Walachia and the Crimea, she may obtain it tomorrow; if of that of Italy, the day after; but if she wishes to become truly Greece, free and independent, she must resolve to-day, or she will never again have the opportunity.

I am, with all respect,

Your Highness's obedient servant,

N. B.

P. S. Your Highness will already have known that I have sought to fulfil the wishes of the Greek government, as much as it lay in my power to do so; but I should wish that the fleet so long and so vainly expected were arrived, or, at least, that it were on the way; and especially that your Highness should approach these parts either on board the fleet, with a public mission, or in some other

manner.

Lord Byron to Goëthe.

ILLUSTRIOUS SIR,

Leghorn, July 24, 1823.

I CANNOT thank you as you ought to be thanked for the lines which my young friend, Mr. Sterling, sent me of yours; and it would but ill become me to pretend to exchange verses with him who, for fifty years, has been the undisputed sovereign of European literature. You must therefore accept my most sincere acknowledgments in prose-and in hasty prose too; for I am at present on my voyage to Greece once more, and surrounded by hurry and bustle, which hardly allow a moment even to gratitude and admiration to express themselves.

I sailed from Genoa some days ago, was driven

back by a gale of wind, and have since sailed again and arrived here, 'Leghorn,' this morning, to receive on board some Greek passengers for their struggling country.

Here also I found your lines and Mr. Sterling's letter, and I could not have had a more favourable omen, a more agreeable surprise, than a word of Goëthe, written by his own hand.

I am returning to Greece, to see if I can be of any little use there; if ever I come back, I will pay a visit to Weimar, to offer the sincere homage of one of the many millions of your admirers. I have the honour to be, ever and most,

Your obliged,

NOEL BYRON.

Lord Byron to Mr. Rogers.

Venice, April 4, 1817.

Ir is a considerable time since I wrote to you last, and I hardly know why I should trouble you now, except that I think you will not be sorry to hear from me now and then. You and I were never correspondents, but always something better, which is, very good friends.

I saw your friend Sharp in Switzerland, or rather in the German territory, (which is and is not Switzerland,) and he gave Hobhouse and me a very good route for the Bernese Alps; however, we took another from a German, and went by Clarens, the Dent de Jaman to Montbovon, and through Simmenthal to Thoul, and so on to Lauterbrounn; except that from thence to the Grindelwald, instead of round about, we went right over the Wengen Alps' very summit, and being close under the Jung

frau, saw it, its glaciers, and heard the avalanches in all their glory, having famous weather therefor. We of course went from the Grindelwald over the Sheidech to Brientz and its lake; past the Reichenbach and all that mountain road, which reminded me of Albania, and Ætolia, and Greece, except that the people here were more civilized and rascally. I did not think so very much of Chamouni (except the source of the Arveron, to which we went up to the teeth of the ice, so as to look into and touch the cavity, against the warning of the guides, only one of whom would go with us so close) as of the Jungfrau, and the Pissevache, and Simplon, which are quite out of all mortal competition.

I was at Milan about a moon, and saw Monti and some other living curiosities, and thence on to Verona, where I did not forget your story of the assassination during your sojourn there, and brought away with me some fragments of Juliet's torab, and a lively recollection of the amphitheatre. The Countess Goetz (the governor's wife here) told me that there is still a ruined castle of the Montecchi between Verona and Vicenza. I have been at Venice since November, but shall proceed to Rome shortly. For my deeds here, are they not written in my letters to the unreplying Thomas Moore? to him I refer you: he has received them all, and not answered one.

Will you remember me to Lord and Lady Holland? I have to thank the former for a book which I have not yet received, but expect to reperuse with great pleasure on my return, viz. the 2d edition of Lope de Vega. I have heard of Moore's forthcoming poem: he can not wish himself more success than I wish and augur for him. I have also

heard great things of "Tales of my Landlord," but I have not yet received them; by all accounts they beat even Waverley, &c., and are by the same author. Maturin's second tragedy has, it seems, failed, for which I should think anybody would be sorry. My health was very victorious till within the last month, when I had a fever. There is a typhus in these parts, but I don't think it was that. However, I got well without a physician or drugs.

I forgot to tell you that, last autumn, I furnished Lewis with "bread and salt" for some days at Diodati, in reward for which (besides his conversation) he translated "Goëthe's Faust" to me by word of mouth, and I set him by the ears with Madame de Staël about the slave trade. I am indebted for many and kind courtesies to our Lady of Copel, and I now love her as much as I always did her works, of which I was and am a great admirer. When are you to begin with Sheridan ? what are you doing, and how do you do?

Ever very truly, &c.

MY LORD,

Lord Byron to Lord Holland.

St. James's-street, March 5, 1812.

MAY I request your Lordship to accept a copy of the thing which accompanies this note? You have already so fully proved the truth of the first line of Pope's couplet,

Forgiveness to the injured doth belong,

that I long for an opportunity to give the lie to the verse that follows. If I were not perfectly convinced that anything I may have formerly uttered

am

in the boyish rashness of my misplaced resent
ment had made as little impression as it deserved
to make, I should hardly have the confidence—~
perhaps your Lordship may give it a stronger and
more opprobrious appellation to send you a quarto
of the same scribbler. But your Lordship,
sorry to observe to-day, is troubled with the gout:
if my book can produce a laugh against itself or
the author, it will be of some service. If it can set
you to sleep, the benefit will be yet greater; and
as some facetious personage observed half a cen-
tury ago, that "poetry is a mere drug," I offer you
mine as an humble assistant to the eau médicinale.
I trust you will forgive this and all my other buf-
fooneries, and believe me to be, with great respect,
Your Lordship's

Obliged and sincere servant,
BYRON.

SIR,

Lord Byron to Sir Walter Scott.

St. James's-street, July 6, 1812.

I HAVE just been honoured with your letter.I feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the "evil works of my nonage," as the thing is suppressed voluntarily, and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire was written when I was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now I am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. I can not sufficiently thank you for your praise; and now, waiving my. self, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and