sin is a want of that self-respect
which she has in excess. When I have broken out, on slight provocation,
into one of my ungovernable fits of rage, her calmness piqued and seemed
to reproach me; it gave her an air of superiority that vexed and increased
my _mauvaise humeur_." To Lady Blessington as to every one, he always
spoke of Mrs. Leigh with the same unwavering admiration, love, and
respect.

"My first impressions were melancholy--my poor mother gave them: but to my
sister, who, incapable of wrong herself, suspected no wrong in others, I
owe the little good of which I can boast: and had I earlier known her it
might have influenced my destiny. Augusta was to me in the hour of need a
tower of strength. Her affection was my last rallying-point, and is now
the only bright spot that the horizon of England offers to my view. She
has given me such good advice--and yet finding me incapable of following
it, loved and pitied me but the more because I was erring." Similarly, in
the height of his spleen, writes Leigh Hunt--"I believe there did exist
one person to whom he would have been generous, if she pleased: perhaps
was so. At all events, he left her the bulk of his property, and always
spoke of her with the greatest esteem. This was his sister, Mrs. Leigh. He
told me she used to call him 'Baby Byron.' It was easy to see that of the
two persons she had by far the greater judgment."

Byron having laid aside _Don Juan_ for more than a year, in deference to
La Guiccioli, was permitted to resume it again, in July, 1822, on a
promise to observe the proprieties. Cantos vi.-xi. were written at Pisa.
Cantos xii.-xvi. at Genoa, in 1823. These latter portions of the poem were
published by John Hunt. His other works of the period are of minor
consequence. The _Age of Bronze_ is a declamation, rather than a satire,
directed against the Convention of Cintra and the Congress of Verona,
especially Lord Londonderry's part in the latter, only remarkable, from
its advice to the Greeks, to dread--

The false friend worse than the infuriate foe;

i.e. to prefer the claw of the Tartar savage to the paternal hug of the
great Bear--

Better still toil for masters, than await,
The slave of slaves, before a Russian gate.

In the _Island_--a tale of the mutiny of the "Bounty"--he reverts to the
manner and theme of his old romances, finding a new scene in the Pacific
for the exercise of his fancy. In this piece his love of nautical
adv