Note 791 — CANTO THE SIXTEENTH.[768]

[Byron had, no doubt, inspected the plan of Colonel Wildman's elaborate restoration of the Abbey, which was carried out at a cost of one hundred thousand pounds (see stanza lix. lines 1, 2). The kitchen and domestic offices, which extended at right angles to the west front of the Abbey (see "Newstead from a Picture by Peter Tilleman, circ. 1720" Letters, 1898, i. (to face p.) 216), were pulled down and rebuilt, the massive Sussex Tower (so named in honour of H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex) was erected at the south-west corner of the Abbey, and the south front was, in part, rebuilt and redecorated. Byron had been ready to "leave everything" with regard to his beloved Newstead to Wildman's "own feelings, present or future" (see his letter, November 18, 1818, Letters, 1900, iv. 270); but when the time came, the necessary and, on the whole, judicious alterations of his successor, must have cost the "banished Lord" many a pang.]