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[110] Munich, a year since, where he has been minister nearly two years. . . . . In his manners he is more American and democratic than English, and even in his dress there was a kind of popular carelessness which does not belong to his nation. He talks, too, without apparent reserve on subjects private and political, said a great deal of his mission to America, pronounced Jefferson to be a man of great talents and acuteness, but did not think much of Madison, spoke well of many democrats whom he thought honest, able men, etc., etc., and in general seemed to understand the situation of the politics and parties of the United States pretty well, though his mission lasted only five months, and he was hardly out of Washington . . . . . Among other things, we talked of Lord Byron; and he mentioned to me a circumstance which proves what I have always believed,—that Lord Byron's personal deformity was one great cause of his melancholy and misanthropy. He said that after his return from Greece, Lord Byron, in one of his fits of extravagance, sat up all night with a friend of his own character in a London coffee-house, for the purpose of going early in the morning to an execution. As they sallied out, a woman stood before the door, whom he supposed to be a beggar, and so gave her money, which she indignantly rejected, threw back upon him, and, with much other vulgar invective, called him a ‘clump-footed devil.’ They went on to the execution, waited with the common crowd for their miserable amusement, and returned; but Lord Byron said hardly a word the whole time, and it was not till they had been an hour or two longer together, that he burst out into a violent fit of passionate eloquence,—told them he was an outcast from human nature; that he had a seal of infamy set upon him more distinct than that of Cain, that the very beggars would not receive money from one like him, etc.; showing that during this interval of three or four hours he had, like Tiberius, kept these few words alta mente reposta. Mr. Rose added, that the time had been when he might have been cured of this deformity, which arose only from a weakness in the joints, but that he was too impatient to submit to the tedious and painful process necessary, and that his misanthropy is now a mixture of hatred of nature and himself for this fault of his person, added to a general satiety of all extravagance and debauchery.

Halle, October 19, 1816.—This evening we passed with a considerable party at the house of Halle's Magnus Apollo, Chancellor Niemeyer. He is now, I imagine, about sixty-three years old, and— what is uncommon among German men of letters—he is a finelook-ing, gentlemanly man. His whole career has, I believe, been confined


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