ments of the Scaligers pleased me, but 'a poor virtuoso am I,'
and ever yours."

* * * * *

It must have been observed, in my account of Lord Byron's life previous
to his marriage, that, without leaving altogether unnoticed (what,
indeed, was too notorious to be so evaded) certain affairs of gallantry
in which he had the reputation of being engaged, I have thought it
right, besides refraining from such details in my narrative, to suppress
also whatever passages in his Journals and Letters might be supposed to
bear too personally or particularly on the same delicate topics.
Incomplete as the strange history of his mind and heart must, in one of
its most interesting chapters, be left by these omissions, still a
deference to that peculiar sense of decorum in this country, which marks
the mention of such frailties as hardly a less crime than the commission
of them, and, still more, the regard due to the feelings of the living,
who ought not rashly to be made to suffer for the errors of the dead,
have combined to render this sacrifice, however much it may be
regretted, necessary.

We have now, however, shifted the scene to a region where less caution
is requisite;--where, from the different standard applied to female
morals in these respects, if the wrong itself be not lessened by this
diminution of the consciousness of it, less scruple may be, at least,
felt towards persons so circumstanced, and whatever delicacy we may
think right to exercise in speaking of their frailties must be with
reference rather to our views and usages than theirs.

Availing myself, with this latter qualification, of the greater latitude
thus allowed me, I shall venture so far to depart from the plan hitherto
pursued, as to give, with but little suppression, the noble poet's
letters relative to his Italian adventures. To throw a veil altogether
over these irregularities of his private life would be to afford--were
it even practicable--but a partial portraiture of his character; while,
on the other hand, to rob him of the advantage of being himself the
historian of his errors (where no injury to others can flow from the
disclosure) would be to deprive him of whatever softening light can be
thrown round such transgressions by the vivacity and fancy, the
passionate love of beauty, and the strong yearning after affection which
will be found to have, more or less, mingled with even the least refined
of his attachme