 1: It is but right to remind the reader, that for the
sayings here attributed to Lord Byron, however natural and probable
they may appear, there is not exactly the same authority of credible
witnesses by which all the other details I have given of his last
hours are supported.]

It was about six o'clock on the evening of this day when he said,
"Now I shall go to sleep;" and then turning round fell into that
slumber from which he never awoke. For the next twenty-four hours he
lay incapable of either sense or motion,--with the exception of, now
and then, slight symptoms of suffocation, during which his servant
raised his head,--and at a quarter past six o'clock on the following
day, the 19th, he was seen to open his eyes and immediately shut them
again. The physicians felt his pulse--he was no more!

To attempt to describe how the intelligence of this sad event struck
upon all hearts would be as difficult as it is superfluous. He, whom
the whole world was to mourn, had on the tears of Greece peculiar
claim,--for it was at her feet he now laid down the harvest of such a
life of fame. To the people of Missolonghi, who first felt the shock
that was soon to spread through all Europe, the event seemed almost
incredible. It was but the other day that he had come among them,
radiant with renown,--inspiring faith, by his very name, in those
miracles of success that were about to spring forth at the touch of
his ever-powerful genius. All this had now vanished like a short
dream:--nor can we wonder that the poor Greeks, to whom his coming
had been such a glory, and who, on the last evening of his life,
thronged the streets, enquiring as to his state, should regard the
thunder-storm which, at the moment he died, broke over the town, as a
signal of his doom, and, in their superstitious grief, cry to each
other, "The great man is gone!"[1]

[Footnote 1: Parry's "Last Days of Lord Byron," p. 128.]

Prince Mavrocordato, who of all best knew and felt the extent of his
country's loss, and who had to mourn doubly the friend of Greece and
of himself, on the evening of the 19th issued this melancholy
proclamation:--

"PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF WESTERN GREECE.

"ART. 1185.

"The present day of festivity and rejoicing has become one of sorrow
and of mourning. The Lord Noel Byron departed thi