In April, 1815, Mr. Ticknor set sail for England in company with his friend Edward Everett, and at the end of four weeks they arrived at Liverpool, just in time to hear of Napoleon’s escape from Elba.  There was at least one man in England who was pleased with that turn of fate, and that was Dr. Parr, whom Mr. Ticknor stopped to see on his way to London, and who told his young guest, “I should not think I had done my duty if I went to bed any night without praying for the success of Napoleon Bonaparte.”  Lord Byron, it should be added, on hearing the news of Waterloo, said, “I am d——­d sorry for it....  I didn’t know but I might live to see Lord Castlereagh’s head on a pole.  But I suppose I sha’n’t now.”  Of this last-named admirer of Bonaparte, Mr. Ticknor saw a good deal during his stay in England.  Byron was then a newly-married man, and on better terms with the world at large than he was at other times of his life.  His American visitor recorded that he “found his manners affable and gentle, the tones of his voice low and conciliating, his conversation gay, pleasant and interesting in an uncommon degree.”

Of the older men, he saw Dr. Rees, editor of the Encyclopaedia, who had dined with Dr. Johnson and John Wilkes at Dilly’s—­not at the first dinner probably, for Boswell gives a list of the guests which does not include his name, but doubtless at the second, in 1781.  Dr. Rees said that Wilkes won his way to Johnson’s heart not, as Boswell reports, by his wit, but by the grossest flattery; and he added that Johnson always courted Boswell more than any one else, that he might be exhibited to posterity in a favorable light.  A mere list of the names of the people he saw during this short stay in England will show how full of interest this part of his diary is.  Campbell, Gifford, West, Sir Humphry Davy he saw most frequently, but no one so often as he did Byron.  His penchant for “lions” always led him to prefer the lordliest among them.

It was a great change from the excitement and succession of novelties of London to the monotonous routine of Goettingen, where he arrived, after a journey of about five weeks, early in August, 1815.  Goettingen at that time was the seat of the leading German university.  It has never been full of distracting temptations:  indeed, it is a town which seems to have been so arranged that the student should find in study alone relief from its manifold discomforts.  The advantages it possessed were very great, and they were fully appreciated by the young American, who came from what in comparison was almost an intellectual wilderness to the rich stores of learning this university contained.  It was at this time that he fairly began serious literary study and laid the foundation of his extensive knowledge of books.  In one of his vacations he made a little tour in Germany, visiting Goethe, who made a characteristic speech about Byron’s recent separation from his wife—­namely, that in its circumstances and the mystery involving it it was so poetical that if Byron had invented it he could hardly have found a more fortunate subject for his genius.