never could have been, wherever he had breathed his last. Such was
the attachment, mingled with a sort of reverence and enthusiasm, with
which he inspired those around him, that there was not one of us who
would not, for his sake, have willingly encountered any danger in the
world."

Colonel Stanhope, whom the sad intelligence reached at Salona, thus
writes to the Committee:--"A courier has just arrived from the Chief
Scalza. Alas! all our fears are realised. The soul of Byron has taken
its last flight. England has lost her brightest genius, Greece her
noblest friend. To console them for the loss, he has left behind the
emanations of his splendid mind. If Byron had faults, he had
redeeming virtues too--he sacrificed his comfort, fortune, health,
and life, to the cause of an oppressed nation. Honoured be his
memory!"

Mr. Trelawney, who was on his way to Missolonghi at the time,
describes as follows the manner in which he first heard of his
friend's death:--"With all my anxiety I could not get here before the
third day. It was the second, after having crossed the first great
torrent, that I met some soldiers from Missolonghi. I had let them
all pass me, ere I had resolution enough to enquire the news from
Missolonghi. I then rode back, and demanded of a straggler the news.
I heard nothing more than--Lord Byron is dead,--and I proceeded on in
gloomy silence." The writer adds, after detailing the particulars of
the poet's illness and death, "Your pardon, Stanhope, that I have
thus turned aside from the great cause in which I am embarked. But
this is no private grief. The world has lost its greatest man; I my
best friend."

Among his servants the same feeling of sincere grief prevailed:--"I
have in my possession (says Mr. Hoppner, in the Notices with which he
has favoured me,) a letter written by his gondolier Tita, who had
accompanied him from Venice, giving an account to his parents of his
master's decease. Of this event the poor fellow speaks in the most
affecting manner, telling them that in Lord Byron he had lost a
father rather than a master; and expatiating upon the indulgence with
which he had always treated his domestics, and the care he expressed
for their comfort and welfare."

His valet Fletcher, too, in a letter to Mr. Murray, announcing the
event, says, "Please to excuse all defects, for I scarcely know what
I either say or do; for, after twenty years' service with my Lord, he
was more to me than a fath