the 1st earl's
second wife.

Great men are seldom misjudged. The world passes sentence on them, and
there is no appeal. Byron's contemporaries judged him by the tone and
temper of his works, by his own confessions or self-revelations in prose
and verse, by the facts of his life as reported in the newspapers, by the
talk of the town. His letters, his journals, the testimony of a dozen
memorialists are at the disposal of the modern biographer. Moore thinks
that Byron's character was obliterated by his versatility, his mobility,
that he was carried away by his imagination, and became the thing he wished
to be, or conceived himself as becoming. But his nature was not
chameleon-like. Self-will was the very pulse of the machine. Pride ruled
his years. All through his life, as child and youth and man, his one aim
and endeavour was the subjection of other people's wishes to, his own. He
would subject even fate if he could. He has two main objects in view,
_glory_, in the French rather than the English use of the word, and
passion. It is hard to say which was the strongest or the dearest, but, on
the whole, within his "little life" passion prevailed. Other inclinations
he could master. Poetry was often but not always an exaltation and a
relief. He could fulfil his tasks in "hours of gloom." If he had not been a
great poet he would have gained credit as a painstaking and laborious man
of letters. His habitual temperance was the outcome of a stern resolve. He
had no scruples, but he kept his body in subjection as a means to an end.
In his youth Byron was a cautious spendthrift. Even when he was "cursedly
dipped" he knew what he was about; and afterwards, when his income was
sufficient for his requirements, he kept a hold on his purse. He loved
display, and as he admitted, spent money on women, but he checked his
accounts and made both ends meet. On the other hand, the "gift of
continency" he did not possess, or trouble himself to acquire. He was, to
use his own phrase, "passionate of body," and his desires were stronger
than his will. There are points of Byron's character with regard to which
opinion is divided. Candid he certainly was to the verge of brutality, but
was he sincere? Was [v.04 p.0904] he as melancholy as his poetry implies?
Did he pose as pessimist or misanthropist, or did he speak out of the
bitterness of his soul? It stands to reason that Byron knew that his sorrow
and his despair would excite public interest, and