In the year 1808, he had been nearly drowned, while swimming at Brighton with Mr. L. Stanhope. His friend Mr. Hobhouse, and other bystanders, sent in some boatmen, with ropes tied round them, who at last succeeded in dragging Lord Byron and Mr. Stanhope from the surf and thus saved their lives.
[138] Alluding to his having swum across the Thames with Mr. H. Drury, after the Montem, to see how many times they could perform the passage backwards and forwards without touching land. In this trial (which took place at night, after supper, when both were heated with drinking,) Lord Byron was the conqueror.
[139] New Monthly Magazine.
[140] In a note upon the Advertisement prefixed to his Siege of Corinth, he says,—"I visited all three (Tripolitza, Napoli, and Argos,) in 1810-11, and in the course of journeying through the country, from my first arrival in 1809, crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto."
[141] Given afterwards to Sir Walter Scott.
[142] At present in the possession of Mr. Murray.