contemporaries in any age or country.

The meeting could not but be interesting, and Mr Moore has described
the effect it had on himself with a felicitous warmth, which showed
how much he enjoyed the party, and was pleased with the friendship
that ensued.

"Among the impressions," says he, "which this meeting left on me,
what I chiefly remember to have remarked was, the nobleness of his
air, his beauty, the gentleness of his voice and manners, and--what
was naturally not the least attraction--his marked kindness for
myself. Being in mourning for his mother, the colour as well of his
dress as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more
effect to the pure spiritual paleness of his features, in the
expression of which, when he spoke, there was a perpetual play of
lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character when
in repose."

CHAPTER XXVI

The Libel in "The Scourge"--The general Impression of his Character--
Improvement in his Manners, as his Merit was acknowledgement by the
Public--His Address in Management--His first Speech in Parliament--
The Publication of "Childe Harold"--Its Reception and Effect

During the first winter after Lord Byron had returned to England, I
was frequently with him. Childe Harold was not then published; and
although the impression of his satire, English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers, was still strong upon the public, he could not well be
said to have been then a celebrated character. At that time the
strongest feeling by which he appeared to be actuated was indignation
against a writer in a scurrilous publication, called The Scourge; in
which he was not only treated with unjustifiable malignity, but
charged with being, as he told me himself, the illegitimate son of a
murderer. I had not read the work; but the writer who could make
such an absurd accusation, must have been strangely ignorant of the
very circumstances from which he derived the materials of his own
libel. When Lord Byron mentioned the subject to me, and that he was
consulting Sir Vickery Gibbs, with the intention of prosecuting the
publisher and the author, I advised him, as well as I could, to
desist, simply because the allegation referred to well-known
occurrences. His grand-uncle's duel with Mr. Chaworth, and the order
of the House of Peers to produce evidence of his grandfather's
marriage with Miss Trevannion; the facts of which being matter of
history and public record, superseded