That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
   Expression’s last receding ray,
   A gilded halo hov’ring round decay,
   The farewell beam of feeling past away. 
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish’d earth.

At that time Lord Byron, if he did pity the condition of the Greeks, evinced very little confidence in the resurrection of the nation, even although symptoms of change and reanimation were here and there perceptible, and could not have escaped his observation.  Greece had indeed been so long ruined, that even her desolation was then in a state of decay.  The new cycle in her fortunes had certainly not commenced, but it was manifest, by many a sign, that the course of the old was concluding, and that the whole country felt the assuring auguries of undivulged renovation.  The influence of that period did not, however, penetrate the bosom of the poet; and when he first quitted Athens, assuredly he cared as little about the destinies of the Greeks, as he did for those of the Portuguese and Spaniards, when he arrived at Gibraltar.

About three weeks or a month after he had left Athens, I went by a circuitous route to Smyrna, where I found him waiting with Mr Hobhouse, to proceed with the Salsette frigate, then ordered to Constantinople, to bring away Mr Adair, the ambassador.  He had, in the meantime, visited Ephesus, and acquired some knowledge of the environs of Smyrna; but he appeared to have been less interested by what he had seen there than by the adventures of his Albanian tour.  Perhaps I did him injustice, but I thought he was also, in that short space, something changed, and not with improvement.  Towards Mr Hobhouse, he seemed less cordial, and was altogether, I should say, having no better phrase to express what I would describe, more of a Captain Grand than improved in his manners, and more disposed to hold his own opinion than I had ever before observed in him.  I was particularly struck with this at dinner, on the day after my arrival.  We dined together with a large party at the consul’s, and he seemed inclined to exact a deference to his dogmas, that was more lordly than philosophical.  One of the naval officers present, I think the captain of the Salsette, felt, as well as others, this overweening, and announced a contrary opinion on some question connected with the politics of the late Mr Pitt with so much firm good sense, that Lord Byron was perceptibly rebuked by it, and became reserved, as if he deemed that sullenness enhanced dignity.  I never in the whole course of my acquaintance saw him kithe so unfavourably as he did on that occasion.  In the course of the evening, however, he condescended to thaw, and before the party broke up, his austerity began to leaf, and hide its thorns under the influence of a relenting temperament.  It was, however, too evident—­at least it was so to me—­that without intending wrong, or any offence, the unchecked humour of his temper was, by its caprices, calculated to prevent him from ever gaining that regard to which his talents and freer moods, independently of his rank, ought to have entitled him.  Such men become objects of solicitude, but never of esteem.