ese sentiments found their echo in the "Prisoner of
Chillon," in the third canto of "Childe Harold," in "Manfred," in the
pathetic stanzas addressed to his sister, in the admirable and sublime
monody on the death of Sheridan, and in the "Dream," which according to
Moore, he must have written while shedding many bitter tears. According
to the same authority, the latter poem is the most melancholy and
pathetic history that ever came forth from human pen.

I shall not mention here the persecution to which Byron was subjected
then, nor the ever-manly, dignified, but heartrending words which it
drew forth from the noble poet in the midst of his retired, studious,
regular, and virtuous existence. I shall speak of it elsewhere; but I
will say now that so unexampled, atrocious, and foolish was this
persecution, that his enemies must have feared the awakening of the
public conscience and the effects of a reaction, which might make them
lose all the fruits of their victory, if they tarried in their efforts
to prevent it. The most cruel among them was the poet laureate, in whose
eyes Byron could have had but one defect--that of being superior to him.
True, Byron had mentioned him in the famous satire which was the work of
his youth; but he had most generously expiated his crime by confessing
it, in buying up the fifth edition so as to annihilate it, and by
declaring that he would have willingly suppressed even the memory of it.
This noble action had gained for him the forgiveness and even the
friendship of the most generous among them; but the revengeful poet
laureate was not, as Byron said, "of those who forgive."

This man arrived at Geneva, and at once set about his hateful work of
revenge. This was all the easier on account of the spirit of cant which
reigned in that country, and owing to the intimacy which he found to be
existing between Byron and Shelley, for whom likewise he had conceived a
malignant hatred. It must be said, however, that the laureate having to
account for, among other works, his "Wat Tyler" (which had been
pronounced to be an immoral book, and had been prohibited on that
account), rather trusted to his hypocrisy to regain for him the former
credit he enjoyed.

The intimacy between Byron and the spurned atheist Shelley presented a
capital opportunity for this man to take his revenge. He circulated in
Geneva all the false reports which had been current in London, and
described Byron under the worst colors.