Byron: The Last Phase. Edgcumbe Richard

Parry had been, a few days before, during an earthquake, he felt desirous of renewing the ludicrous sight which the fat, horror-struck figure of the Major had exhibited on that occasion. He placed, therefore, fifty of his Suliotes in the room above that where Parry slept, and towards midnight ordered them to shake the house, so as to imitate that phenomenon. He himself at the same time banged the doors, and rushed downstairs, delighted to see the almost distracted Major imploring tremblingly the mercy of heaven.’

      Lord Byron was very much taken with Parry, whose drolleries relieved the tedium and constant vexations incidental to the situation at Missolonghi. The Major appears to have been an excellent mimic, and possessed a fund of quaint expressions that made up for the deficiency of real wit. Millingen says that he could tell, in his coarse language, a good story, and could play Falstaff’s, or the part of a clown very naturally. He ranted Richard III.’s or Hamlet’s soliloquies in a mock-tragic manner like a player at Bartholomew Fair, which made everyone laugh, and beguiled the length of many a rainy evening.

      On January 21, 1824, Missolonghi was blockaded by the Turkish fleet. There were neither guns nor even sailors fit to man the gunboats; the only chance was to make a night attack upon the Turks in boats manned by the European volunteers then residing at Missolonghi. Byron took the matter in hand, and insisted on joining personally in the expedition. He was so determined on this project that Mavrocordato and others, realizing the folly of exposing so valuable a life on so desperate an enterprise, dissuaded Byron from risking his valuable life in a business for which there were already sufficient volunteers. As things turned out, it did not much matter, for the Turkish fleet suddenly abandoned the blockade and returned to the gulf.

      On January 22, while Colonel Stanhope and some friends were assembled, Byron came from his bedroom and said, with a smile: ‘You were complaining the other day that I never write any poetry now: this is my birthday, and I have just finished something, which, I think, is better than what I usually write.’ He then produced those affecting verses on his own birthday which were afterwards found written in his journal, with the following introduction: ‘January 22: on this day I complete my thirty-sixth year.’