as devoid of public virtue, and actuated by avarice or personal ambition.  This intelligence was certainly not calculated to increase Lord Byron’s ardour, and may partly excuse the causes of his personal inactivity.  I say personal, because he had written to London to accelerate the attempt to raise a loan, and, at the suggestion of Colonel Stanhope, he addressed a letter to Mavrocordato respecting the inevitable consequences of their calamitous dissensions.  The object of this letter was to induce a reconciliation between the rival factions, or to throw the odium, of having thwarted the loan, upon the Executive, and thereby to degrade the members of it in the opinion of the people.  “I am very uneasy,” said his Lordship to the prince, “at hearing that the dissensions of Greece still continue; and at a moment when she might triumph over everything in general, as she has triumphed in part.  Greece is at present placed between three measures; either to reconquer her liberty, or to become a dependence of the sovereigns of Europe, or to return to a Turkish province; she has already the choice only of these three alternatives.  Civil war is but a road which leads to the two latter.  If she is desirous of the fate of Wallachia and the Crimea, she may obtain it to-morrow; if that of Italy, the day after.  But if she wishes to become truly Greece, free and independent, she must resolve to-day, or she will never again have the opportunity,” etc., etc.

Meanwhile, the Greek people became impatient for Lord Byron to come among them.  They looked forward to his arrival as to the coming of a Messiah.  Three boats were successively despatched for him and two of them returned, one after the other, without him.  On the 29th of December, 1823, however, his Lordship did at last embark.

CHAPTER XLIII

Lord Byron’s Conversations on Religion with Dr Kennedy

While Lord Byron was hesitating, in the Island of Cephalonia, about proceeding to Greece, an occurrence took place, of which much has been made.  I allude to the acquaintance he formed with a Dr Kennedy, the publication of whose conversations with him on religion has attracted some degree of public attention.

This gentleman was originally destined for the Scottish bar, but afterwards became a student of medicine, and entering the medical department of the army, happened to be stationed in Cephalonia when Lord Byron arrived.  He appears to have been a man of kind dispositions, possessed of a better heart than judgment; in all places wherever his duty bore him he took a lively interest in the condition of the inhabitants, and was active, both in his official and private capacity, to improve it.  He had a taste for circulating pious tracts, and zealously co-operated in distributing copies of the Scriptures.