To this letter the following note from Lord Byron was appended:—­

“My dear Bridget,

“I have only just dismounted from my Pegasus, which has prevented me from descending to plain prose in an epistle of greater length to your fair self.  You regretted, in a former letter, that my poems were not more extensive; I now for your satisfaction announce that I have nearly doubled them, partly by the discovery of some I conceived to be lost, and partly by some new productions.  We shall meet on Wednesday next; till then believe me yours affectionately,

“BYRON.”

“P.S.—­Your brother John is seized with a poetic mania, and is now rhyming away at the rate of three lines per hour—­so much for inspiration!  Adieu!”

By the gentleman, who was thus early the companion and intimate of Lord Byron, and who is now pursuing his profession with the success which his eminent talents deserve, I have been favoured with some further recollections of their visit together to Harrowgate, which I shall take the liberty of giving in his own words:—­

“You ask me to recall some anecdotes of the time we spent together at Harrowgate in the summer of 1806, on our return from college, he from Cambridge, and I from Edinburgh; but so many years have elapsed since then, that I really feel myself as if recalling a distant dream.  We, I remember, went in Lord Byron’s own carriage, with post-horses; and he sent his groom with two saddle-horses, and a beautifully formed, very ferocious, bull-mastiff, called Nelson, to meet us there.  Boatswain[53] went by the side of his valet Frank on the box, with us.

“The bull-dog, Nelson, always wore a muzzle, and was occasionally sent for into our private room, when the muzzle was taken off, much to my annoyance, and he and his master amused themselves with throwing the room into disorder.  There was always a jealous feud between this Nelson and Boatswain; and whenever the latter came into the room while the former was there, they instantly seized each other:  and then, Byron, myself, Frank, and all the waiters that could be found, were vigorously engaged in parting them,—­which was in general only effected by thrusting poker and tongs into the mouths of each.  But, one day, Nelson unfortunately escaped out of the room without his muzzle, and going into the stable-yard fastened upon the throat of a horse, from which he could not be disengaged.  The stable-boys ran in alarm to find Frank, who taking one of his Lord’s Wogdon’s pistols, always kept loaded in his room, shot poor Nelson through the head, to the great regret of Byron.