ed in him the germs of a host of virtues. I shall not tarry
any longer, however, on this subject, as in another chapter I intend to
consider Byron's kindness of disposition from a far higher point of
view. I shall only add his own words, which prove his goodness of
character. "I can not," said he, "bear malice to any one, nor can I go
to sleep with an ill thought against any body."

ABSENCE OF ALL JEALOUS FEELINGS IN LORD BYRON.

Among the infirmities of human nature, one of the most general, serious,
and incurable, is certainly that of jealousy. Being the essence of a
disordered self-love, it presents several aspects, according to the
different social positions of those whom it afflicts, and the degree of
goodness of the people. It might, in my mind, almost be called the
thermometer of the heart. But of all the jealousies, that which has done
most harm on earth has been the jealousy of artists and of literary men.

This kind of fever has at times risen to a degree inconceivable. It has
raged so high as to call poison to its aid, to invoke the help of
daggers and create assassins.

But even putting aside these excesses, proper to Southern countries, it
is certain that everywhere and at all times jealousy has caused
numberless cases of ingratitude, and has set brothers against brothers,
friends against friends, and pupils against masters.

Great minds in France have not been altogether free from it. Corneille,
Racine, Voltaire, became a prey to its disastrous influences. In England
Dryden, Addison, Swift, Shaftesbury, were its victims. So it has been
everywhere, and in Italy even Petrarch, the meek and excellent Petrarch,
was not exempted from it.

This moral infirmity is of so subtle a nature, that not only does it
injure those who are devoted to those works of the mind, which can not
be said to establish a solid claim to glory inasmuch as public opinion
is judge, but also those whose influence being confined to a more
limited sphere, should be less anxious about obtaining it. It finds so
easy an access into the souls of men, that it is said that even Plato
was jealous of Socrates, Aristotle of Plato, Leibnitz of Locke, and so
forth.

When we behold so many great minds at all times unable to avoid this
jealousy, and that we see nowadays jealousy animating the pen of some of
the best writers, and completely changing their moral sense, must we not
admire the great goodness of him whom, though living in such a hea