k the faults of others, and instead of confiding to indiscreet
companions, as subjects for curiosity and study, adventures somewhat
strange, and the usual routine of juvenile follies, he would have
profited by the system so current in our day of satisfying inclinations
silently and covertly; lastly, and above all, he would not have married
Miss Milbank.

All these reproaches are well founded. But if we may say with reason
that he wanted prudence for his own interests, we ought at the same time
to _add that he never wanted it for the interests of others_. Did we not
see him, even in earliest youth, burn writings, or abstain from writing,
through excess of delicacy and fear of wounding his neighbors?

"I have burned my novel and my comedy," said he in 1813. "After all, I
see that the pleasure of burning one's self is as great as that of
printing. These two works ought not to have been published. I fell too
much into realities; some persons would have been _recognized_, and
others _suspected_."

When he sent Murray his stanzas to the Po, he forbade him to print it,
because it gave intimate details.

His greatest fear at Pisa and Genoa was lest the newspapers should have
spoken of his feelings for the Countess G----.

But without seeking other examples, it suffices to glance at his conduct
in Greece, where his prudence formed matter of astonishment to every
body. Monsieur Tricoupi, the best historian of the war of Greek
independence, has rendered him the most complete justice on this head.

Let us then sum up by saying that, contrary to what is found in most,
even virtuous men, Lord Byron possessed great and sublime virtues in the
highest degree, and the lesser ones only in a secondary degree. As to
his faults, it is evident they all sprang from his excellent qualities.
Endowed with all kinds of genius, except the one of calculating his
personal interest, he failed in different ways to discharge his duty
toward himself; and though he only harmed himself by his want of
prudence, yet was he cruelly punished for it by sorrows, regrets, and
even by a fatally premature death.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 131: Letter 68, to Dallas, 17th September, 1811.]

[Footnote 132: Dallas, Letter 45.]

[Footnote 133: Lord Byron to Dallas, Letter 66; Moore, vol. ii.]

[Footnote 134: See Moore, Letter 456.]

[Footnote 135: See Moore, Letter 456 (Ravenna, 24th September, 1821).]

[Footnote 136: See his "Life in Italy."]

[Footnote 13