Note 46 — LORD BYRON: (continued 2)
Reading edition
It was, if I mistake not, during his recent visit to Newstead, that he himself actually fancied he saw the ghost of the Black Friar, which was supposed to have haunted the Abbey from the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, and which he thus describes, from the recollection perhaps of his own fantasy, in Don Juan:—
"It was no mouse, but, lo! a monk, array'd In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd, Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade, With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard: His garments only a slight murmur made: He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird, But slowly; and as he pass'd Juan by, Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye."
It is said, that the Newstead ghost appeared, also, to Lord Byron's cousin, Miss Fanny Parkins, and that she made a sketch of him from memory.