This letter, written on 12 August 1811 by poet Lord Byron when he was at Newstead Abbey, his country seat in Nottinghamshire, is to Robert Dallas (1754-1842), Byron’s distant cousin and self-appointed literary agent. In it, Byron sorrowfully mourns the death of Charles Skinner Matthews, an old friend from his university days at Cambridge, who drowned while bathing in the River Cam, Cambridge, after becoming entangled in weeds. Three men present reportedly ‘had it not in their power to assist him’. Byron also mentions John Hobhouse (later first Baron Broughton), another friend from Cambridge, who Byron fears will take the tragedy even harder that himself.
The letter was presented to the British Embassy, Athens, by the connoisseur of the arts and politician David Alexander Robert Lindsay 28th Earl of Crawford and 11th Earl of Balcarres (1900-1975) in 1956.
