Star.
London, England, 1824-10-25 00:00:00

HIS DAUGHTER.

" What do you think of Ada?' said he, looking ear-
nestly at his daughter's miniature, that hung by the side
of his writing-table. ' They tell me she is like me, but
she has her mother's eyes. It is very odd that my mo-
ther was an only child, and Ada is an only child. It is
a singular coincidence—the least that can be said of it.
I can't help thinking it was destined to be so, and per-
haps k is best. 4 was anxious for a son ; for if 1 had
one he would be a Peer at once, but after our separa-
tion was glad to have a daughter, for it would have
distressed me too much to have taken him away from
Lady Byron, and I could not have trusted her with a
son's education. I have no idea of boys being brought
up by mothers. I suffered too much from that my-
self ; and, then, wande:ing about the world as i do,
I could not take ',toper care of a child; otherwise I
should not have left Allegra, poor little thing, at Ra-
venna. She has been a great resource to me, though I
ant not so fond of her as of' Ada; and yet I mean to make
their fortunes equal—there will be enough for them both.
I have desired in my will that Allegra shall not marry
an Englishman. The Irish and Scotch make better hus-
bands than we do. You will think it was an odd fancy
—but I was not in the hest of humours with my country-
men at that moment. You know the reason. lam told
that Ada is a little termagant ; I hope not. I shall
wane to my sister to know if this is the case. Perhaps
I am wrong in letting Lady Byron have entirely her
own way in her education. I hear that my name is
never mentioned in her presence; that a green curtain
is always kept over my portrait, as something forbidden,
and that she is •not to know that she has a father till
she comes of age. Of course she w ill be taught to hate
me—she will be brought up ta it. Lily Byron is con-
scious of all this, and is afraid that I *ill some day
carry off her daughter by stealth or force. I might
claim her from the Chancellor, without having recourse
.to either one or the other; but I had rather be unhappy
myself than make her mother so. Probably I shall never
see her again!' Hem he opened his writing-desk and
shewed me some hair, which he told me was his child's.
During our drive and ride this evening, be declined our
usual amusement of pistol-firing without giving a cause.
—He hardly spike a wind dining the first half hour,
and it was evident that something weighed heavily on
his mind. There was a sacredness in his melancholy
that I dared not incest upt. At length he said, This
is Ada's birth day, and might have been the happiest
day of my life. As it He stopped, seemingly
a•hamed of having betrayed his feelings. He tried in
vain to rally his stinks by turning the conversation, bin
he created a laugh in which he could not join, and soon
relapsed into his former reverie."
The account of the performances of the last offices
to Mr. Shelley's remains, and the account of Shelley
given by Capt.Medassin, are highly deserving of extract :1
" 18th August, 1822.—0 n the occasion of Shelley's
.
melancholy tate 1 revisited Pisa, and on the day of my
al rival leant that Lord-Byron was gone to the sea-shoie
in assist rn peifni ming' the last Otticett to his filend.
c iYte to a spot r'a'ked by aft old and withered
tr., .k of a fir-tree ; and Tiers it, on 'the'beech, stood a
seat a y t.ut, covered with reeds. The situation was

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. well calculated for poet's grave. A feu "ins before
I had ridden with him and Lord Byron to this very spot,
which I after Wards visited- more than once. In Irma
it was a magnificent extent of the blue and windless
Mediterranean,' with the Isles of Elba and Gorgona---,'
Lord Byron's yacht at anchor in the offing ; on the othe.r
side an almost boundless extent of sandy wilderness,
uncultivated and uninhabited, here and there • inter-
spersed in tufts with underwood curved by the sea-
breeze, arid stunted by the barren and dry nature of the
soil in which it grew. At equal distances along. the
coast stood high square towels,- for the double purpose
of guarding the coast from smuggling, and enforcing
the quarantine laws. This view was bounded by an
immense extent of the Italian Alps, which are here par-
ticularly picturesque from their volcanic and manifold
appearances, and which being composed of white marble,
gave their summits the resemblance of snow.
As a foreground to this picture appeared as extra-
ordinary a group. Lord Byron and Trelawny were
seen standing over the burning pile, with some of the
soldiers cf the guard ; and Leigh Hunt, whose feelings
and nerves could not carry him through the scene of
horror, lying back in the carriage,—the four post-horses
ready to drop with the intensity of the noon-day sun.
The stillness of all around was yet more felt by the
shrill scream of a solitary cutlery, which, perhaps, at-
tracted by the body, wheeled in such narrow circles
round the pile that it might have Leen struck with the
hand, and was so fearless that it could not be driven
away. Looking at the corpse, Lord Byron said,
" 1 Why, that old silk handkerchief retains its form
better titan that human body I'
" Scarcely was the ceremony concluded, when Lord
Byron, agitated by the spectacle he had witnessed, tried
to dissipate, in some degree, the impressio❑ of it by his
favourite recreation. He took off his clothes therefore,
and swam off to his yacht, which was riding a few
miles distant.
Discussing the different actors of the day, he said—
" Dowton, who hated Kean, used to say that his
Othelo reminded him of Obi, or Three:fingered Jack
—not Othello. But, whatever his Othello might have
been, Garrick himself never surpassed him in logo."

" Kean began by acting Richard the Third when
quite a boy, and gave all the promise of what he after-
wards became. Hi, Sir Giles Overreach was a wonder-
ful performance. The actresses were afraid of him; and
he was afterwards so much exhausted himself, that he
fell into fits. This, lam told, was the case with Miss
O'Neill."
" Kemble did much towards the reform of our stage.
Classical costume was almost unknown before he under-
took to revise the dresses. Garrick used to act Othello
in a red coat and epaulettes, and other characters had
prescriptive habits equally ridiculous. I can conceive
nothing equal to Kemble's Coriolanus ; and he looked
the Roman so well, that even' Cato,' cold and :auk
as it is, had a run."