Powell. That this event affected Lord Byron
very deeply, the few touching sentences devoted to it in his Satire
prove. "On Sunday night (he says) I beheld Lord Falkland presiding at
his own table in all the honest pride of hospitality; on Wednesday
morning at three o'clock I saw stretched before me all that remained
of courage, feeling, and a host of passions." But it was not by words
only that he gave proof of sympathy on this occasion. The family of
the unfortunate nobleman were left behind in circumstances which
needed something more than the mere expression of compassion to
alleviate them; and Lord Byron, notwithstanding the pressure of his
own difficulties at the time, found means, seasonably and delicately,
to assist the widow and children of his friend. In the following
letter to Mrs. Byron, he mentions this among other matters of
interest,--and in a tone of unostentatious sensibility highly
honourable to him.
LETTER 32.
TO MRS. BYRON.
"8. St. James's Street, March 6. 1809.
"Dear Mother,
"My last letter was written under great depression of spirits from
poor Falkland's death, who has left without a shilling four children
and his wife. I have been endeavouring to assist them, which, God
knows, I cannot do as I could wish, from my own embarrassments and
the many claims upon me from other quarters.
"What you say is all very true: come what may, _Newstead_ and I
_stand_ or fall together.
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