haunts it to the tomb,
Expression's last receding ray,
A gilded halo hov'ring round decay,
The farewell beam of feeling past away.
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd earth.

At that time Lord Byron, if he did pity the condition of the Greeks,
evinced very little confidence in the resurrection of the nation,
even although symptoms of change and reanimation were here and there
perceptible, and could not have escaped his observation. Greece had
indeed been so long ruined, that even her desolation was then in a
state of decay. The new cycle in her fortunes had certainly not
commenced, but it was manifest, by many a sign, that the course of
the old was concluding, and that the whole country felt the assuring
auguries of undivulged renovation. The influence of that period did
not, however, penetrate the bosom of the poet; and when he first
quitted Athens, assuredly he cared as little about the destinies of
the Greeks, as he did for those of the Portuguese and Spaniards, when
he arrived at Gibraltar.

About three weeks or a month after he had left Athens, I went by a
circuitous route to Smyrna, where I found him waiting with Mr
Hobhouse, to proceed with the Salsette frigate, then ordered to
Constantinople, to bring away Mr Adair, the ambassador. He had, in
the meantime, visited Ephesus, and acquired some knowledge of the
environs of Smyrna; but he appeared to have been less interested by
what he had seen there than by the adventures of his Albanian tour.
Perhaps I did him injustice, but I thought he was also, in that short
space, something changed, and not with improvement. Towards Mr
Hobhouse, he seemed less cordial, and was altogether, I should say,
having no better phrase to express what I would describe, more of a
Captain Grand than improved in his manners, and more disposed to hold
his own opinion than I had ever before observed in him. I was
particularly struck with this at dinner, on the day after my arrival.
We dined together with a large party at the consul's, and he seemed
inclined to exact a deference to his dogmas, that was more lordly
than philosophical. One of the naval officers present, I think the
captain of the Salsette, felt, as well as others, this overweening,
and announced a contrary opinion on some question connected with the
politics of the late Mr Pitt with so much firm good sense, that Lord
Byron was perceptibly rebuked