The person who gave it to
me, when I was very young, is _dead_, and though a long time has
elapsed since we met, as it was the only memorial I possessed of that
person (in whom I was very much interested), it has acquired a value
by this event I could have wished it never to have borne in my eyes.
If, therefore, Miss ---- should have preserved it, I must, under these
circumstances, beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to
me at No. 8. St. James's Street, London, and I will replace it by
something she may remember me by equally well. As she was always so
kind as to feel interested in the fate of him that formed the subject
of our conversation, you may tell her that the giver of that cornelian
died in May last of a consumption, at the age of twenty-one, making
the sixth, within four months, of friends and relatives that I have
lost between May and the end of August.
"Believe me, dear Madam, yours very sincerely,
"BYRON.
"P.S. I go to London to-morrow."
The cornelian heart was, of course, returned, and Lord Byron, at the
same time, reminded that he had left it with Miss ----]
[Footnote 74: In the Collection of his Poems printed for private
circulation, he had inserted some severe verses on Dr. Butler, which
he omitted in the subsequent publication,--at the same time explaining
why he did so, in a note little less severe than the verses.]
[Footnote 75: This first attempt of Lord Byron at reviewing (for it
will be seen that he, once or twice afterwards, tried his hand at this
least poetical of employments) is remarkable only as showing how
plausibly he could assume the established tone and phraseology of
these minor judgment-seats of criticism.
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