m, made him discover
great affinity of mind between the young author and another literary
man, who was equally remarkable as a poet, an orator, and a
historian--"_the great and good Lord Lyttelton of immortal fame_." "And
I doubt not," added Dallas, "that one day, like him, he will confer more
honor on the peerage than it can ever reflect on him." Such a compliment
from a man so rigid and respectable might certainly have tempted the
most ordinary self-love, but Lord Byron, applying his magnifying-glass
to his conscience, and comparing what he saw there with his ideal, did
not conceive he merited such praise. Accordingly he answered with candor
that enchanted Dallas himself:--

"Though our periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, I confess a
tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering. But
I am afraid I should forfeit all claim to candor, if I did not decline
such praise as I do not deserve, and this is, I am sorry to say, the
case in the present instance. My pretensions to virtue are, unluckily,
so few, that, though I should be happy to deserve your praise, I can not
accept your applause in that respect."

Thus, from fear of being wanting in truth, he exaggerated his youthful
imperfections, nor could find any excuse for them. And in the same way
throughout life his dread of making himself out better than he was, led
him into the opposite defect of representing himself as far inferior to
his real worth.

If from considering of the man, we turn to look at the author, we shall
still always find the same passion for truth. By degrees, as he observed
society around him, this passion increased, for he found the dominant
vice was precisely that one most repugnant to his nature. If Lord Byron
ever admitted, with La Rochefoucault, _that hypocrisy is a homage vice
renders to virtue_, he did not the less consider this homage as
degrading to him who offered it, insulting to those to whom it is
addressed, and most corrupting in its effect upon the soul.

Thus, then, he from an early period considered hypocrisy and cant as
monsters, in the moral world, to be combated energetically whenever an
opportunity should present itself, and he resolved on doing so with all
the intrepidity and independence of which his nature was capable. His
natural gentleness disappeared in presence of the _whited sepulchres_,
the _Pharisees_ of our day. His whole literary life was one struggle
against this vice, "the crying