sin of the times,"[197] as he called it.

His conscience was quite as strict with regard to intellectual things as
it was in the domain of morals. We might even call it marvellously
strict for our epoch, for the decay of truth forms a sadly striking
characteristic of the present time. I know not what modern critic it is
who says that a general enervation of intelligence and languor of soul
now prevail in this respect; that the majesty of truth has been
profaned, and the ancient regard in which she was held has been
destroyed by religious sects, philosophical systems, the insolent
attacks of the press, and by the revolution that has taken place in
ideas as well as in deeds. Thence the general tendency to place truth
and error on the same footing, in theory and in practice. Thence the
equality of rights established between both, and which has become like
the normal state of mind general in society.

Certainly, in our day, the love and practice of truth have grown
obsolete; dramatic pieces and works of fiction, indeed all kinds of
literature, especially biography, and even history, combine to outrage
truth with impunity; no compunction is felt in transforming great
characters into monsters, and monsters into heroes. People are no longer
astonished that travellers' narratives should be like poems, good or
bad, works of imagination full of anachronisms, exaggerations,
impossibilities, making the sea take the place of mountains, and putting
mountains where the sea should be. Truth is hidden as dangerous, not
always to humanity, but to private interests to which it might bring
smaller gains. Now if, at an epoch like this, we meet with geniuses, or
even conscientious talents, sacrificing, both in their works and their
actions, every interest or consideration to truth, ought we not to look
upon them as real marvels? Undoubtedly we ought, and there can be no
question that Lord Byron belonged to the small number of such marvels.
Friends and enemies are agreed thereupon.

Galt, who was brought into contact with the poet by chance, at the time
of his first journey into Greece, and who travelled with him for several
days, when remarking the beauty of Lord Byron's poems on Greece, says,
"they possess the great and rare quality of being _as true with regard
to nature and facts as they are sublime for poetic expression_."

He quotes those beautiful lines with which the third canto of the
"Corsair" opens, wherein Lord Byron describes