, and Lord Byron was, by their intervention, admitted
also among the brotherhood. The following heroic Address to the
Neapolitan Government (written by the noble poet in Italian,[16] and
forwarded, it is thought, by himself to Naples, but intercepted on the
way,) will show how deep, how earnest, and expansive was his zeal in
that great, general cause of Political Freedom, for which he soon after
laid down his life among the marshes of Missolonghi.

"An Englishman, a friend to liberty, having understood that the
Neapolitans permit even foreigners to contribute to the good cause, is
desirous that they should do him the honour of accepting a thousand
louis, which he takes the liberty of offering. Having already, not long
since, been an ocular witness of the despotism of the Barbarians in the
States occupied by them in Italy, he sees, with the enthusiasm natural
to a cultivated man, the generous determination of the Neapolitans to
assert their well-won independence. As a member of the English House of
Peers, he would be a traitor to the principles which placed the reigning
family of England on the throne, if he were not grateful for the noble
lesson so lately given both to people and to kings. The offer which he
desires to make is small in itself, as must always be that presented
from an individual to a nation; but he trusts that it will not be the
last they will receive from his countrymen. His distance from the
frontier, and the feeling of his personal incapacity to contribute
efficaciously to the service of the nation, prevents him from proposing
himself as worthy of the lowest commission, for which experience and
talent might be requisite. But if, as a mere volunteer, his presence
were not a burden to whomsoever he might serve under, he would repair to
whatever place the Neapolitan Government might point out, there to obey
the orders and participate in the dangers of his commanding officer,
without any other motive than that of sharing the destiny of a brave
nation, defending itself against the self-called Holy Alliance, which
but combines the vice of hypocrisy with despotism."[17]

It was during the agitation of this crisis, while surrounded by rumours
and alarms, and expecting, every moment, to be summoned into the field,
that Lord Byron commenced the Journal which I am now about to give; and
which it is impossible to peruse, with the recollection of his former
Diary of 1814 in our minds, without reflecting how wholly