year (1814), when political feeling ran so high against
him as to threaten his popularity on account of the lines addressed to
the Princess Charlotte, which had offended the regent, who had just gone
over from the Whigs to the Tories, Byron wrote to Rogers:--

"All the sayings and doings in the world shall not make me utter one
word of conciliation to any thing that breathes. I shall bear what I
can, and what I can not I shall resist. The worst they could do would be
to exclude me from society. I have never courted it, nor, I may add, in
the general sense of the word, enjoyed it--and 'there is a world
elsewhere.'"

When once he had quitted England his indifference to popularity and its
results further increased. He wrote from Venice to Murray:--

"I never see a newspaper, and know nothing of England, except in a
letter now and then from my sister" (1816).

But that did not at all suit his publisher, who set about sending him
reviews, criticisms, and keeping him up to all that was going on in the
literary and political world, thinking thus to stimulate and keep alive
the passions that kindle genius. Then it was that Lord Byron,
considering this intellectual regime unwholesome for mind and heart,
signified to Murray that their correspondence could not continue unless
he consented to _six_ indispensable conditions. We regret not being able
to give the whole of this beautiful letter, circumscribed as we are by
certain necessary limits. Thus we shall only quote what more
particularly relates to our subject:[134]--

"I have been thinking over our late correspondence, and wish to propose
to you the following articles for our future:--

"1st. That you shall write to me of yourself, of the health, wealth, and
welfare of all friends; but of _me (quoad me) little or nothing_.

"2dly....

"3dly....

"4thly. That you send me no periodical works whatsoever, no 'Edinburgh,'
'Quarterly,' 'Monthly,' or any review, magazine, or newspaper, English
or foreign, of any description.

"5thly. That you send me no opinion whatsoever, either _good_, _bad_, or
_indifferent_, of yourself, or your friends, or others, concerning any
work of mine, past, present, or to come.

"6thly.... If any thing occurs so violently gross or personal as
requires notice, Mr. Kinnaird will let me know; but of praise I desire
to hear nothing.

"You will say, 'To what tends all this?' I will answer--to keep my mind
free, and unbiased by all paltry and per