Comte d’Orsay, with his frank naivete, observed, “I thought you were one of Mr. Rogers’s most intimate friends, and so all the world had reason to think, after reading your dedication of the Giaour to him.”

“Yes,” answered Byron, laughing, “and it is our friendship that gives me the privilege of taking a liberty with him.”

“If it is thus you evince your friendship,” replied Comte d’Orsay, “I should be disposed to prefer your enmity.”

“You,” said Byron, “could never excite this last sentiment in my breast, for you neither say nor do spiteful things.”

Brief as was the period Byron had lived in what is termed fashionable society in London, it was long enough to have engendered in him a habit of persiflage, and a love of uttering sarcasms, (more from a desire of displaying wit than from malice,) peculiar to that circle in which, if every man’s hand is not against his associates, every man’s tongue is.  He drew no line of demarcation between uttering and writing satirical things; and the first being, if not sanctioned, at least permitted in the society in which he had lived in London, he considered himself not more culpable in inditing his satires than the others were in speaking them.  He would have laughed at being censured for putting on paper the epigrammatic malice that his former associates would delight in uttering before all except the person at whom it was aimed; yet the world see the matter in another point of view, and many of those who speak as much evil of their soi-disant friends, would declare, if not feel, themselves shocked at Byron’s writing it.

I know no more agreeable member of society than Mr. Luttrell.  His conversation, like a limpid stream, flows smoothly and brightly along, revealing the depths beneath its current, now sparkling over the objects it discloses or reflecting those by which it glides.  He never talks for talking’s sake; but his mind is so well filled that, like a fountain which when stirred sends up from its bosom sparkling showers, his mind, when excited, sends forth thoughts no less bright than profound, revealing the treasures with which it is so richly stored.  The conversation of Mr. Luttrell makes me think, while that of many others only amuses me.

Lord John Russell has arrived at Paris, and sat with me a considerable time to-day.  How very agreeable he can be when his reserve wears off, and what a pity it is he should ever allow it to veil the many fine qualities he possesses!  Few men have a finer taste in literature, or a more highly cultivated mind.  It seizes with rapidity whatever is brought before it; and being wholly free from passion or egotism, the views he takes on all subjects are just and unprejudiced.  He has a quick perception of the ridiculous, and possesses a fund of dry caustic humour that might render him a very dangerous opponent in a debate, were it not governed by a good breeding and a calmness that never forsake him.