The Henson Journals

[35]

Monday, November 17th, 1919.

The worst thing that I know about Byron is the very unfavourable impression which he made on men, who certainly were not inclined to judge him harshly, & who, as far as I know, were never personally ill–used by him. Sharp & Rogers both speak of him as an unpleasant, affected, splenatic person. I have heard hundreds & thousands of people who never saw him rant about him: but I never heard a single expression of fondness for him fall from the lips of any of those who knew him well. Yet, even now, after the lapse of 25 years, there are those who cannot talk for a quarter of an hour about Charles Fox without tears.

Macaulay. Letter. i. 249

I worked at the Edinburgh article. After lunch I motored to Monnington, where the new vicar, Herbert Jones is moving in to the Vicarage, and Moccas, where the parson Ratlif showed me the extremely interesting parish church, Norman with an apse & carved portals – a rival to Kilpeck.

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