ld nowadays
lead to a speedy prosecution; he was always seen by the ringside when
unhappy brutes met to pound each other, and his stock of evil stories
entertained the interesting noblemen and gentlemen who patronised the
manly British sport. I could not describe this man's baseness in
adequate terms, nor could I so much as give an idea of his ordinary
round of roguery without arousing some incredulity. This unspeakable
creature was fond of describing himself as "Jolly old Renton," or
"Good old John Bull Nicholson"; he really fancied himself to be a
good, genial fellow, and he appeared to fancy that the crowds who
usually collected to hear his abominations were attracted by his
_bonhomie_ and his estimable intellectual qualities. Byron must have
known this striking example of the scoundrel species, but he appears
to have forgotten him when he propounded his theory of villainy. Then
there was Pea-green Haynes, who was also a fine sample of folly and
rascality mingled. Haynes regarded himself as the most injured man on
earth; he never performed an unselfish action, it is true, and he
flung away a fine patrimony on his own pleasures, yet he whined and
held himself up as an example of suffering virtue. Then there was the
precious Regent. What a creature! Good men and bad men unite in saying
that he was absolutely without a virtue; the shrewd, calculating
Greville described him in words that burn; the great Duke, his chief
subject, uses language of dry scorn--"The king could only act the part
of a gentleman for ten minutes at a time"; and we find that the
commonest satellites of the Court despised the wicked fribble who wore
the crown of England. Faithless to women, faithless to men, a coward,
a liar, a mean and grovelling cheat, George IV. nevertheless clung to
a belief in his own virtues; and, if we study the account of his
farcical progress through Scotland, we find that he imagined himself
to be a useful and genuinely kingly personage. No man, except,
perhaps, Philippe Egalite, was ever so contemned and hated; and until
his death he imagined himself to be a good man. In all that wild set
who disgraced England and disgraced human nature in those gay days of
Byron's youth, I can discover only one thoroughly manly and estimable
individual, and that was Gentleman Jackson, the boxer; yet, with such
a marvellously wide range of villainy to study, Byron never seems to
have observed one ethical fact of the deepest importance--a v