On the 4th, the last of the long list of Byron’s letters to Moore resents, with some bitterness, the hasty acceptance of a rumour that he had been quietly writing Don Juan in some Ionian island.  At the same date he writes to Kennedy, “I am not unaware of the precarious state of my health.  But it is proper I should remain in Greece, and it were better to die doing something than nothing.”  Visions of enlisting Europe and America on behalf of the establishment of a new state, that might in course of time develope itself over the realm of Alexander, floated and gleamed in his fancy; but in his practical daily procedure the poet took as his text the motto “festina lente,” insisted on solid ground under his feet, and had no notion of sailing balloons over the sea.  With this view he discouraged Stanhope’s philanthropic and propagandist paper, the Telegrapho, and disparaged Dr. Mayor, its Swiss editor, saying, “Of all petty tyrants he is one of the pettiest, as are most demagogues.”  Byron had none of the Sclavonic leanings, and almost personal hatred of Ottoman rule, of some of our statesmen; but he saw on what side lay the forces and the hopes of the future.  “I cannot calculate,” he said to Gamba, during one of their latest rides together, “to what a height Greece may rise.  Hitherto it has been a subject for the hymns and elegies of fanatics and enthusiasts; but now it will draw the attention of the politician....  At present there is little difference, in many respects, between Greeks and Turks, nor could there be; but the latter must, in the common course of events, decline in power; and the former must as inevitably become better....  The English Government deceived itself at first in thinking it possible to maintain the Turkish Empire in its integrity; but it cannot be done, that unwieldy mass is already putrified, and must dissolve.  If anything like an equilibrium is to be upheld, Greece must be supported.”  These words have been well characterized as prophetic.  During this time Byron rallied in health, and displayed much of his old spirit, vivacity, and humour, took part in such of his favourite amusements as circumstances admitted, fencing, shooting, riding, and playing with his pet dog Lion.  The last of his recorded practical jokes is his rolling about cannon balls, and shaking the rafters, to frighten Parry in the room below with the dread of an earthquake.

Towards the close of the month, after being solicited to accompany Mavrocordatos, to share the governorship of the Morea, he made an appointment to meet Colonel Stanhope and Odysseus at Salona, but was prevented from keeping it by violent floods which blocked up the communication.  On the 30th he was presented with the freedom of the city of Mesolonghi.  On the 3rd of April he intervened to prevent an Italian private, guilty of theft, from being flogged by order of some German officers.  On the 9th, exhilarated by a letter from Mrs. Leigh with good accounts of