On the whole, the interest of these Conversations, as far as regards Lord Byron, arises not so much from any new or certain lights they supply us with on the subject of his religious opinions, as from the evidence they afford of his amiable facility of intercourse, the total absence of bigotry or prejudice from even his most favourite notions, and—­what may be accounted, perhaps, the next step in conversion to belief itself—­his disposition to believe.  As far, indeed, as a frank submission to the charge of being wrong may be supposed to imply an advance on the road to being right, few persons, it must be acknowledged, under a process of proselytism, ever showed more of this desired symptom of change than Lord Byron.  “I own,” says a witness to one of these conversations[1], “I felt astonished to hear Lord Byron submit to lectures on his life, his vanity, and the uselessness of his talents, which made me stare.”

[Footnote 1:  Mr. Finlay.]

As most persons will be tempted to refer to the work itself, there are but one or two other opinions of his Lordship recorded in it which I shall think necessary to notice here.  A frequent question of his to Dr. Kennedy was,—­“What, then, you think me in a very bad way?”—­the usual answer to which being in the affirmative, he, on one occasion, replied,—­“I am now, however, in a fairer way.  I already believe in predestination, which I know you believe, and in the depravity of the human heart in general, and of my own in particular:—­thus you see there are two points in which we agree.  I shall get at the others by and by; but you cannot expect me to become a perfect Christian at once.”  On the subject of Dr. Southwood’s amiable and, it is to be hoped for the sake of Christianity and the human race, orthodox work on “The Divine Government,” he thus spoke:—­“I cannot decide the point; but to my present apprehension it would be a most desirable thing could it be proved, that ultimately all created beings were to be happy.  This would appear to be most consistent with God, whose power is omnipotent, and whose chief attribute is Love.  I cannot yield to your doctrine of the eternal duration of punishment.  This author’s opinion is more humane, and I think he supports it very strongly from Scripture.”

I shall now insert, with such explanatory remarks as they may seem to require, some of the letters, official as well as private, which his Lordship wrote while at Cephalonia; and from which the reader may collect, in a manner far more interesting than through the medium of any narrative, a knowledge both of the events now passing in Greece, and of the views and feelings with which they were regarded by Lord Byron.

To Madame Guiccioli he wrote frequently, but briefly, and, for the first time, in English; adding always a few lines in her brother Pietro’s letters to her.  The following are extracts.

“October 7.

“Pietro has told you all the gossip of the island,—­our earthquakes, our politics, and present abode in a pretty village.  As his opinions and mine on the Greeks are nearly similar, I need say little on that subject.  I was a fool to come here; but, being here, I must see what is to be done.”