he law, so to say, to his heart, his mind, and all the
actions of his life. This extraordinary attraction, coming in contact
with the lies, hypocrisy, baseness, cowardice, and deceitfulness of
others, often raised indignation to such a pitch that he could not help
showing and expressing it. Thus his love of truth affected his social
status in England, doing him immense harm; and, if it contributed to his
greatness and his heroism, so it likewise added to his sorrows.

This noble quality showed itself in him, we may say, from his birth,
under the form of _sincerity, frankness, a passion for justice, loyalty,
delicacy, honor, and likewise in the shape of special hatred for all
hypocrisy, and for that shade of it peculiar to England, called cant_.

Amid all the passions and events of life, whatsoever the consequences,
Lord Byron always went straight at truth; as the hero marches up under
fire, or the saint to martyrdom. A lie was not only a lie to him, it was
also an injustice, a cowardice, the mark of a corrupt soul, an
inconceivable thing, and not to be forgiven. A child, at Aberdeen, he
was taken to the play to see one of Shakspeare's pieces, wherein an
actor, showing the sun, says it is the moon. He was a timid child, but
(incapable then of understanding Shakspeare's meaning) this outrage on
truth excited him so far that he rose from his seat and exclaimed, "_I
tell you, my dear sir, that it is the sun_." With regard to lying, he
remained his whole life the child of Aberdeen.

Neither his nurses nor preceptors ever surprised him in a lie.
Education, which in England, more than elsewhere, modifies and shapes
men according to the requirements of their social position, had no power
to affect the fundamental part of his nature. While forming his mind, it
did not change his heart. It destroyed some very dear illusions, and
made his soul grow sick with disappointment, so that he never ceased
regretting his happy childhood. In some respects it even had power to
superadd a fictitious character to his real one, but his qualities of
soul and his natural character still remained untouched.

The ardent affection he entertained for one of the masters at
Harrow--Dr. Drury--made him feel dislike to this gentleman's successor.
Having been asked to dinner by him, Lord Byron declined, because, he
said, that by accepting, _he should belie his heart_. At the university,
he, like his companions, ran after the young girls of Cambridge and