his master's death:--

"Pray forgive this scribbling, for I scarcely know what I do and say. I
have served Lord Byron for twenty years, and his lordship was always to
me rather a father than a master. I am too distressed to be able to give
you any particulars about his death."

Lord Byron's benevolence also shone forth in his tenderness toward
children, in the pleasure he experienced in mingling in their
amusements, and in making them presents. In general, to procure a
moment's enjoyment to any one was real happiness to him.

Quite as humane as he was benevolent, cruelty or ferocity he could not
brook, even in imagination. His genius, although so bold, could not bear
too harrowing a plot. "I wanted to write something upon that subject,"
he told Shelley at Pisa, "as it is extremely tragical, but it was too
heartrending for my nerves to cope with."

His works, moreover, from beginning to end, prove this. An analysis of
the character of all his heroes will prove that, however daring, they
are never ferocious, harsh, nor perverse. Even Conrad the Corsair, whose
type is sketched from a ferocious race, and who is placed in
circumstances that tempt to inhumanity,--Conrad is yet far removed from
cruelty. The drop of blood on Gulnare's fair brow makes him shudder, and
almost forget that it was to save him that she became guilty. The cruel
deeds of a man not only prevented Lord Byron from feeling the least
sympathy for him, but even made gratitude toward him a burden. However
much Ali Pasha, the fierce Viceroy of Janina, may overwhelm him with
kindness, wish to treat him as a son, address him in writing as
"Excellentissime and Carissime," the cruelties of such a friend are too
revolting for Byron to profit by his offer of services. He calls him the
man of war and calamity, and in immortal verse perpetuates the memory of
his crimes, and even _foretells the death he actually died a few years
later_. He can forgive him the weakness of the flesh, but not those
crimes which are deaf to pity's voice, and which, to be condemned in
every man, are still more so in an old man:--

"Blood follows blood, and through this mortal span
In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began."

The recollection of human massacres spoilt in his eyes even a beautiful
spot. In exalting the Rhine, the beautiful river he so much admired, the
remembrance of all the blood spilt on its banks saddened his heart:--