"if I had held up my finger I
could have crushed your press,"--but this did not prevent the recognition
by each of them of the excellent qualities of the other.

Ultimately Stanhope went to Athens, and allied himself with Trelawny and
Odysseus and the party of the Left. Nothing can be more statesmanlike than
some of Byron's papers of this and the immediately preceding period;
nothing more admirable than the spirit which inspires them. He had come
into the heart of a revolution, exposed to the same perils as those which
had wrecked the similar movement in Italy. Neither trusting too much nor
distrusting too much, with a clear head and a good will he set about
enforcing a series of excellent measures. From first to last he was
engaged in denouncing dissension, in advocating unity, in doing everything
that man could do to concentrate and utilize the disorderly elements with
which he had to work. He occupied himself in repairing fortifications,
managing ships, restraining licence, promoting courtesy between the foes,
and regulating the disposal of the sinews of war.

On the morning of the 22nd of January, his last birthday, he came from his
room to Stanhope's, and said, smiling, "You were complaining that I never
write any poetry now," and read the familiar stanzas beginning--

'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,

and ending--

Seek out--less often sought than found--
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.

High thoughts, high resolves; but the brain that was over-tasked, and the
frame that was outworn, would be tasked and worn little longer. The lamp
of a life that had burnt too fiercely was flickering to its close. "If we
are not taken off with the sword," he writes on February 5th, "we are like
to march off with an ague in this mud basket; and, to conclude with a very
bad pun, better _martially_ than _marsh-ally_. The dykes of Holland when
broken down are the deserts of Arabia, in comparison with Mesolonghi." In
April, when it was too late, Stanhope wrote from Salona, in Phocis,
imploring him not to sacrifice health, and perhaps life, "in that bog."

Byron's house stood in the midst of the exhalations of a muddy creek, and
his natural irritability was increased by a more than usually long ascetic
regimen. From the day of his arrival in Greece he discarded animal food
and lived mainly on toast, vegetables, and cheese, olives and light