LORD BYRON AT MISSOLONGHI.

[The Foreign Quarterly Review gives the following sketch as a “pendant to Mr. Pouqueville’s picture of the poet, given in a preceding page,” and requoted by us in the last No. of the MIRROR.  It is from a History of Greece, by Rizo, a Wallachian sentimentalist of the first order, and in enthusiasm and exuberance of style, it will perhaps compare with any previous sketches of the late Lord Byron:  but the romantic interest which Rizo has thrown about these “more last words” will doubtless render them acceptable to our readers.]

For several years a man, a poet, excited the admiration of civilized people.  His sublime genius towered above the atmosphere, and penetrated, with a searching look, even into the deepest abysses of the human heart.  Envy, which could not reach the poet, attacked the man, and wounded him cruelly; but, too great to defend, and too generous to revenge himself, he only sought for elevated impressions, and “vivoit de grand sensations,” (which we cannot translate), capable of the most noble devotedness, and, persuaded that excellence is comprised in justice, he embraced the cause of the Greeks.  Still young, Byron had traversed Greece, properly so called, and described the moral picture of its inhabitants.  He quitted these countries, pitying in his verses the misery of the Greeks, blaming their lethargy, and despising their stupid submission; so difficult is it to know a nation by a rapid glance.  What was the astonishment of the poet, when some years later he saw these people, whom he had thought unworthy to bear the name of Greeks, rise up with simultaneous eagerness, and declare, in the face of the world, that “they would again become a nation.”  Byron hesitated at first; ancient prepossessions made him attribute this rupture to a partial convulsion, the ultimate effort of a being ready to breathe the last sigh.  Soon new prodigies, brilliant exploits, and heroic constancy, which sustained itself in spite of every opposition, proved to him that he had ill-judged this people, and excited him to repair his error by the sacrifice of his fortune and life; he wished to concur in the work of regeneration.  From the shores of the beautiful Etruria he set sail for Greece, in the month of August, 1823.  He visited at first the seven Ionian Isles, where he sojourned some time, busied in concluding the first Greek loan.  The death of Marco Botzaris redoubled the enthusiasm of Byron, and perhaps determined him to prefer the town of Missolonghi, which already showed for its glory the tombs of Normann, Kyriakoulis, and Botzaris.  Alas! that town was destined, four months later, to reckon another mausoleum!