ry, and they
both died so early, that it may be said they were lent to the world
only to show the height to which the mind may ascend when time shall
be allowed to accomplish the full cultivations of such extraordinary
endowments.

Footnotes:

{156} I.e., against.

{241} The sacrifice of Antinous by the emperor Adrian is supposed to
have been a sacrifice of that kind. Dion Cassius says, that Adrian,
who had applied himself to the study of magic, being deceived by the
principles of that black Egyptian art into a belief that he would be
rendered immortal by a voluntary human sacrifice to the infernal
gods, accepted the offer which Antinous made of himself.

I have somewhere met with a commentary on this to the following
effect:

The Christian religion, in the time of Adrian, was rapidly spreading
throughout the empire, and the doctrine of gaining eternal life by
the expiatory offering was openly preached. The Egyptian priests,
who pretended to be in possession of all knowledge, affected to be
acquainted with this mystery also. The emperor was, by his taste and
his vices, attached to the old religion; but he trembled at the
truths disclosed by the revelation; and in this state of
apprehension, his thirst of knowledge and his fears led him to
consult the priests of Osiris and Isis; and they impressed him with a
notion that the infernal deities would be appeased by the sacrifice
of a human being dear to him, and who loved him so entirely as to lay
down his life for him. Antinous, moved by the anxiety of his
imperial master, when all others had refused, consented to sacrifice
himself; and it was for this devotion that Adrian caused his memory
to be hallowed with religious rites.

{255} Mr Hobhouse has assured me that this information is not
correct. "I happen," says he, "to know that Lord Byron offered to
give the Guiccioli a sum of money outright, or to leave it to her by
his will. I also happen to know that the lady would not hear of any
such present or provision; for I have a letter in which Lord Byron
extols her disinterestedness, and mentions that he has met with a
similar refusal from another female. As to the being in destitute
circumstances, I cannot believe it; for Count Gamba, her brother,
whom I knew very well after Lord Byron's death, never made any
complaint or mention of such a fact: add to which, I know a
maintenance was provided for her by her husband, in consequence of a
law process,