Moore (
Memoirs, Journals, etc.
, vol. iii. p. 112) mentions dining with Webster at Paris in 1820.
"He told me," writes Moore, "that, one day, travelling from Newstead to town with Lord Byron in his vis-a-vis, the latter kept his pistols beside him, and continued silent for hours, with the most ferocious expression possible on his countenance.
'For God's sake, my dear B.,' said W—— at last, 'what are you thinking of? Are you about to commit murder? or what other dreadful thing are you meditating?'
To which Byron answered that he always had a sort of presentiment that his own life would be attacked some time or other; and that this was the reason of his always going armed, as it was also the subject of his thoughts at that moment."
Moore also adds (
ibid
., p. 292),
"W. W. owes Lord Byron, he says, £1000, and does not seem to have the slightest intention of paying him."
Lady Frances was the lady to whom Byron seriously devoted himself in 1813-4. Subsequently she was practically separated from her husband, and Byron, in 1823, endeavoured to reconcile them. Moore (
Memoirs, Journals, etc