almost every department of
intellect seems to have been, by the ready consent of all, awarded to
Matthews.... Young Matthews appears--in spite of some little asperities
of temper and manner, which he was already beginning to soften down when
snatched away--to have been one of those rare individuals who, while
they command deference, can at the same time win regard, and who, as it
were, relieve the intense feeling of admiration which they excite by
blending it with love."

Matthews died while bathing in the Cam.

On the 7th of September, 1811, Byron wrote to Dallas as
follows:--"Matthews, Hobhouse, Davies, and myself, formed a coterie of
our own at Cambridge and elsewhere.... Davies, who is not a scribbler,
has always beaten us all in the war of words. H---- and myself always
had the worst of it with the other two, and even M---- yielded to the
dashing vivacity of S. D----."

And in another letter:--"You did not know M----: he was a man of the
most astonishing powers."

And again, speaking of his death to Mr. Hodgson, he writes:--

"You will feel for poor Hobhouse; Matthews was the god of his idolatry:
and if intellect could exalt a man above his fellows, no one would
refuse him pre-eminence."

Matthews died at the time when he was offering himself to compete for a
lucrative and honorable position in the University. As soon as his death
was known, it was said that if the highest talents could be sure of
success, if the strictest principles of honor, and the devotion to him
of a multitude of friends could have assured it, his dream would have
been realized.

Besides a great superiority of intellect, Matthews was gifted with a
very amusing originality of thought, which, joined to a very keen sense
of the ridiculous, exercised a kind of irresistible fascination. Lord
Byron, who loved a joke better than any one, took great pleasure in all
the amusing eccentricities of him who was styled the Dean of Newstead;
while Byron had been christened by him the Abbot of that place.

Shortly before his death, in 1821, Byron wrote a very amusing letter
from Ravenna to Murray, recalling a host of anecdotes relating to
Matthews, and which well set forth the clever eccentricity of the man
for whom Byron professed so much esteem and admiration.

SCROOPE DAVIES.

We have already seen what Byron thought of Davies. His cleverness, his
great vivacity, and his gayety, were great resources to Byron in his
moments of affliction. When