roof, we thought it would be treacherous to him. Byron, however, found
others less scrupulous, and three or four copies of it have been given
away.

The love of mischief was strong in the heart of Byron even to the last,
but, while recklessly indulging it in trifles, he was capable of giving
proofs of exalted friendship to those against whom he practised it;
and, had Rogers stood in need of kindness, he would have found no lack
of it in his brother poet, even in the very hour he had penned the
malicious lampoon in question against him.

Comte d'Orsay, with his frank _naivete_, observed, "I thought you were
one of Mr. Rogers's most intimate friends, and so all the world had
reason to think, after reading your dedication of the _Giaour_ to him."

"Yes," answered Byron, laughing, "and it is our friendship that gives
me the privilege of taking a liberty with him."

"If it is thus you evince your friendship," replied Comte d'Orsay, "I
should be disposed to prefer your enmity."

"You," said Byron, "could never excite this last sentiment in my
breast, for you neither say nor do spiteful things."

Brief as was the period Byron had lived in what is termed fashionable
society in London, it was long enough to have engendered in him a habit
of _persiflage_, and a love of uttering sarcasms, (more from a desire
of displaying wit than from malice,) peculiar to that circle in which,
if every man's hand is not against his associates, every man's tongue
is. He drew no line of demarcation between _uttering_ and _writing_
satirical things; and the first being, if not sanctioned, at least
permitted in the society in which he had lived in London, he considered
himself not more culpable in inditing his satires than the others were
in speaking them. He would have laughed at being censured for putting
on paper the epigrammatic malice that his former associates would
delight in uttering before all except the person at whom it was aimed;
yet the world see the matter in another point of view, and many of
those who _speak_ as much evil of their _soi-disant_ friends, would
declare, if not feel, themselves shocked at Byron's writing it.

I know no more agreeable member of society than Mr. Luttrell. His
conversation, like a limpid stream, flows smoothly and brightly along,
revealing the depths beneath its current, now sparkling over the
objects it discloses or reflecting those by which it glides. He never
talks for talking's sake; but his min