, as the worthiest evidence of the connection that had
been formed. Affecting and delightful as was such a document, and
justifying the most lively hopes, it has acquired now the greatest,
though most painful value, from the untimely death of the lofty
writer, which adds a peculiar edge to the grief felt generally
throughout the whole moral and poetical world at his loss: for we
were warranted in hoping, that when his great deeds should have been
achieved, we might personally have greeted in him the pre-eminent
intellect, the happily acquired friend, and the most humane of
conquerors. At present we can only console ourselves with the
conviction that his country will at last recover from that violence
of invective and reproach which has been so long raised against him,
and will learn to understand that the dross and lees of the age and
the individual, out of which even the best have to elevate
themselves, are but perishable and transient, while the wonderful
glory to which he in the present and through all future ages has
elevated his country, will be as boundless in its splendour as it is
incalculable in its consequences. Nor can there be any doubt that the
nation, which can boast of so many great names, will class him among
the first of those through whom she has acquired such glory."

The following is Lord Byron's answer to the communication above
mentioned from Goethe:--

LETTER 524. TO GOETHE.

"Leghorn, July 24. 1823.

"Illustrious Sir,

"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 Goethe, written by his own hand.

"I am returning to Greece, to see if I can be of any