Notes for the Month. [MARCH, 



occasion, Mr. Hunt determines, at once, to reform this folly; and quotes 

 to him, when he says " Why, Sir !" Peter Pindar's parodies 



" Dear Dr. Johnson was in size an ox !" &c. 



Which passages, " excellent as they were" (Mr. Hunt adds, with much 

 simplicity) " his lordship hardly seemed to relish ! " 



It was not by Mr. Hunt alone, neither, that Lord Byron (in his own 

 house) was to be taught, that the habits and opinions common to persons 

 in his condition were entirely ridiculous and erroneous ! Mrs. Hunt also 

 " was destitute, in a remarkable degree, of all care about rank and titles." 

 " In fact, absolutely unimpressible in that respect/ 7 Her " indifference" 

 to all "conventional distinctions and pretensions, partook of that sense 

 of the ludicrous, which is so natural to persons to whom they" (the 

 distinctions) " are of no consequence, and so provoking to those who 

 regard them otherwise \" &c. &c. Lord Byron, it is stated, further on, 

 very speedily discerned that he did not " stand very high" in this lady's 

 " good graces." " As / oftener went," says Mr. Hunt, " to his part of 

 the house, than he came to mine, he seldom saw her : and when he did, 

 the conversation was awkward on his side, and provokingly self-possessed 

 on hers !" " He said to her one day ' What do you think, Mrs. Hunt? 

 Trelawney has been speaking against my morals !" ' It is the first time* 

 said Mrs. Hunt, ' / ever heard of them' This completely dashed and 

 reduced him to silence !" A bowl of water would have " dashed" Sir 

 William Garrow " into silence :" but there is a difference between a bowl 

 of water and a witticism, notwithstanding. 



But we go beyond " Mrs." Hunt. ""The children," (this is still in 

 Byron's own dwelling place !) " than whom I will venture to say, that 

 it was impossible to have quieter or more respectable in any house, he 

 (Byron) pronounced to be impracticable !" Honest man ! Misere 

 sucurrere ! Our opinion of " boys" has appeared in this Magazine before 

 to-day ! 



The worst of it was, that, when they (the children) came in his way, 

 they were nothing daunted. They had lived in a natural, not an artificial 

 state of intercourse, and were equally sprightly, respectful, and self-, 

 possessed : 



" My eldest boy surprised him" (this is still Byron) " with his 

 address ! never losing his singleness of manner," &c. &c. On another 

 occasion, his lordship utters something so weak and ridiculous, that 

 " my two eldest boys, who are in the next room, were obliged to stifle 

 their laughter." The satisfaction of possessing such inmates, must be 

 obviously indescribable ! 



And, by the time the " boys" have done " surprising' 7 him, Mr. Hunt 

 himself is ready again. In another place, our author proceeds, Lord 

 Byron was " very bitter upon some friends of mine ; criticising their 

 personal appearance, and that in no good taste. All this provoked me 

 to mortify him ; and I asked him, " If he knew what Mrs. Hunt had 

 said one day to the Shelleys of his picture by Harlowe ? It is \he fasti- 

 dious, scornful portrait of him, affectedly looking down. He said ( he 

 did not ; and was curious to know.' An engraving of it, I told him, 

 was shewn her ; and her opinion asked : upon which she observed, that 

 ' it resembled a great schoolboy, who had had a plain bun given him 

 instead of a plum one.' He looked as blank as possible ; and never 

 again criticised the personal appearance of those whom / regarded !" 



