easure in defacing the images of beauty his
hands have wrought; and raises our hopes and our belief in goodness to
Heaven only to dash them to the earth again, and break them in pieces the
more effectually from the very height they have fallen. Our enthusiasm for
genius or virtue is thus turned into a jest by the very person who has
kindled it, and who thus fatally quenches the spark of both. It is not
that Lord Byron is sometimes serious and sometimes trifling, sometimes
profligate, and sometimes moral--but when he is most serious and most
moral, he is only preparing to mortify the unsuspecting reader by putting
a pitiful _hoax_ upon him. This is a most unaccountable anomaly. It is as
if the eagle were to build its eyry in a common sewer, or the owl were
seen soaring to the mid-day sun. Such a sight might make one laugh, but
one would not wish or expect it to occur more than once![141]

In fact, Lord Byron is the spoiled child of fame as well as fortune. He
has taken a surfeit of popularity, and is not contented to delight, unless
he can shock the public. He would force them to admire in spite of decency
and common-sense--he would have them read what they would read in no one
but himself, or he would not give a rush for their applause. He is to be
"a chartered libertine," from whom insults are favours, whose contempt is
to be a new incentive to admiration. His Lordship is hard to please: he is
equally averse to notice or neglect, enraged at censure and scorning
praise. He tries the patience of the town to the very utmost, and when
they show signs of weariness or disgust, threatens to _discard_ them. He
says he will write on, whether he is read or not. He would never write
another page, if it were not to court popular applause, or to affect a
superiority over it. In this respect also, Lord Byron presents a striking
contrast to Sir Walter Scott. The latter takes what part of the public
favour falls to his share, without grumbling (to be sure, he has no reason
to complain); the former is always quarrelling with the world about his
_modicum_ of applause, the _spolia opima_ of vanity, and ungraciously
throwing the offerings of incense heaped on his shrine back in the faces
of his admirers. Again, there is no taint in the writings of the Author of
Waverley, all is fair and natural and _above-board_: he never outrages
the public mind. He introduces no anomalous character: broaches no
staggering opinion. If he goes back to old p