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Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I - With his Letters and Journals. by Thomas Moore
page 79 of 357 (22%)
little friendship that still remains in the world is to be found. It
was upon a gift presented to him by Eddleston, that he wrote those
verses entitled "The Cornelian," which were printed in his first,
unpublished volume, and of which the following is a stanza:--

"Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties,
Have for my weakness oft reproved me;
Yet still the simple gift I prize,
For I am sure the giver loved me."

Another friendship, of a less unequal kind, which had been begun at
Harrow, and which he continued to cultivate during his first year at
Cambridge, is thus interestingly dwelt upon in one of his journals:--

"How strange are my thoughts!--The reading of the song of Milton,
Sabrina fair,' has brought back upon me--I know not how or why--the
happiest, perhaps, days of my life (always excepting, here and there,
a Harrow holiday in the two latter summers of my stay there) when
living at Cambridge with Edward Noel Long, afterwards of the
Guards,--who, after having served honourably in the expedition to
Copenhagen (of which two or three thousand scoundrels yet survive in
plight and pay), was drowned early in 1809, on his passage to Lisbon
with his regiment in the St. George transport, which was run foul of
in the night by another transport. We were rival swimmers--fond of
riding--reading--and of conviviality. We had been at Harrow together;
but--_there_, at least--his was a less boisterous spirit than mine. I
was always cricketing--rebelling--fighting--_row_ing (from _row_, not
_boat_-rowing, a different practice), and in all manner of mischiefs;
while he was more sedate and polished. At Cambridge--both of
Trinity--my spirit rather softened, or his roughened, for we became
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