’Having taken upon me to order the repast, and knowing that Lord Byron for the last two days had done nothing towards sustenance beyond eating a few biscuits and (to appease appetite) chewing mastic, I desired that we should have a good supply of at least two kinds of fish.  My companion, however, confined himself to lobsters; and of these finished two or three, to his own share, interposing, sometimes, a small liqueur-glass of strong white brandy, sometimes a tumbler of very hot water, and then pure brandy again, to the amount of near half a dozen small glasses of the latter, without which, alternately with the hot water, he appeared to think the lobster could not be digested.  After this, we had claret, of which, having despatched two bottles between us, at about four o’clock in the morning we parted.

   ’As Pope has thought his “delicious lobster-nights” worth
   commemorating, these particulars of one in which Lord Byron was
   concerned may also have some interest.

’Among other nights of the same description which I had the happiness of passing with him, I remember once, in returning home from some assembly at rather a late hour, we saw lights in the windows of his old haunt, Stevens’s in Bond Street, and agreed to stop there and sup.  On entering, we found an old friend of his, Sir G——­ W——­, who joined our party; and, the lobsters and brandy and water being put in requisition, it was (as usual on such occasions) broad daylight before we separated.’—­Vol. iii. p.83.

During the latter part of Lady Byron’s pregnancy, it appears from Moore that Byron was, night after night, engaged out at dinner parties, in which getting drunk was considered as of course the finale, as appears from the following letters:—­

(LETTER 228.)

TO MR. MOORE.

’TERRACE, PICCADILLY, OCT. 31,1815.

’I have not been able to ascertain precisely the time of duration of the stock-market; but I believe it is a good time for selling out, and I hope so.  First, because I shall see you; and, next, because I shall receive certain moneys on behalf of Lady B., the which will materially conduce to my comfort; I wanting (as the duns say) “to make up a sum.”

’Yesterday I dined out with a large-ish party, where were Sheridan and Colman, Harry Harris, of C. G., and his brother, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Ds.  Kinnaird, and others of note and notoriety.  Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, * then altogethery, then inarticulate, and then drunk.  When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling; and, to crown all, Kinnaird and I had to conduct Sheridan down a d—–­d corkscrew staircase, which had certainly been constructed before the discovery of fermented liquors, and to which no legs, however crooked, could possibly accommodate