ding my two last meetings with Matthews.
The last time I saw him before yesterday evening, he dined with me in
company with poor Sir Alexander Boswell, who was killed within a week.
I never saw Sir Alexander more. The time before was in 1815, when John
Scott, of Gala, and I, were returning from France, and passed through
London, when we brought Matthews down as far as Leamington. Poor Byron
lunched, or rather made an early dinner with us at Long's, and a most
brilliant day we had of it. I never saw Byron so full of fun, frolic,
wit, and whim; he was as playful as a kitten. Well, I never saw him
again. So this man of mirth has brought me no luck.'

"Sir Alexander had made the final arrangements for his duel the very day
he dined with Sir Walter. The circumstance in no way interfered with the
flow of spirits of a man who had, indeed, invited a violent death by
nothing more criminal than an over indulgence of ill-directed mirth. The
details of the duel are of the usual kind. In the early part of 1821, a
newspaper called the _Beacon_, destined not to survive the year, was set
up in Edinburgh in the Tory interest. The object of the publication was
to counteract the effect of Radical doctrines, which were making great
way in the northern metropolis under favor of the agitation that had
been set up on behalf of Queen Caroline. Sir Walter Scott himself had
been consulted upon the propriety of establishing the journal, and had
offered with others to help it by a gift of money at starting. The
_Beacon_ served any purpose but that of directing the public mind in the
path desired. The management of the paper, with which by the way the law
officers of the Crown foolishly connected themselves, was in all
respects disastrous. The proprietors shrank from the responsibility
which the bitter invective and satire of the more youthful and
unscrupulous editors hourly accumulated on their shoulders; the articles
of the paper were made the subject of Parliamentary discussion; and to
avoid consequences which it was not difficult to anticipate, the
concern, which had opened with flying colors in January, was suddenly
and ignominiously shut up for ever in August.

"Glasgow took up the weapon which Edinburgh dropped. A newspaper
appeared in the former city as the avowed defender of the cause and
assailant of the persons previously upheld and attacked by the defunct
Edinburgh journal. The _Sentinel_, as the Glasgow paper was called,
would hold hi