All that had ever happened, of gay or ridiculous, during
our London life together,--his scrapes and my lecturings,--our joint
adventures with the Bores and Blues, the two great enemies, as he always
called them, of London happiness,--our joyous nights together at Watier's,
Kinnaird's, &c. and "that d--d supper of Rancliffe's which _ought_ to have
been a dinner,"--all was passed rapidly in review between us, and with a
flow of humour and hilarity, on his side, of which it would have been
difficult, even for persons far graver than I can pretend to be, not to
have caught the contagion.
LORD BYRON'S PARSIMONY.
It is, indeed, certain, that he had at this time (1819) taken up the whim
(for it hardly deserves a more serious name) of minute and constant
watchfulness over his expenditure; and, as most usually happens, it was
with the increase of his means that this increased sense of the value of
money came. The first symptom I saw of this new fancy of his was the
exceeding joy which he manifested on my presenting to him a rouleau of
twenty Napoleons, which Lord K----d, to whom he had, on some occasion,
lent that sum, had entrusted me with, at Milan, to deliver into his hands.
With the most joyous and diverting eagerness, he tore open the paper, and,
in counting over the sum, stopped frequently to congratulate himself on
the recovery of it.
Of his household frugalities I speak but on the authority of others; but
it is not difficult to conceive that, with a restless spirit like his,
which delighted always in having something to contend with, and which, but
a short time before, "for want," as he said, "of something craggy to break
upon," had tortured itself with the study of the Armenian language, he
should, in default of all better excitement, find a sort of stir and
amusement in the task of contesting, inch by inch, every encroachment of
expense, and endeavouring to suppress what he himself calls
"That climax of all earthly ills,
The inflammation of our weekly bills.
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