Page:Journal of Conversations with Lord Byron.pdf/63

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with Lord Byron.
51

ken one, in some of my old Glens where I used to dream in my former excursions. I should prefer a gray Greek stone over me to Westminster Abbey; but I doubt if I shall have the luck to die so happily. A lease of my 'body's length' is all the land which I should covet in that quarter.

"What the Honorable Dug [1] and his Committee may decide, I do not know, and still less what I may decide (for I am not famous for decision) for myself; but if I could do any good in any way, I should be happy to contribute thereto, and without éclat. I have seen enough of that in my time, to rate it at its value. I wish you were upon that Committee, for I think you would set them going one way or the other; at present they seem a little dormant. I dare not venture to dine with you to-morrow, nor indeed any day this week; for three days of dinners during the last seven days, have made me so head-achy and sulky, that it will take me a whole Lent to subside again into any thing like independence of sensation from the pressure of materialism. *** But I shall take my chance of finding you the first fair morning for a visit. Ever yours,

"NOEL BYRON."

"MAY 7, 1823.

"MY DEAR LORD: I return the poesy, which

  1. His abridgment for Douglas Kinnaird.