he did not, it seems, think him of sufficient station in the trade to
give a sanction or fashion to his more hazardous experiment. The former
refusal of the Messrs. Longman[14] to publish his "English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers" was not forgotten; and he expressly stipulated with
Mr. Dallas that the manuscript should not be offered to that house. An
application was, at first, made to Mr. Miller, of Albemarle Street; but,
in consequence of the severity with which Lord Elgin was treated in the
poem, Mr. Miller (already the publisher and bookseller of this latter
nobleman) declined the work. Even this circumstance,--so apprehensive
was the poet for his fame,--began to re-awaken all the qualms and
terrors he had, at first, felt; and, had any further difficulties or
objections arisen, it is more than probable he might have relapsed into
his original intention. It was not long, however, before a person was
found willing and proud to undertake the publication. Mr. Murray, who,
at this period, resided in Fleet Street, having, some time before,
expressed a desire to be allowed to publish some work of Lord Byron, it
was in his hands that Mr. Dallas now placed the manuscript of Childe
Harold;--and thus was laid the first foundation of that connection
between this gentleman and the noble poet, which continued, with but a
temporary interruption, throughout the lifetime of the one, and has
proved an abundant source of honour, as well as emolument, to the other.

While thus busily engaged in his literary projects, and having, besides,
some law affairs to transact with his agent, he was called suddenly away
to Newstead by the intelligence of an event which seems to have affected
his mind far more deeply than, considering all the circumstances of the
case, could have been expected. Mrs. Byron, whose excessive corpulence
rendered her, at all times, rather a perilous subject for illness, had
been of late indisposed, but not to any alarming degree; nor does it
appear that, when the following note was written, there existed any