that he converted the ground, which used to be covered with the finest
trees, like a forest, into an absolute desert. Not a tree is left
standing, and the wood thus shamefully cut down was sold in one day for
£60,000. The hall of entrance has about eighteen large niches, which had
been filled with statues, and the side walls covered with family
portraits and armour. All these have been mercilessly torn down, as well
as the magnificent fireplace, and sold. All the beautiful paintings
which filled the galleries--valued at that day at £80,000--have
disappeared, and the whole place is crumbling into dust. No sum short of
£100,000 would make the place habitable. Lord Byron's few apartments
contain some modern upholstery, but serve only to show what ought to
have been there. They are now digging round the cloisters for a
traditionary cannon, and in their progress, about five days ago, they
discovered a corpse in too decayed a state to admit of removal. I saw
the drinking-skull [Footnote: When the father of the present Mr. Murray
was a student in Edinburgh, he wrote to his father (April 10,1827): "I
saw yesterday at a jeweller's shop in Edinburgh a great curiosity, no
less than Lord Byron's skull cup, upon which he wrote the poem. It is
for sale; the owner, whose name I could not learn (it appears he does
not wish it known), wants £200 for it."] and the marble mausoleum erected
over Lord Byron's dog. I came away with my heart aching and full of
melancholy reflections--producing a lowness of spirits which I did not
get the better of until this morning, when the most enchanting scenery I
have ever beheld has at length restored me. I am far more surprised that
Lord Byron should ever have lived at Newstead, than that he should be
inclined to part with it; for, as there is no possibility of his being
able, by any reasonable amount of expense, to reinstate it, the place
can present nothing but a perpetual memorial of the wickedness of his
ancestors. There are three, or at most four, domestics at board wages.
All that I was asked to taste was a piece of bread-and-butter. As my