ssess
all the qualities requisite for giving happiness in marriage. Lord
Byron, on his side, suggested Miss Milbank, with whom he was then in
correspondence. She was a niece of Lady Melbourne, who had thought of
this union a year before; a circumstance which probably decided Lord
Byron's preference, for he liked Lady Melbourne very much.

On hearing Miss Milbank's name his friend protested with great energy,
begging him to remark, among other things, that Miss Milbank had no
actual fortune, that his affairs were too much embarrassed for him to be
able to marry a woman without money, and moreover that Miss Milbank was
a learned lady, a _blue-stocking_, who could not possibly suit him. Ever
docile to the voice of friendship, Lord Byron yielded, and allowed his
friend to write a proposal to the other lady. Soon after a negative
answer arrived, one morning, that the two friends were together.

"You see," said Lord Byron, "that after all it is Miss Milbank I am to
marry; I shall write to her!" He did so immediately; and when the letter
was finished, his friend feeling more and more opposed to such a choice,
took it from him. After having read it, he exclaimed:--

"Truly, this letter is so charming that it is a pity for it not to go. I
never read a better effusion." "Then go it shall," replied Lord Byron,
who sealed and sent it off, thus signing his own misfortune!

We have said that he was in correspondence with Miss Milbank. This is
how he had made her acquaintance.

Two years previously, at a London _soiree_, he saw sitting in the corner
of a sofa a young girl whose simplicity of dress made her look as if she
belonged to a less elevated position than most of the other girls in the
room; Moore told him, however, that she was a rich heiress, Miss
Milbank, and that if he would marry her she might help him to restore
the old Abbey of Newstead. Her modest look, in striking contrast with
the stiffness and formality common to the aristocracy, interested Lord
Byron. He had himself introduced, and some time after ended by asking
her to marry him. His proposal, from motives that could not wound him,
was not accepted then. But a year later Miss Milbank testified the
desire of entering into correspondence with him. Thus the ground was
prepared. When he sent his letter with a fresh proposal, it was accepted
all the more eagerly that a report had been spread of his wishing to
marry a young and beautiful Irish girl, which did not ple