“Believe me, dear Madam, yours very sincerely,

“BYRON.

“P.S.  I go to London to-morrow.”

The cornelian heart was, of course, returned, and Lord Byron, at the same time, reminded that he had left it with Miss ——­]

[Footnote 74:  In the Collection of his Poems printed for private circulation, he had inserted some severe verses on Dr. Butler, which he omitted in the subsequent publication,—­at the same time explaining why he did so, in a note little less severe than the verses.]

[Footnote 75:  This first attempt of Lord Byron at reviewing (for it will be seen that he, once or twice afterwards, tried his hand at this least poetical of employments) is remarkable only as showing how plausibly he could assume the established tone and phraseology of these minor judgment-seats of criticism.  For instance:—­“The volumes before us are by the author of Lyrical Ballads, a collection which has not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public applause.  The characteristics of Mr. Wordsworth’s muse are simple and flowing, though occasionally inharmonious, verse,—­strong and sometimes irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments.  Though the present work may not equal his former efforts, many of the poems possess a native elegance,” &c. &c. &c.  If Mr. Wordsworth ever chanced to cast his eye over this article, how little could he have suspected that under that dull prosaic mask lurked one who, in five short years from thence, would rival even him in poetry.]

[Footnote 76:  This plan (which he never put in practice) had been talked of by him before he left Southwell, and is thus noticed in a letter of his fair correspondent to her brother:—­“How can you ask if Lord B. is going to visit the Highlands in the summer?  Why, don’t you know that he never knows his own mind for ten minutes together?  I tell him he is as fickle as the winds, and as uncertain as the waves.”]

[Footnote 77:  We observe here, as in other parts of his early letters, that sort of display and boast of rakishness which is but too common a folly at this period of life, when the young aspirant to manhood persuades himself that to be profligate is to be manly.  Unluckily, this boyish desire of being thought worse than he really was, remained with Lord Byron, as did some other feelings and foibles of his boyhood, long after the period when, with others, they are past and forgotten; and his mind, indeed, was but beginning to outgrow them, when he was snatched away.]

[Footnote 78:  The poem afterwards enlarged and published under the title of “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.”  It appears from this that the ground-work of that satire had been laid some time before the appearance of the article in the Edinburgh Review.]

[Footnote 79:  Sept. 1807.  This Review, in pronouncing upon the young author’s future career, showed itself somewhat more “prophet-like” than the great oracle of the North.  In noticing the Elegy on Newstead Abbey, the writer says, “We could not but hail, with something of prophetic rapture, the hope conveyed in the closing stanza:—­