public speeches delivered at the
school where the author was educated.]

[Footnote 23: Harrow.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE FRIENDSHIPS OF LORD BYRON.

The extraordinary part which friendship played in Lord Byron's life is
another proof of his goodness. His friendships may be divided into two
categories: the friendships of his heart, and those of his mind. To the
first class belong those which he made at Harrow and in his early
Cambridge days, while his later acquaintances at the University matured
into friends of the second category. These had great influence over his
mind. The names of those of the first category who were dearest to him,
and who were alive when he left Harrow for Cambridge (for he had lost
some very intimate friends while still at Harrow, and among these
Curzon), were--

WINGFIELD.
DELAWARE.
TATTERSALL.
CLARE.
LONG.
EDDLESTON.
HARNESS.

I will say a word of each, so as to show that Byron in the selection of
his friends was guided instinctively by the qualities of those he loved.

WINGFIELD.

The Hon. John Wingfield, of the Coldstream Guards, was a brother of
Richard, fourth Viscount Powerscourt, and died of fever at Coimbra, on
the 14th of May, 1811, in his 20th year.

"Of all beings on earth," says Byron, "I was perhaps at one time more
attached to poor Wingfield than to any. I knew him during the best part
of his life and the happiest portion of mine."

When he heard of the death of this beloved companion of his youth, he
added the two following stanzas to the first canto of "Childe Harold:"

XCI.

"And thou, my friend!--since unavailing woe
Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain--
Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low,
Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to complain:
But thus unlaurell'd to descend in vain,
By all forgotten, save the lonely breast,
And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain,
While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest!
What hadst thou done, to sink so peacefully to rest?

XCII.

"Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most!
Dear to a heart where naught was left so dear!
Though to my hopeless days forever lost,
In dreams deny me not to see thee here!
And Morn in secret shall renew the tear
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes,
And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier,
Till my frail frame return to whence it rose,
And mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose."