f mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth and die ere middle age,
Without the violence of warlike death;
Some perishing of pleasure--some of study--
Some worn with toil--some of mere weariness--
Some of disease--and some insanity--
And some of wither'd or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are number'd in the lists of Fate;
Taking all shapes, and bearing many names.
Look upon me! for even of all these things
Have I partaken--and of all these things
One were enough; then wonder not that I
Am what I am, but that I ever was,
Or, having been, that I am still on earth.

CHAPTER XXXII

Byron's Residence in Switzerland--Excursion to the Glaciers--
"Manfred" founded on a magical Sacrifice, not on Guilt--Similarity
between Sentiments given to Manfred and those expressed by Lord Byron
in his own Person

The account given by Captain Medwin of the manner in which Lord Byron
spent his time in Switzerland, has the raciness of his Lordship's own
quaintness, somewhat diluted. The reality of the conversations I
have heard questioned, but they relate in some instances to matters
not generally known, to the truth of several of which I can myself
bear witness; moreover they have much of the poet's peculiar modes of
thinking about them, though weakened in effect by the reporter. No
man can give a just representation of another who is not capable of
putting himself into the character of his original, and of thinking
with his power and intelligence. Still there are occasional touches
of merit in the feeble outlines of Captain Medwin, and with this
conviction it would be negligence not to avail myself of them.

"Switzerland," said his Lordship, "is a country I have been satisfied
with seeing once; Turkey I could live in for ever. I never forget my
predilections: I was in a wretched state of health and worse spirits
when I was at Geneva; but quiet and the lake, better physicians than
Polidori, soon set me up. I never led so moral a life as during my
residence in that country; but I gained no credit by it. Where there
is mortification there ought to be reward. On the contrary, there is
no story so absurd that they did not invent at my cost. I was
watched by glasses on the opposite side of the lake, and by glasses,
too, that must have had very distorted optics; I was waylaid in my
evening drives. I believe they looked upon me as a man-monster.

"I knew very few of the Gene