creation, are forced to give the name of explanation to
mere comparisons.

Byron says, in "Don Juan,"--

"Explain me your explanation."

He addressed himself finally, to all hypocrites and intolerant men;
Byron has been called a skeptic, notwithstanding.

That a sincere and orthodox Catholic, who holds that the negation of a
dogma constitutes skepticism, should have called Byron a skeptic because
he questioned the doctrine of eternal punishment, is not to be wondered
at; but what is matter of astonishment is, that the reproach was
addressed to him by the writer of "Faust," and by the writer of
"Elvire," and the "Meditations." Yet it is so; and if this psychological
problem is not yet solved, let others do it,--we can not.

To sum up, we may declare, from what we have said, that as regards Lord
Byron there has been a confusion of words, and that his skepticism has
merely been a natural and inevitable situation in which certain minds
who, as it were, are the victims of their own contradictory thoughts,
are placed, notwithstanding their wish to believe. Faith, being a part
of poetical feeling, could not but form a part likewise of Byron's
nature, but there existed also in him a great tendency to weigh the
merits of the opinions of others, and consequently the desire not to
arrive too hastily at conclusions.

This combination of instinctive faith and a philosophical mind could not
produce in him the belief in those things which did not appear to him to
have been first submitted to the test of argument, and proved to be just
by the convictions resulting from the test of reasoning to which they
had been subjected. It produced, on the contrary, a species of expectant
doubt, a state of mind awaiting some decisive explanation, to reject
error and embrace the truth. His skepticism, therefore, may be said to
have been the result of thought, not of passion.

In religion, however, it must be allowed that his skepticism never went
so far as to cause him to deny its fundamental doctrines. These he
proclaimed from heartfelt convictions, and his modest, humble, and manly
skepticism may be said to have been that of great minds, and his
failings, also, theirs. Is a day said to be stormy because a few clouds
have obscured the rays of the sun?

Is it necessary to say any thing about what he doubted? In showing what
he believed, the exception will be found unnecessary. He believed in a
Creator, in a spiritual and consequently i