Page:Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron (1824).djvu/81

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LORD BYRON.
65

the Consistory, whilst many a prime[errata 1] joke was cut at its expense.”

“You seem,” said I, “to have had a particular predilection for skulls and cross-bones; a friend of mine, Mr. ———, told me he took some home for you from Switzerland.”

“They were from the field of Morat,” said he; “a single bone of one of those heroes is worth all the skulls of all the priests that ever existed.”

“Talking of Morat,” said I, “where did you find the story of Julia Alpinula? M— and I searched among its archives in vain.”

“I took the inscription,” said he, “from an old chronicle; the stone has no existence.—But to continue. You know the story of the bear that I brought up for a degree when I was at Trinity. I had a great hatred of College rules, and contempt for academical honours. How many of their wranglers have ever distinguished themselves in the world? There was, by the bye, rather a witty satire founded on my bear. A friend of Shelley’s made an Ourang Outang (Sir Oran Haut-ton) the hero of a

I

  1. Correction: prime should be amended to grim: detail