[Footnote 101:  To this masquerade he went in the habit of a Caloyer, or Eastern monk,—­a dress particularly well calculated to set off the beauty of his fine countenance, which was accordingly, that night, the subject of general admiration.]

[Footnote 102:  In his Memoranda there were equally enthusiastic praises of Curran.  “The riches,” said he, “of his Irish imagination were exhaustless.  I have heard that man speak more poetry than I have ever seen written,—­though I saw him seldom and but occasionally.  I saw him presented to Madame de Stael at Mackintosh’s;—­it was the grand confluence between the Rhone and the Saone, and they were both so d——­d ugly, that I could not help wondering how the best intellects of France and Ireland could have taken up respectively such residences.”

In another part, however, he was somewhat more fair to Madame de Stael’s personal appearance:—­“Her figure was not bad; her legs tolerable; her arms good.  Altogether, I can conceive her having been a desirable woman, allowing a little imagination for her soul, and so forth.  She would have made a great man.”]

* * * * *

We now approach the close of this eventful period of his history.  In a note to Mr. Rogers, written a short time before his departure for Ostend[103], he says,—­“My sister is now with me, and leaves town to-morrow:  we shall not meet again for some time, at all events—­if ever; and, under these circumstances, I trust to stand excused to you and Mr. Sheridan for being unable to wait upon him this evening.”

This was his last interview with his sister,—­almost the only person from whom he now parted with regret; it being, as he said, doubtful which had given him most pain, the enemies who attacked or the friends who condoled with him.  Those beautiful and most tender verses, “Though the day of my destiny’s over,” were now his parting tribute to her[104] who, through all this bitter trial, had been his sole consolation; and, though known to most readers, so expressive are they of his wounded feelings at this crisis, that there are few, I think, who will object to seeing some stanzas of them here.

    “Though the rock of my last hope is shiver’d,
      And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
    Though I feel that my soul is deliver’d
      To pain—­it shall not be its slave. 
    There is many a pang to pursue me: 
      They may crush, but they shall not contemn—­
    They may torture, but shall not subdue me—­
      ’Tis of thee that I think—­not of them.

    “Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
      Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
    Though lov’d, thou forborest to grieve me,
      Though slander’d, thou never couldst shake,
    Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
      Though parted, it was not to fly,
    Though watchful, ’twas not to defame me,
      Nor mute, that the world might belie.