ish society, of absolving him, and of showing how he was the
victim of inherent national prejudices, which time has not yet succeeded
in eradicating.

The exuberance and variety of the gifts which nature had bestowed upon
Byron, together with the universality of his genius, which created in
him such apparently singular contrasts, no doubt inspired Mr. Disraeli
with the idea that to make him better known it was necessary to make two
persons of one, each of a different age, so as to be able to divide his
qualities according to their suitableness to those ages, and to make him
act and speak in accordance with each given character: to show us the
man in his moral, social, and intellectual capacity during his
transition from early youth to a maturer age, after the experience of
those hardships of life which have purified and strengthened his soul.
The first period is represented by the ardent and passionate Lord
Cadurcis, the other by the wise and philosophical Herbert. In making
Herbert live to a mature age, and in centring in him every grace, every
quality, every perfection with which a mortal can be gifted, he wished
to show to what degree of moral perfection Lord Byron might have
attained, and how happy he might have been in the peace and quiet of
domestic life had he been joined to another wife in matrimony, since
notwithstanding Lady Annabel's faults, happiness was not out of
Herbert's reach. The conclusion to which Disraeli no doubt points is
the inward avowal by Lady Annabel herself that she, not Herbert, was the
cause of their separation, and of their useless misfortunes. Again, when
young Lord Cadurcis returns from Greece, and when Disraeli recounts his
conversation with Herbert, his intention, no doubt, was to show us the
intellectual and moral progress which time has caused him to make,--the
transition from the "Childe Harold" of twenty-one to the "Childe Harold"
of "Manfred" of twenty-nine; and from the "Childe Harold" of thirty to
the "Don Juan" and "Sardanapalus" of thirty-three; he thus was able to
put in relief that mobility of character which existed in him as regards
a certain order of ideas, and which blended itself so well with the
depth and the constancy of other of his views, enabling us to penetrate
into the recesses of that beautiful soul, and displaying to our admiring
gaze its numberless springs of action,--at times his constant aspiration
to come to the aid of humanity, and his little hope of succe