was so puffed out with alien substance that I could not feel as if I
had touched the hand that wrote Childe Harold.

On my entrance his lordship apologized for not rising to receive me,
on the sufficient plea that the gout for several years past had
taken up its constant residence in his right foot, which accordingly
was swathed in many rolls of flannel and deposited upon a cushion.
The other foot was hidden in the drapery of his chair. Do you
recollect whether Byron's right or left foot was the deformed one.

The noble poet's reconciliation with Lady Byron is now, as you are
aware, of ten years' standing; nor does it exhibit, I am assured,
any symptom of breach or fracture. They are said to be, if not a
happy, at least a contented, or at all events a quiet couple,
descending the slope of life with that tolerable degree of mutual
support which will enable them to come easily and comfortably to the
bottom. It is pleasant to reflect how entirely the poet has
redeemed his youthful errors in this particular. Her ladyship's
influence, it rejoices me to add, has been productive of the
happiest results upon Lord Byron in a religious point of view. He
now combines the most rigid tenets of Methodism with the ultra
doctrines of the Puseyites; the former being perhaps due to the
convictions wrought upon his mind by his noble consort, while the
latter are the embroidery and picturesque illumination demanded by
his imaginative character. Much of whatever expenditure his
increasing habits of thrift continue to allow him is bestowed in the
reparation or beautifying of places of worship; and this nobleman,
whose name was once considered a synonyme of the foul fiend, is now
all but canonized as a saint in many pulpits of the metropolis and
elsewhere. In politics, Lord Byron is an uncompromising