thy I certainly do not comprise yourself, as I will prove by every
means in my power.

"P.S.--You will consider Newstead as your house, not mine, and me only
as a visitor."[175]

He had hardly arrived in London when Mr. Dallas hastened to greet him,
and instead of finding him changed, thought he was in excellent health,
with a countenance that betrayed neither melancholy nor any trace of
discontent at his return. The truth is, that those sorrows which did not
reach his heart were never very deep with Lord Byron. But already a most
formidable tempest was gathering on the horizon of his fate, for it was
one that would cruelly wound his heart. Perhaps it was some vague,
inexplicable presentiment of what was threatening him that saddened his
return to his native country. The storm burst as soon as he set foot in
London; for he was summoned in haste to Newstead, his mother's life
being declared in danger. He set out instantaneously, but on arriving
found only a corpse! This spectacle was still before his eyes; he had
hardly quitted the chamber of death, where, in the obscurity of night
and alone, believing himself free from all observation, he had given way
in silence and darkness to the real sentiments of his heart, weeping
bitterly the loss of a mother who had idolized him, when in rapid
succession news arrived of the deaths of his dearest friends. Matthews,
his mind's idol, had just been drowned in the river Cam, at Cambridge;
Wingfield, one of his heart-idols, was dying of fever at Coimbra; his
dear Eddlestone was in the last stage of consumption; and, finally, he
learned the death of another loved, mysterious being. Six deaths within
a few short weeks!

"If to be able," says Moore, "to depict powerfully the painful emotions
it is necessary first to have experienced them, or, in other words, if,
for the poet to be great the man must suffer, Lord Byron, it must be
owned, paid early this dear price of mastery."

This was certainly a most painful crisis in his existence. What he felt
then can not be called melancholy; it was truly _desolation, agony of
heart_. Seeing himself alone in his venerable but gloomy abode, beside
the dead body of his mother, solitude was for the first time intolerable
to him, and, despite his strength of mind, he experienced moments of
weakness. In his agony he wrote a letter to his friend Scroope Davies
that is truly painful to read, so much does it bear the impress of
intense suffering.

"S