“My epitaph shall be my name alone;
    If that with honour fail to crown my clay,
    Oh may no other fame my deeds repay;
    That, only that, shall single out the spot,
    By that remember’d, or with that forgot.”

In the autumn of 1802, he passed a short time with his mother at Bath, and entered, rather prematurely, into some of the gaieties of the place.  At a masquerade given by Lady Riddel, he appeared in the character of a Turkish boy,—­a sort of anticipation, both in beauty and costume, of his own young Selim, in “The Bride.”  On his entering into the house, some person in the crowd attempted to snatch the diamond crescent from his turban, but was prevented by the prompt interposition of one of the party.  The lady who mentioned to me this circumstance, and who was well acquainted with Mrs. Byron at that period, adds the following remark in the communication with which she has favoured me:—­“At Bath I saw a good deal of Lord Byron,—­his mother frequently sent for me to take tea with her.  He was always very pleasant and droll, and, when conversing about absent friends, showed a slight turn for satire, which after-years, as is well known, gave a finer edge to.”

We come now to an event in his life which, according to his own deliberate persuasion, exercised a lasting and paramount influence over the whole of his subsequent character and career.

It was in the year 1803 that his heart, already twice, as we have seen, possessed with the childish notion that it loved, conceived an attachment which—­young as he was, even then, for such a feeling—­sunk so deep into his mind as to give a colour to all his future life.  That unsuccessful loves are generally the most lasting, is a truth, however sad, which unluckily did not require this instance to confirm it.  To the same cause, I fear, must be traced the perfect innocence and romance which distinguish this very early attachment to Miss Chaworth from the many others that succeeded, without effacing it in his heart;—­making it the only one whose details can be entered into with safety, or whose results, however darkening their influence on himself, can be dwelt upon with pleasurable interest by others.

On leaving Bath, Mrs. Byron took up her abode, in lodgings, at Nottingham,—­Newstead Abbey being at that time let to Lord Grey de Ruthen,—­and during the Harrow vacations of this year, she was joined there by her son.  So attached was he to Newstead, that even to be in its neighbourhood was a delight to him; and before he became acquainted with Lord Grey, he used sometimes to sleep, for a night, at the small house near the gate which is still known by the name of “The Hut."[35] An intimacy, however, soon sprang up between him and his noble tenant, and an apartment in the abbey was from thenceforth always at his service.  To the family of Miss Chaworth, who resided at Annesley, in the immediate neighbourhood of Newstead, he had been made known, some time before,