have been, by the ready consent of all, awarded to Matthews;—­a concurrence of homage which, considering the persons from whom it came, gives such a high notion of the powers of his mind at that period, as renders the thought of what he might have been, if spared, a matter of interesting, though vain and mournful, speculation.  To mere mental pre-eminence, unaccompanied by the kindlier qualities of the heart, such a tribute, however deserved, might not, perhaps, have been so uncontestedly paid.  But young Matthews appears,—­in spite of some little asperities of temper and manner, which he was already beginning to soften down when snatched away,—­to have been one of those rare individuals who, while they command deference, can, at the same time, win regard, and who, as it were, relieve the intense feeling of admiration which they excite by blending it with love.

To his religious opinions, and their unfortunate coincidence with those of Lord Byron, I have before adverted.  Like his noble friend, ardent in the pursuit of Truth, he, like him too, unluckily lost his way in seeking her,—­“the light that led astray” being by both friends mistaken for hers.  That in his scepticism he proceeded any farther than Lord Byron, or ever suffered his doubting, but still ingenuous, mind to persuade itself into the “incredible creed” of atheism, is, I find (notwithstanding an assertion in a letter of the noble poet to this effect), disproved by the testimony of those among his relations and friends, who are the most ready to admit and, of course, lament his other heresies;—­nor should I have felt that I had any right to allude thus to the religious opinions of one who had never, by promulgating his heterodoxy, brought himself within the jurisdiction of the public, had not the wrong impression, as it appears, given of those opinions, on the authority of Lord Byron, rendered it an act of justice to both friends to remove the imputation.

In the letters to Mrs. Byron, written previously to the departure of her son on his travels, there occurs, it will be recollected, some mention of a Will, which it was his intention to leave behind him in the hands of his trustees.  Whatever may have been the contents of this former instrument, we find that, in about a fortnight after his mother’s death, he thought it right to have a new form of will drawn up; and the following letter, enclosing his instructions for that purpose, was addressed to the late Mr. Bolton, a solicitor of Nottingham.  Of the existence, in any serious or formal shape, of the strange directions here given, respecting his own interment, I was, for some time, I confess, much inclined to doubt; but the curious documents here annexed put this remarkable instance of his eccentricity beyond all question.

[Footnote 20:  He was the third son of the late John Matthews, Esq. of Belmont, Herefordshire, representative of that county in the parliament of 1802-6.  The author of “The Diary of an Invalid,” also untimely snatched away, was another son of the same gentleman, as is likewise the present Prebendary of Hereford, the Reverend Arthur Matthews, who, by his ability and attainments, sustains worthily the reputation of the name.