“P.S.  I have written this most illegibly; but it is to beg you to destroy the print, and have another ‘by particular desire.’  It must be d——­d bad, to be sure, since every body says so but the original; and he don’t know what to say.  But do do it:  that is, burn the plate, and employ a new etcher from the other picture.  This is stupid and sulky.”

* * * * *

On his arrival in town, he had, upon enquiring into the state of his affairs, found them in so utterly embarrassed a condition as to fill him with some alarm, and even to suggest to his mind the prudence of deferring his marriage.  The die was, however, cast, and he had now no alternative but to proceed.  Accordingly, at the end of December, accompanied by his friend Mr. Hobhouse, he set out for Seaham, the seat of Sir Ralph Milbanke, the lady’s father, in the county of Durham, and on the 2d of January, 1815, was married.

         “I saw him stand
    Before an altar with a gentle bride;
    Her face was fair, but was not that which made
    The Starlight of his Boyhood;—­as he stood
    Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came
    The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock
    That in the antique Oratory shook
    His bosom in its solitude; and then—­
    As in that hour—­a moment o’er his face,
    The tablet of unutterable thoughts
    Was traced,—­and then it faded as it came,
    And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
    The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
    And all things reel’d around him; he could see
    Not that which was, nor that which should have been—­
    But the old mansion, and the accustom’d hall,
    And the remember’d chambers, and the place,
    The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
    All things pertaining to that place and hour,
    And her, who was his destiny, came back,
    And thrust themselves between him and the light:—­
    What business had they there at such a time?"[62]

This touching picture agrees so closely in many of its circumstances, with his own prose account of the wedding in his Memoranda, that I feel justified in introducing it, historically, here.  In that Memoir, he described himself as waking, on the morning of his marriage, with the most melancholy reflections, on seeing his wedding-suit spread out before him.  In the same mood, he wandered about the grounds alone, till he was summoned for the ceremony, and joined, for the first time on that day, his bride and her family.  He knelt down, he repeated the words after the clergyman; but a mist was before his eyes,—­his thoughts were elsewhere; and he was but awakened by the congratulations of the bystanders, to find that he was—­married.

The same morning, the wedded pair left Seaham for Halnaby, another seat of Sir Ralph Milbanke, in the same county.  When about to depart, Lord Byron said to the bride, “Miss Milbanke, are you ready?”—­a mistake which the lady’s confidential attendant pronounced to be a “bad omen.”