He was also of that band of profane scoffers who, under the auspices of ****, used to rouse Lort Mansel (late Bishop of Bristol) from his slumbers in the lodge of Trinity; and when he appeared at the window foaming with wrath, and crying out, "I know you, gentlemen, I know you!" were wont to reply, "We beseech thee to hear us, good Lort!"-"Good Lort deliver us!" (Lort was his Christian name.) As he was very free in his speculations upon all kinds of subjects, although by no means either dissolute or intemperate in his conduct, and as I was no less independent, our conversation and correspondence used to alarm our friend Hobhouse to a considerable degree.

(1820, November 19. Letter 847, to John Murray, Vol. V., p. 121.)

John Cam Hobhouse (subsequently Baron Broughton de Gyfford)

I should like much to see your Essay upon Entrails [i.e. the essay on "Sacrifices" with which Hobhouse won the Hulsean Prize]: is there any honorary token of silver gilt? any cups, or pounds sterling attached to the prize, besides glory? I expect to see you with a medal suspended from your button-hole, like a Croix de St Louis.

(1808, January 16. Letter 86, to John Cam Hobhouse, Vol. I., p. 167.)

Hobhouse desires his best remembrance. We are now lingering over our evening potations. I have extended my letter further than I ought, and beg you

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331

will excuse it; on the opposite page I send you some stanzas ["To a Lady on being asked my Reason for Quitting England in the Spring "] I wrote off on being questioned by a former flame as to my motives for quitting this country. You are the first reader. Hobhouse hates everything of the kind, therefore I do not show them to him.

(1808, November 27.

Letter 104, to Francis Hodgson, Vol. I., p. 202.)

Hobhouse has made woundy preparations for a book on his return; 100 pens, two gallons of Japan Ink, and several volumes of best blank, is no bad provision for a discerning public. I have laid down my pen, but have promised to contribute a chapter on the state of morals, and a further treatise on the same to be intituled " Simplified, . . . or Proved to be Praiseworthy from Ancient Authors and Modern Practice."

Hobhouse further hopes to indemnify himself in Turkey for a life of exemplary chastity at home. Pray buy his Missellingany, as the Printer's Devil calls it. I suppose it is in print by this time. Providence has interposed in our favour with a fair wind to carry us out of its reach, or he would have hired a Faqui to translate it into the Turcoman lingo.

(1809, June 25. Letter 124, to the Rev. Henry Drury, Vol. I., p. 226.)

Look to my satire at Cawthorn's, Cockspur Street, and look to the Miscellany of the Hobhouse. It has pleased Providence to interfere in behalf of a suffering public by giving him a sprained wrist, so that he cannot write, and there is a cessation of ink-shed.

(1809, June 25. Letter 125, to Francis Hodgson, Vol. I., p. 230.)

And so Hobhouse's boke is out [Imitations and Translations from the Ancient and Modern Classics, sixty-five pieces, nine of which were contributed by Byron], with some sentimental sing-song of my own to fill up, and how does it take, eh? and where the devil is the second edition of my Satire, with additions? and my name on the title-page? and more lines tagged to the end, with a new exordium and what not, hot from my anvil before I cleared the Channel? I am like the Jolly Miller, caring for nobody, and not cared for. All countries are much the same in my eyes. I smoke, and stare at mountains, and twirl my mustachios very independently. I miss no comforts, and the musquitoes that rack the morbid frame of H[obhouse] have, luckily for me, little effect on mine, because I live more temperately. .. H[obhouse] greets you; he pines for his poetry,-at least, some tidings of it.

(1810, May 3. Letter 136, to Henry Drury, Vol. I., p. 267.)

Hobhouse, who will deliver this, is bound straight for these parts [i.e. England]; and, as he is bursting with his travels, I shall not anticipate his narratives,

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but merely beg you not to believe one word he says, but reserve your ear for me, if you have any desire to be acquainted with the truth.

(1810, June 17. Letter 140, to Henry Drury, Vol. I., p. 277.)

I will tell you nothing more, because it would be cruel to curtail Cam's narrative, which, by-the-by, you must not believe till confirmed by me, the eye-witness. I promise myself much pleasure from contradicting the greatest part of it. He has been plaguily pleased by the intelligence contained in your last to me respecting the reviews of his hymns. I refreshed him with that paragraph immediately, together with the tidings of my own third edition, which added to his recreation. But then he has had a letter from a Lincoln's Inn Bencher, full of praise of his harpings, and vituperation of the other contributions to his Missellingany, which that sagacious person is pleased to say must have been put in as FOILS (horresco referens!); furthermore he adds that Cam "is a genuine pupil of Dryden," concluding with a comparison rather to the disadvantage of Pope.

I am for Greece, Hobhouse for England. A year together on the 2nd July since we sailed from Falmouth. I have known a hundred instances of men setting out in couples, but not one of a similar return. Aberdeen's party split; several voyagers at present have done the same. I am confident that twelve months of any given individual is perfect ipecacuanha.

(1810, July 4. Letter 143, to Francis Hodgson, Vol. I., p. 285.)

The Marquis of Sligo, my old fellow-collegian, is here, and wishes to accompany me into the Morea. We shall go together for that purpose; but I am woefully sick of travelling companions, after a year's experience of Mr Hobhouse, who is on his way to Great Britain. Lord S. will afterwards pursue his way to the capital; and Lord B., having seen all the wonders in that quarter, will let you know what he does next, of which at present he is not quite certain.

(1810, July 25. Letter 144, to his Mother, Vol. I., p. 289.)

Sligo has very kindly proposed a union of our forces for the occasion, which will be perhaps as uncomfortable to him as to myself, judging from previous experience, which, however, may be explained by my own irritability and hurry. Hobhouse is

silent, and has, I suppose, not yet returned; indeed, like myself, he appears to love the world better than England, and the Devil more than either, who I regret is not present to be informed of this. Do not fail, if you see him (Hobhouse, I mean), to repeat it, and the assurance that I am to him, with yourself, ever affectionately, BYRON. (1810, July 27. July 27. Letter 145, to his Mother, Vol. I., p. 292.)

I saw the Lady Hester Stanhope [Pitt's favourite niece and constant companion] at Athens, and do not admire "that dangerous thing a female wit." She told me (take her own words) that she had given you