, in 1811, Byron experienced the bitterest
loss of his life--that of his mother--he wrote from Newstead to beg that
Davies would come and console him.

Shortly after, he wrote to Hodgson to say, "Davies has been here. His
gayety, which death itself can not change, has been of great service to
me: but it must be allowed that our laughter was very false."

We must not forget to mention, among the friends of Byron, William
Banks, Mr. Pigott, of Southwell, and Mr. Hodgson, a writer of great
merit, who was one of his companions at Newstead, and with whom he
corresponded even during his voyage in the East. For all these he
maintained throughout life the kindest remembrance, as also for Mr.
Beecher, for whom he entertained a regard equal to his affection. Mr.
Beecher having disapproved of the moral tendency of his early poems,
Lord Byron destroyed in one night the whole of the first edition of
those poems, in order to prove his sense of esteem for Mr. Beecher's
opinion. In the same category we should place Lord Byron's friendship
for Dr. Drury, his tutor at Harrow; but this latter friendship is so
marked with feelings of respect, veneration, and gratitude, that I had
rather speak of it later, when I shall treat of the last-named quality,
as one of the most noticeable in Lord Byron's character.

GRIEF WHICH HE EXPERIENCED AT THE LOSS OF HIS FRIENDS.

The grief which the loss of his friends occasioned to him was
proportioned to the degree of affection which he entertained for them.
By a curious fatality he had the misfortune to lose at an early age,
almost all those he loved. This grief reached its climax on his return
from his first travels.

"If," says Moore, "to be able 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. In the short space of one
month," he says in a note on Childe Harold, "I have lost her who gave me
being, and most of those who made that being tolerable." Of these young
Wingfield, whom we have seen high on the list of his Harrow favorites,
died of a fever at Coimbra; and Matthews, the idol of his admiration at
Cambridge, was drowned while bathing in the Cam. The following letter,
written shortly after, shows so powerful a feeling of regret, and
displays such real grief, that it is almost painful to peruse it:

"MY DEAREST DA