oral ...
[Clytemnestra?] clove down my fame" (Letter to Moore, March 10, 1817,
_Letters_, 1900, iv. 72). The same expression, "my _moral_
Clytemnestra," is applied to his wife in a letter to Lord Blessington,
dated April 6, 1823. It may be noted that it was in April, 1823, that
Byron presented a copy of the "Lines," etc., to Lady Blessington
(_Conversations, etc._, 1834, p. 79).]

[95] {65}[Compare--

"By thy delight in others' pain."

_Manfred_, act i. sc. i, line 248, _vide post_, p. 93.]

[96] [Compare--

" ... but that high Soul secured the heart,
And panted for the truth it could not hear."

_A Sketch_, lines 18, 19, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 541.]

[97] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxxvi. lines 6-9,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 430.]

MONODY ON THE DEATH

OF

THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN.

INTRODUCTION TO _MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN._

When Moore was engaged on the Life of Sheridan, Byron gave him some
advice. "Never mind," he says, "the angry lies of the humbug Whigs.
Recollect that he was an Irishman and a clever fellow, and that we have
had some very pleasant days with him. Don't forget that he was at school
at Harrow, where, in my time, we used to show his name--R. B. Sheridan,
1765--as an honour to the walls. Depend upon it that there were worse
folks going, of that gang, than ever Sheridan was" (Letter to Moore,
September 19, 1818, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 261).

It does not appear that Byron had any acquaintance with Sheridan when he
wrote the one unrejected Address which was spoken at the opening of
Drury Lane Theatre, October 10, 1812, but that he met him for the first
time at a dinner which Rogers gave to Byron and Moore, on or before June
1, 1813. Thenceforward, as long as he remained in England (see his
letter to Rogers, April 16, 1816, _Letters,_ 1899, iii 281, note 1), he
was often in his company, "sitting late, drinking late," not, of course,
on terms of equality and friendship (for Sheridan was past sixty, and
Byron more than thirty years younger), but of the closest and
pleasantest intimacy. To judge from the tone of the letter to Moore
(_vide supra_) and of numerous entries in his diaries, during Sheridan's
life and after his death, he was at pains not to pass judgment on a man
whom he greatly a