." Compare _Memoirs of Count Carlo
Gozzi_, 1890, ii. 12, "Never have I employed the iniquitous art of
seduction ... Languishing in soft and thrilling sentiments, I demanded
from a woman a sympathy and inclination of like nature with my own. If
she fell ... I should have remembered how she made for me the greatest
of all sacrifices.... I should have worshipped her like a deity. I could
have spent my life's blood in consoling her; and without swearing
eternal constancy, I should have been most stable on my side in loving
such a mistress."]

[er] {121} _Brisk Impudence_----.--[MS.]

[es] _Youth wasted, wretches born_----.--[MS. erased.]

[135] [Compare Lucretius, iv. 1121-4--

"Adde quod absumunt viris pereuntque labore,

* * * * *

Labitur interea res, et Babylonica fiunt:
Languent officia, atque aegrotat fama vacillans."]

[et] {122} _Climes strange withal as ever mortal head_.--[MS.]

[eu] _Suspected in its little pride of thought_.--[MS. erased.]

[136] ["Were counselled or advised." The passive "were ared" seems to
lack authority. (See _N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Aread.")]

[ev]
_Her not unconscious though her weakly child_.
or, ----_her rudest child_.--[MS. erased.]

[137] [Compare the description of the thunderstorm in the Alps (Canto
III. stanzas xcii.-xcvi., pp. 273-275); and _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 2--

"My joy was in the wilderness; to breathe
The difficult air of the iced mountain-top--
* * * * *
In them my early strength exulted; or
To follow through the night the moving moon,
The stars and their development; or catch
The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim."

Beattie, who describes the experiences of his own boyhood in the person
of Edwin in _The Minstrel_, had already made a like protestation--

"In sooth he was a strange and wayward youth.
Fond of each gentle and each dreadful scene.
In darkness and in storm he found delight;
Not less than when on ocean-wave serene
The Southern sun diffus'd his dazzling sheen;
Even sad vicissitude amus'd his soul."

Kirke White, too, who was almost Byron's contemporary, and whose verses
he professed to admire--

"Would run a visionary boy
When the hoarse tempest shook the vaulted sky."

This love of Nature in her wilder aspects, which was perfectly genuine,
and, indeed, meritorious, was