If he would but marry, I would
engage never to marry myself, or cut him out of the heirship. He would
be happier, and I should like nephews better than sons.
I shall soon be six-and-twenty (January 22d., 1814). Is there any thing
in the future that can possibly console us for not being always
_twenty-five_?
"Oh Gioventu!
Oh Primavera! gioventu dell' anno.
Oh Gioventu! primavera della vita."
[Footnote 1:
"'Strato'.
For Brutus only overcame himself,
And no man else hath honour by his death.
* * * * *
'Octavius'.
According to his virtue let us use him,
With all respect and rites of burial."
'Julius Caesar', act v. sc. 5.]
[Footnote 2: In 'The Giaour' (lines 388-392) occurs the following
passage:
"As rising on its purple wing
The insect-queen of Eastern spring
O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer
Invites the young pursuer near," etc.
To line 389 is appended this note:
"The blue-winged butterfly of Kashmeer, the most rare and beautiful of
the species."]
[Footnote 3: See letter [Letter 365] to Francis Hodgson, p. 294.]
[Footnote 4: The letters which W.J. Baldwin, a debtor in the King's
Bench prison, wrote to Byron are preserved. Byron seems to have refused
to present the petition from diffidence, but he interested himself in
the subject, and probably induced Lord Holland to take up the question.
(See p. 318, 'note' 2 [Footnote 6 of the initial journal entry which
forms the beginning of Chapter VIII.
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