his eye objects which
had for him the interest of novelty. I remember particularly repeating
to him the fine poem of Hardyknute, an imitation of the old Scottish
ballad, with which he was so much affected, that some one who was in
the same apartment asked me what I could possibly have been telling
Byron by which he was so much agitated.

"I saw Byron for the last time in 1815, after I returned from France.
He dined, or lunched, with me at Long's, in Bond Street. I never saw
him so full of gayety and good-humor, to which the presence of Mr.
Mathews, the comedian, added not a little. Poor Terry was also
present. After one of the gayest parties I ever was present at, my
fellow-traveller, Mr. Scott of Gala, and I set off for Scotland, and I
never saw Lord Byron again. Several letters passed between us--one
perhaps every half-year. Like the old heroes in Homer, we exchanged
gifts. I gave Byron a beautiful dagger mounted with gold, which had
been the property of the redoubted Elfi Bey. But I was to play the
part of Diomed in the Iliad, for Byron sent me, some time after, a
large sepulchral vase of silver. It was full of dead men's bones, and
had inscriptions on two sides of the base. One ran thus: 'The bones
contained in this urn were found in certain ancient sepulchres within
the long walls of Athens, in the month of February, 1811.' The other
face bears the lines of Juvenal: '_Expende--quot libras in duce summo
{p.031} invenies?--Mors sola fatetur quantula sint hominum
corpuscula._'

"To these I have added a third inscription, in these words, 'The gift
of Lord Byron to Walter Scott.'[13] There was a letter with this vase,
more valuable to me than the gift itself, from the kindness with which
the donor expressed himself towards me. I left it naturally in the urn
with the bones; but it is now missing. As the theft was not of a
nature to be practised by a mere domestic, I am compelled to suspect
the inhospitality of some individual of higher station, most
gratuitously exercised certainly, since, after what I have here said,
no one will probably choose to boast of possessing this literary
curiosity.

[Footnote 13: Mr. Murray had, at the time of giving the
vase, suggested to Lord Byron, that it would increase
the value of the gift to add some such inscription; but
the noble poet answered modestly,--

"April 9, 1815. DEAR MURRAY,--I have a great objection