n the name of his love for glory, which was already
a virtue, since he only desired and sought it to become a benefactor of
mankind; then, by this new sacrifice, and by that even of life, his
noble passion for glory attained to the height of a sublime virtue.

Although our impartial examination of Lord Byron's faults end really in
demonstrating their absence, let us beware nevertheless of raising him
above humanity by asserting that he had none. La Bruyere thus sums up
his portrait of the great Conde:--"_A man who was true, simple, and
magnanimous, and in whom only the smallest virtues were wanting._" This
fine sentence may partly apply to Lord Byron also. Only, to be just, we
must substitute the singular for the plural. And instead of declaring
that the lesser virtues were wanting in him, we must say _one_ of the
smaller virtues. In truth, he had not that prudence which proposes for
our supreme end the preservation of our prosperity, fortune, popularity,
tranquillity, health--in a word, of all our goods--and which constitutes
Epicurean wisdom. But this virtue is really so mixed up with personality
and egotism, that one may hesitate ere granting it the rank of a virtue;
and we ought not to be astonished if it were wanting in Lord Byron, for
it can with difficulty be found united to great sensibility of heart and
great generosity of character. Nevertheless, had he possessed it, his
life might have been much happier. Had he possessed it, instead of
devoting his revenue and all his literary gains to friends, disappointed
authors, and unfortunates of all kinds, he would have kept them for
himself; and thus he might have been able to brave almost all the storms
of his sad year of married life, when his annoyances were greatly
increased by the embarrassed state of his affairs. Had he possessed this
prudence, he would not in his boyish satire have attacked so many
powerful persons, nor, at a later period, would he have made to himself
idols of truth and justice. He would have spared the powers that be, and
respected national prejudices, in order not to draw down on his own head
so much rancor and calumny; he would not have given a hold to slander,
nor suffered himself to be insulted by being identified with the heroes
of his poems; he would not have compromised his fine health by an
anchorite's regimen; he would not have depreciated himself; he would
have extended to himself the indulgence with which he knew so well how
to cloa