t I still venerated the grand
original as the truth of history (in the material facts) and of place:
otherwise, it would have given me no delight. Who will persuade me, when
I reclined upon a mighty tomb, that it did not contain a hero? Its very
magnitude proved this. Men do not labor over the ignoble and petty
dead--and why should not the dead be Homer's dead? The secret of Tom
Campbell's defense of inaccuracy in costume and description is, that his
'Gertrude,' etc., has no more locality in common with Pennsylvania than
with Penmanmawr. It is notoriously full of grossly false scenery, as all
Americans declare, though they praise parts of the poem. It is thus that
self-love forever creeps out, like a snake, to sting any thing which
happens, even accidentally, to stumble upon it."

In order then, that Lord Byron might take an interest in either a place,
a monument, or a work of art, he must associate them in his mind with
some fact which had really taken place. By what was he most impressed on
reaching Venice?

"There is still in the Doge's Palace the black veil painted over
Faliero's picture, and the staircase whereon he was first crowned Doge
and subsequently decapitated. This was the thing that most struck my
imagination in Venice--more than the Rialto, which I visited for the
sake of Shylock: and more, too, than Schiller's 'Armenian,' a novel
which took a great hold of me when a boy. It is also called the 'Ghost
Seer,' and I never walked down St. Mark's by moonlight without thinking
of it. And 'at nine o'clock he died.' But I hate things all fiction, and
therefore the _Merchant_ and _Othello_ have no great attractions for me,
but _Pierre_ has. There should always be some foundation of fact for the
most airy fabric, and pure invention is but the talent of a liar."

The little taste which he entertained for painting came from the
impression that, of all the arts, it was the most artificial, and the
least truthful. In April, 1817, he wrote to Murray as follows, on the
subject:--

"Depend upon it, of all the arts it is the most artificial and
unnatural, and that by which the folly of mankind is most imposed upon.
I never yet saw the picture or the statue which came a league within my
conception or expectation: but I have seen many mountains, and seas, and
rivers, and views, and two or three women, who went as far beyond it."

But, then, what enthusiasm, whenever he did meet with truth in art! When
visiting the Manfr