collisions, there existed a real affection, while the warmth of his love
for his half-sister Augusta, who had much of her brother's power of
winning affection, lost nothing in its permanence from the rarity of
their personal intercourse. Outside the family circle, the volume
introduces the only two men among his contemporaries who remained his
lifelong friends. In his affection for Lord Clare, whom he very rarely
saw after leaving school, there was a tinge of romance, and in him Byron
seems to have personified the best memories of an idealized Harrow. In
Hobhouse he found at once the truest and the most intimate of his
friends, a man whom he both liked and respected, and to whose opinion
and judgment he repeatedly deferred. On Hobhouse's side, the sentiment
which induced him, eminently sensible and practical as he was, to
treasure the nosegay which Byron had given him, long after it was
withered, shows how attractive must have been the personality of the
donor.

Without the 'Dictionary of National Biography', the labour of preparing
the letters for the press would be trebled. Both in the facts which it
supplies, and in the sources of information which it suggests, it is an
invaluable aid.

In conclusion, I desire to express my special obligations to Lord
Lovelace and Mr. Richard Edgcumbe, who have read the greater part of the
proofs, and to both of whom I am indebted for several useful
suggestions.

R. E. PROTHERO.

March, 1898.