Chapter IX: Letter 92: was written

"A coolness afterwards arose, which Byron alludes to in the first of
the accompanying letters, and we never spoke during the last year of
his remaining at school, nor till after the publication of his 'Hours
of Idleness'. Lord Byron was then at Cambridge; I, in one of the upper
forms, at Harrow. In an English theme I happened to quote from the
volume, and mention it with praise. It was reported to Byron that I
had, on the contrary, spoken slightingly of his work and of himself,
for the purpose of conciliating the favour of Dr. Butler, the master,
who had been severely satirised in one of the poems. Wingfield, who
was afterwards Lord Powerscourt, a mutual friend of Byron and myself,
disabused him of the error into which he had been led, and this was
the occasion of the first letter of the collection. Our intimacy was
renewed, and continued from that time till his going abroad. Whatever
faults Lord Byron might have had towards others, to myself he was
always uniformly affectionate. I have many slights and neglects
towards him to reproach myself with; but I cannot call to mind a
single instance of caprice or unkindness, in the whole course of our
friendship, to allege against him."

In December, 1811, Harness paid Byron a visit at Newstead, the only other guest being Francis Hodgson, who, like Harness, was not then ordained. He thus describes the visit ('Life of the Rev. Francis Hodgson', vol. i. pp. 219-221):--

"When Byron returned, with the MS. of the first two cantos of 'Childe
Harold' in his portmanteau, I paid him a visit at Newstead. It was
winter--dark, dreary weather--the snow upon the ground; and a
straggling, gloomy, depressive, partially inhabited place the Abbey
was. Those rooms, however, which had been fitted up for residence were
so comfortably appointed, glowing with crimson hangings, and cheerful
with capacious fires, that one soon lost the melancholy feeling of
being domiciled in the wing of an extensive ruin. Many tales are
related or fabled of the orgies which, in the poet's early youth, had
made clamorous these ancient halls of the Byrons. I can only say that
nothing in the shape of riot or excess occurred when I was there. The
only other visitor was Dr. Hodgson, the translator of 'Juvenal', and
nothing could be more quiet and regular than the course of our days.
Byron was retouching, as the sheets passed through the press, the
stanzas of 'Childe Harold'. Hodgson was at work in getting out the
ensuing number of the 'Monthly Review', of which he was principal
editor. I was reading for my degree. When we met, our general talk was
of poets and poetry--of who could or who could not write; but it
occasionally rose into very serious discussions on religion. Byron,
from his early education in Scotland, had been taught to identify the
principles of Christianity with the extreme dogmas of Calvinism. His
mind had thus imbibed a most miserable prejudice, which appeared to be
the only obstacle to his hearty acceptance of the Gospel. Of this
error we were most anxious to disabuse him. The chief weight of the
argument rested with Hodgson, who was older, a good deal, than myself.
I cannot even now--at a distance of more than fifty years--recall
those conversations without a deep feeling of admiration for the
judicious zeal and affectionate earnestness (often speaking with tears
in his eyes) which Dr. Hodgson evinced in his advocacy of the truth.
The only difference, except perhaps in the subjects talked about,
between our life at Newstead Abbey and that of the great families
around us, was the hours we kept. It was, as I have said, winter, and
the days were cold; and, as nothing tempted us to rise early, we got
up late. This flung the routine of the day rather backward, and we did
not go early to bed. My visit to Newstead lasted about three weeks,
when I returned to Cambridge to take my degree."

To Harness Byron intended to dedicate 'Childe Harold', but feared to do so, "lest it should injure him in his profession."]

[Footnote 2: Three Wingfields, sons of Lord Powerscourt, entered Harrow in February, 1801. The Hon. Richard Wingfield succeeded his father as fifth Viscount Powerscourt in 1809, and died in 1823. Edward became a clergyman and died of cholera in 1825; John, Byron's friend, the "Alonzo" of "Childish Recollections" entered the Coldstream Guards, and died of fever at Coimbra, May 14, 1811.

"Of all human beings, I was perhaps at one time most attached to poor
Wingfield, who died at Coimbra, 1811, before I returned to England"

('Life', p. 21). To his memory Byron wrote the lines in 'Childe Harold',