an impenetrable veil. Then in the letters and diary the perpetual
hiatus, and asterisks, and initials are exceedingly tantalising;
but altogether it is very amusing. As to Byron, I have never had
but one opinion about his poetry, which I think of first-rate
excellence; an enormous heresy, of course, more particularly with
those whose political taste rests upon the same foundation that
their religious creed does--that of having been taught what to
admire in the one case as they have been enjoined what to believe
in the other. With regard to his character, I think Moore has
succeeded in proving that he was far from deficient in amiable
qualities; he was high-minded, liberal, generous, and good-natured,
and, if he does not exaggerate his own feelings, a warm-hearted
and sincere friend. But what a wretch he was! how thoroughly
miserable with such splendid talents! how little philosophy!--
wretched on account of his lame foot; not even his successes with
women could reconcile him to a little personal deformity, though
this is too hard a word for it; then tormenting himself to
death nobody can tell why or wherefore. There never was so
ill-regulated a mind, and he had not even the talent of making
his pleasures subservient to his happiness--not any notion of
_enjoyment_; all with him was riot, and debauchery, and rage and
despair. That he very sincerely entertained a bad opinion of
mankind may be easily believed; but so far from his pride and
haughtiness raising him above the influence of the opinion of
those whom he so despised, he was the veriest slave to it that
ever breathed, as he confesses when he says that he was almost
more annoyed at the censure of the meanest than pleased with the
praises of the highest of mankind; and when he deals around his
fierce vituperation or bitter sarcasms, he is only clanking the
chains which, with all his pride, and defiance, and contempt, he
is unable to throw off. Then he despises pretenders and
charlatans of all sorts, while he is himself a pretender, as all
men are who assume a character which does not belong to them, and
affect to be something which they are all the time conscious they
are not in reality. But to 'assume a virtue if you have it not'
is more allowable than to assume a vice which you have not. To
wish to appear better or wiser than we really are is excusable in
itself, and it is only the manner of doing it that may become
ridiculous; but to endeavour to appear worse t