[Footnote 2:  Doubtless Moore himself, who tells the story.]

The most constant and best of those friends was his sister, Augusta Leigh, whom, from the death of Miss Chaworth to his own, Byron, in the highest and purest sense of the word, loved more than any other human being.  Tolerant of errors, which she lamented, and violences in which she had no share, she had a touch of their common family pride, most conspicuous in an almost cat-like clinging to their ancestral home.  Her early published letters are full of regrets about the threatened sale of Newstead, on the adjournment of which, when the first purchaser had to pay 25,000_l_. for breaking his bargain, she rejoices, and over the consummation of which she mourns, in the manner of Milton’s Eve—­

  Must I then leave thee, Paradise?

In all her references to the approaching marriage there are blended notes of hope and fear.  In thanking Hodgson for his kind congratulations, she trusts it will secure her brother’s happiness.  Later she adds her testimony to that of all outsiders at this time, as to the graces and genuine worth of the object of his choice.  After the usual preliminaries, the ill-fated pair were united, at Seaham House, on the 2nd of January, 1815.  Byron was married like one walking in his sleep.  He trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and almost from the first seems to have been conscious of his irrevocable mistake.

                  I saw him stand
  Before an altar with a gentle bride: 
  Her face was fair, but was not that which made
  The starlight of his boyhood.  He could see
  Not that which was—­but that which should have been—­
  But the old mansion, the accustom’d hall. 
  And she who was his destiny came back,
  And thrust herself between him and the light.

Here we have faint visions of Miss Chaworth, mingling with later memories.  In handing the bride into the carriage he said, “Miss Milbanke, are you ready?”—­a mistake said to be of evil omen.  Byron never really loved his wife; and though he has been absurdly accused of marrying for revenge, we must suspect that he married in part for a settlement.  On the other hand, it is not unfair to say that she was fascinated by a name, and inspired by the philanthropic zeal of reforming a literary Corsair.  Both were disappointed.  Miss Milbanke’s fortune was mainly settled on herself; and Byron, in spite of plentiful resolutions gave little sign of reformation.  For a considerable time their life, which, after the “treacle moon,” as the bridegroom called it, spent at Halnaby, near Darlington, was divided between residence at Seaham and visits to London, seemed to move smoothly.  In a letter, evidently mis-dated the 15th December, Mrs. Leigh writes to Hodgson:  “I have every reason to think that my beloved B. is very happy and comfortable.  I hear constantly from him and his rib.  It appears to me that Lady B. sets about