Thyrza
poems.
The Hon. John William Ward, afterwards fourth Earl of Dudley. Byron said of him (Lady Blessington's
Conversations with Lord Byron
, p. 197),
"Ward is one of the best-informed men I know, and, in a tête-à-tête, is one of the most agreeable companions. He has great originality, and, being très distrait, it adds to the piquancy of his observations, which are sometimes somewhat trop naïve, though always amusing. This naïveté of his is the more piquant from his being really a good-natured man, who unconsciously thinks aloud. Interest Ward on a subject, and I know no one who can talk better. His expressions are concise without being poor, and terse and epigrammatic without being affected," etc.
Of somewhat the same opinion was Lady H. Leveson Gower (
Letters of Harriet, Countess Granville