he
has too often complained, while it would be difficult to discover, in
his career and fortunes, that he had ever received any cause from it
to justify his complaint.

At no time, I imagine, could it be said that Lord Byron was one of
those men who interest themselves in the concerns of others. He had
always too much to do with his own thoughts about himself, to afford
time for the consideration of aught that was lower in his affections.
But still he had many amiable fits, and at the particular period to
which I allude, he evinced a constancy in the disposition to oblige,
which proved how little self-control was wanting to have made him as
pleasant as he was uniformly interesting. I felt this towards myself
in a matter which had certainly the grace of condescension in it, at
the expense of some trouble to him. I then lived at the corner of
Bridge Street, Westminster, and in going to the House of Lords he
frequently stopped to inquire if I wanted a frank. His conversation,
at the same time, was of a milder vein, and with the single exception
of one day, while dining together at the St Alban's, it was light and
playful, as if gaiety had become its habitude.

Perhaps I regarded him too curiously, and more than once it struck me
that he thought so. For at times, when he was in his comfortless
moods, he has talked of his affairs and perplexities as if I had been
much more acquainted with them than I had any opportunity of being.
But he was a subject for study, such as is rarely met with--at least,
he was so to me; for his weaknesses were as interesting as his
talents, and he often indulged in expressions which would have been
blemishes in the reflections of other men, but which in him often
proved the germs of philosophical imaginings. He was the least
qualified for any sort of business of all men I have ever known; so
skinless in sensibility as respected himself, and so distrustful in
his universal apprehensions of human nature, as respected others. It
was, indeed, a wild, though a beautiful, error of nature, to endow a
spirit with such discerning faculties, and yet render it unfit to
deal with mankind. But these reflections belong more properly to a
general estimate of his character, than to the immediate purpose
before me, which was principally to describe the happy effects which
the splendid reception of Childe Harold had on his feelings; effects
which, however, did not last long. He was gratified to the ful