tter to me, and have no wish whatever to
say a single syllable that may appear to insult your misfortunes.
If I have, excuse me: it is unintentional.

BYRON."

Mr. Ashe replied with a request for a sum of about four thousand francs.
Lord Byron having somewhat delayed answering him, Ashe reiterated his
request, complaining of the procrastination; whereupon, "with a kindness
which few," says Moore, "would imitate in a similar case," Byron wrote
to him as follows:--

"SIR,--When you accuse a stranger of neglect, you forget that it is
possible business or absence from London may have interfered to
delay his answer, as has actually occurred in the present instance.
But to the point. I am willing to do what I can to extricate you
from your situation.... I will deposit in Mr. Murray's hands (with
his consent) the sum you mentioned, to be advanced for the time at
ten pounds per month.

"P.S.--I write in the greatest hurry, which may make my letter a
little abrupt; but, as I said before, I have no wish to distress
your feelings.

BYRON."

Ashe, a few months later, asked for the whole amount, to defray his
travelling expenses to New South Wales, and Lord Byron again remitted to
him the entire amount.

On another occasion, some unhappy person being discussed in harsh terms,
the remark was made that he deserved his misery. Lord Byron turned on
the accuser, and fired with generous anger, "Well!" exclaimed he, "if it
be true that N---- is unfortunate, and that he be so through his own
fault, he is doubly to be pitied, because his conscience must poison his
grief with remorse. Such are my morals, and that is why I pity error and
respect misfortune."

The produce of his poems, as long as he remained in England, he devoted
to the relief of his poor relations, or to the assistance of authors in
reduced circumstances. I will not speak of certain traits of heroic
generosity which averted the disgrace and ruin of families, which robbed
vice of many youthful victims, and would cast in the shade many deeds of
past and proverbial magnanimity, and deserve the pen of a Plutarch to
transmit them to posterity.

When we are told, with such admiring comments, of Alexander's
magnanimity in respecting and restoring to freedom the mother and the
wife of Darius, we do not learn whether those noble women were beautiful
and in love with the Macedonian hero. But Lord Byron su