The Sun.
London, England, 1824-10-25 00:00:00

LORD BYRON.

The following passages in the life of this
Nobleman are extracted from Capt. MEDWIN'S
notes of his Lordship's Conversations :
" I was not so young when my father died, but that I p2r.
feetly remember him ; and had very-early a horror of matri-
mony, from the s;ght of domestic broils : thls feeling came over
me very strongly at my wedding. Something whispered me
that I was sealing my own death-warrant. I tun a great be-
liever in presentiments.

" The day before I proposed to Lady Byron, I had no idea

of doing so..

" I lost my father when I was only six years of age. My
mother, when she was in a rage with me (and I gave her cause
enough) used to say, ' Alt, you hula dog, you are a Byron all
over; you are as bad as your father. * * But, in fact,
my father was, ih his youth, any thing but a' Ctelebs in search
of a wife.' He would have made a bad hero for Hannah
More. He ran out three fortunes, and married or ran away
with three women, and once wanted a guinea; that he wrote
for. I have the note.

" You have heard the unfortunate story of his duel with his
relation and neighbour. After that melancholy event he shut
himself up at Newstead, . and was in the habit of feeding
crickets, which were his only companions. lie made them so
tame as to crawl over him, and used to whip them with a wisp
of straw, if too familiar. When he died, tradition says that
they left the house in a body.
• • • •

" I never wrote any thing worth mentioning till I was in love.
•
yDoaunntge dateswh when
sfel
l passionoe over
e head forrsatin love; but I anticipate.
twelve: I was almost as
I was sent to Harrow at 12, and spent my vacations at Newstead.
It was there that I first saw ;'Mary C—. She was several years
older than myself; but at my age boys like something older than
cd : but owing to the unhappy circumstances of the feud to
as they do younger, later is: life. Our estates adjoin-
wthheicnislellvbeesfore alluded, our families (as is generally the case with
neighbours who happen to be relations) were never on terms of
more than common civility—scarcely those. I passed the sum-
mer vacation of this year among the 'Malvern hills; those were
days of romance ! She was the beau ideal of all that my youth.
ful fancy could paint of beautiful; and I have taken all my
fables about the celestial nature of women from the perfection
my imagination created in her—l say created, for I found her,
like the rest ocher sex, any thing but angelic.
•
cc Venice," said he, " I detest • every recollection of the place,
the reopy, anti my pursuits. I there mixed again in society,
trod again the old ground of converzationes, balls, and con-
certs, was every night at the opera, a constant frequenter at the
Ridotta during the carnival, and, in short, entered into all the
dissipation of that luxurious place. Every thing in a Venetian
life—its gondolas, its efreminating indolence, its Siroccus,—tend
to enervate the mind and body."
• • • •
" Women were there,. as they have ever been fated to be,
my bane. Like Napoleon, 1 have always had a great con-
tempt for women; anti formed this opinion of then; not hastily,
but from my own fatal experience.
• • •
" The Turks and Eastern people manage these matters
better than we do. They lock them up, and they are much
happier. Give a woman a looking-glass and a few sugar-
plums, and she will be satisfied.
" 1 have•sufFered from the other sex ever since I can remem-
ber any thing. I began by being jilted, and ended by being
unwived. Those are wisest who make no connection of wife
or mistress."

" I always took great delight," observed he, " in the Eng-
lish Cathedral service. It cannot fail to inspire every man,
who feels at all, with devotion. Notwithstanding which, Chris-
tianity is not the best source of inspiration for a poet. No
poet should be tied down to a direct profession of faith. Meta-
physics open a vast field ; Nature, and anti-Mosaical specula-
tions on the origin of the world, a wide range, and sources of
poetry that are shut out 1;
iy Christianiti."
a 9

Another time he said, " One mode of worship yields to an-
other; no religion has lasted more than two thousand years.—
Out of the eight hundred millions that the globe contains, only
two hundred millions are Christians. Query—Vi'hat is to be-
come of the six hundred millions that do not believe, and of
those incalculable millions that lived before Christ ?

" People at home are mad about 111 issionary Societies, and
missions to the East, I have been applied to, to subscribe, se-
veral times since, and once before I left England. The Catholic
Priests have been labouring hard for nearly a century; but
what have they done ? Out of eighty millions of Hindoos, how
many proselytes have been made ? Sir J. Malcolm said, at
Murray's, before several persons, that the Padres, as he called
them, had only Made six converts at Bombay during his time,
and that even this black little flock forsook their shepherds
when the rum was out. Their faith evaporated with the fumes
of the arrack."

" I should most likely hare passed the remainder of my life
in Turkey, if I had not been called home by my mother's
death and my affairs," said he. " I mean to return to Greece,
and shall in all probability die there."

THE REV. AIEXAM/1M FLETCHEII.—At the
conclusion of service at Albion Chapel yeaterilay morning, Mr.
FLErctiEn addressed hiss congregation to the following effect :
—He thought it was time that he should lay before them and
the religious Public of London, and likewise his deluded friends
in Scotland, a correct and faithful exposition of facts in ad-
dition to what he might call his " defence." It should be
in the press in the course of the week, and would be published
as soon as possible. There were various kinds of judges who
were bad judges. Some men would hear nothing but what was
favourable to a particular party : they could not be called
just judges. Others would
. hear only what was unfavourable :
they were as unjust as the former. Others judged and condemned
without inquiry; and others proceeded upon false writhes, and
would not consent to be set. right. He regretted that in this
great and enlightened capital there were. individuals to be found
the paper for publica-
haewtllleprefore hoped they would
who were anxious to condemn a man without hearing any thing
itninnhiws
i favour.care
and
detoan ddr
undergo a strict scrutiny : it would be seen that lie had been a
faithful historian, even when he considered himself blameable.
—But he hoped that be should
. be able to convince his readers
attention intended
that he was not blameable with respect to most of the things laid
to his charge, and even if he were (looking at his conduct in the
worst point of view), was there to be no forgivenness ? He
misted, however, that he should . succeed in convincing his con-
gregation that he had done right assuming and maintaining
the bold line of conduct which he had adopted. His themies
had employed three engines to separate him from his congrega-
tion. The first was a legal action —that had not succeeded ;
the second was ecclesiastic censure, determined on without evi-
dence in his favour being heard—that had not succeeded the
third was the freedom of the press of England—that would not
succeed, for what had been free to them was also free to him.'

Komi the LONDON GAZETTE, Oct. (23.

BANKRUPTS.

%V. Hassan, Newgate-street, hatter, to Rurremler Oct. 30,
Nov. 6, Dec. 4. at the Bankrupts' Court, Basinghall-street.--
Solicitor, Mr. Richardson, Walbrook.
L. Abrahams, Mansell-street, Goodman's-fields, merchant,
Oct. 30, Nov. 13, Dec. 4, at the Bankrupts' Court, Basing-
hall-street. Solicitor, Mr. Noel, Great Ormond-street Queen-
.
square.
J. Tickner, Padnall-corner, .Essex, horse-dealer, Oct. 30,
Nov. 6, Dec. 4, at the Bankrupts' Court, Basinghall-street.—
Solicitor, Mr. Jones, Size-lane.
S. G. Jackson, Loughborough, Leicestershire, corn-mer-
chant, Nov. 5,6, Dec. 4, at the Star Inn, Manchester. Soli.
citors, Messrs. Atllington, Gregory, and Faulkner, Bedford-
row.