ordship's
lame foot, when the smile that had played upon the visage of the poet
became suddenly converted into a frown. His whole frame appeared
discomposed; his tone of affected suavity became hard and imperious; and
he called to an attendant to open the door, with a peevishness seldom
exhibited even by the most irritable.

* * * * *

LORD BYRON'S APOLOGY.

No one knew how to apologize for an affront with better grace, or with
more delicacy, than Lord Byron. In the first edition of the first
canto of _Childe Harold_, the poet adverted in a note to two political
tracts--one by Major Pasley, and the other by Gould Francis Leckie,
Esq.; and concluded his remarks by attributing "ignorance on the one
hand, and prejudice on the other." Mr. Leckie, who felt offended at the
severity and, as he thought, injustice of the observations, wrote to
Lord Byron, complaining of the affront. His lordship did not reply
immediately to the letter; but, in about three weeks, he called upon
Mr. Leckie, and begged him to accept an elegantly-bound copy of a new
edition of the poem, in which the offensive passage was omitted.

* * * * *

FINE FLOURISHES.

Lord Brougham, in an essay published long ago in the _Edinburgh Review_,
read a smart lesson to Parliamentary wits. "A wit," says his lordship,
"though he amuses for the moment, unavoidably gives frequent offence to
grave and serious men, who don't think public affairs should be lightly
handled, and are constantly falling into the error that when a person
is arguing the most conclusively, by showing the gross and ludicrous
absurdity of his adversary's reasoning, he is jesting, and not arguing;
while the argument is, in reality, more close and stringent, the more he
shows the opposite picture to be grossly ludicrous--that is, the more
effective the wit becomes. But, though all this is perfectly true, it is
equally certain that danger attends such courses with the common run of
plain men.

"Nor is it only by wit that genius offends: flowers of imagination,
flights of oratory, great passages, are more admired by the critic than
relished by the worthy baronets who darken the porch of Boodle's--chiefly
answering to the names of Sir Robert and Sir John--and the solid
traders, the very good men who stream along the Strand from 'Change
towards St. Stephen's Chapel, at five o'clock, to see the business of
the country done by the