at his grave, but
continue to persecute his memory as it was now embittering his life. So
strong was this impression upon him, that during one of our few
intervals of seriousness, he conjured me, by our friendship, if, as he
both felt and hoped, I should survive him, not to let unmerited censure
settle upon his name, but, while I surrendered him up to condemnation,
where he deserved it, to vindicate him where aspersed.

How groundless and wrongful were these apprehensions, the early death
which he so often predicted and sighed for has enabled us, unfortunately
but too soon, to testify. So far from having to defend him against any
such assailants, an unworthy voice or two, from persons more injurious
as friends than as enemies, is all that I find raised in hostility to
his name; while by none, I am inclined to think, would a generous
amnesty over his grave be more readily and cordially concurred in than
by her, among whose numerous virtues a forgiving charity towards
himself was the only one to which she had not yet taught him to render
justice.

I have already had occasion to remark, in another part of this work,
that with persons who, like Lord Byron, live centred in their own
tremulous web of sensitiveness, those friends of whom they see least,
and who, therefore, least frequently come in collision with them in
those every-day realities from which such natures shrink so morbidly,
have proportionately a greater chance of retaining a hold on their
affections. There is, however, in long absence from persons of this
temperament, another description of risk hardly less, perhaps, to be
dreaded. If the station a friend holds in their hearts is, in near
intercourse with them, in danger from their sensitiveness, it is almost
equally, perhaps, at the mercy of their too active imaginations during
absence. On this very point, I recollect once expressing my
apprehensions to Lord Byron, in a passage of a letter addressed to him
but a short time before his death, of which the following is, as nearly
as I can recall it, the substance:--"When _with_ you, I feel _sure_ of
you; but, at a distance, one is often a little afraid of being made the
victim, all of a sudden, of some of those fanciful suspicions, which,
like meteoric stones, generate themselves (God knows how) in the upper
regions of your imagination, and come clattering down upon our heads,
some fine sunny day, when we are least expecting such an invasion."

In writing thus