[77] In letter 573, to Murray (Halleck Col., date of Genoa, November, 1822), Byron says: “I see somebody represents the Hunts and Mrs. Shelley as living in my house; it is a falsehood.… I do not see them twice a month.”
[78] Professor Hoppin, in his honest and entertaining Old England, speaks of it (p. 258) as “a dull, dirty village,” and—of the church—as “most forlorn.”
[79] Gray Days and Gold; chapter viii. Macmillan, 1896.
[80] This relates, of course, to the condition of the Abbey in the days of Byron’s childhood. Colonel Wildman, a distinguished officer in the Peninsular War, who succeeded to the ownership (by purchase) about 1817, expended very large sums upon such judicious improvements as took away its old look of desolation.
[81] Croker Papers, chapter xviii. Closing of Session of 1833. Croker would have spoken more gently of him in those latter days, when the king turned his back on Reformers.
[82] The Penny Magazine appeared first in 1832; the Cyclopædia in the following year.
[83] The reduction of tax from 4d. to 1d. took place in 1836.
[84] Thomas Babington Macaulay, b. 1800; d. 1859. History of England, 1848-55-61. Lays of Ancient Rome, 1842. His Essays (published in America), 1840. Complete Works, London, 8 vols., 1866. Life, by Trevelyan, 1876.
[85] Greville (Journal of Queen Victoria’s Time, vol. i., p. 369) speaks of a dinner at Lady Holland’s—Macaulay being present—when her ladyship, growing tired of the eloquence of Speakers of the House of Commons and Fathers of the Church, said: “Well, Mr. Macaulay, can you tell us anything of dolls—when first named or used?” Macaulay was ready on the instant—dilated upon Roman dolls and others—citing Persius, “Veneri donato a virgine puppæ.”