Such was Byron to common observance on his return.  I recollect one night meeting him at the Opera.  Seeing me with a gentleman whom he did not know, and to whom he was unknown, he addressed me in Italian, and we continued to converse for some time in that language.  My friend, who in the meanwhile had been observing him with curiosity, conceiving him to be a foreigner, inquired in the course of the evening who he was, remarking that he had never seen a man with such a Cain-like mark on the forehead before, alluding to that singular scowl which struck me so forcibly when I first saw him, and which appears to have made a stronger impression upon me than it did upon many others.  I never, in fact, could overcome entirely the prejudice of the first impression, although I ought to have been gratified by the friendship and confidence with which he always appeared disposed to treat me.  When Childe Harold was printed, he sent me a quarto copy before the publication; a favour and distinction I have always prized; and the copy which he gave me of The Bride of Abydos was one he had prepared for a new edition, and which contains, in his own writing, these six lines in no other copy: 

Bless’d—­as the Muezzin’s strain from Mecca’s wall
To pilgrims pure and prostrate at his call,
Soft—­as the melody of youthful days
That steals the trembling tear of speechless praise,
Sweet—­as his native song to exile’s ears
Shall sound each tone thy long-loved voice endears.

He had not, it is true, at the period of which I am speaking, gathered much of his fame; but the gale was rising—­and though the vessel was evidently yielding to the breeze, she was neither crank nor unsteady.  On the contrary, the more he became an object of public interest, the less did he indulge his capricious humour.  About the time when The Bride of Abydos was published, he appeared disposed to settle into a consistent character—­especially after the first sale of Newstead.  Before that particular event, he was often so disturbed in his mind, that he could not conceal his unhappiness, and frequently spoke of leaving England for ever.

Although few men were more under the impulses of passion than Lord Byron, there was yet a curious kind of management about him which showed that he was well aware how much of the world’s favour was to be won by it.  Long before Childe Harold appeared, it was generally known that he had a poem in the press, and various surmises to stimulate curiosity were circulated concerning it:  I do not say that these were by his orders, or under his directions, but on one occasion I did fancy that I could discern a touch of his own hand in a paragraph in the Morning Post, in which he was mentioned as having returned from an excursion into the interior of Africa; and when I alluded to it, my suspicion was confirmed by his embarrassment.