ed, "_That is not true_; Lord
Byron wore them less than any other man of his standing."

Another declared that his fingers were loaded with rings; he only wore
one, which was a token of affection. In his rooms hardly ordinary
comforts could be found. He was not one to carry about with him the
habits of his own country. Indeed, his habits consisted in having none.
During his travels, the most difficult to please were his valet and
other servants. "On his last journey," says Count Gamba, "he passed six
days without undressing."

His sole self-indulgence consisted in frequent bathing; for his only
craving was for extreme cleanliness. But, just as the disciples of
Epicurus would never have adopted his regimen, so would they equally
have refused to imitate this last enjoyment; which was a little too
manly for them, for his baths were mostly taken on Ocean's back;
struggling against the stormy wave, and that in all seasons, up to
mid-December. Such was the fastidious delicacy of this epicurean![63]

But to acknowledge all these things, or even any thing extraordinarily
good in the author of "Don Juan," the "Age of Bronze," the "Vision;" in
a son so _wanting in respect_ for the weaknesses of his mother-country;
in a poet that had dared to chastise powerful enemies, and the limit of
whose audacity was not even yet known, for his death had just condemned,
through revelations and imprudent biographies, many persons and things
to a sorry kind of immortality; to praise him, declare him guiltless, do
him justice,--truly that would have been asking too much from England at
that time. England has since made great strides in the path of generous
toleration and even toward justice to Lord Byron. For vain is calumny
after a time: truth destroys calumny by evoking facts. These form a
clear atmosphere, wherein truth becomes luminous, as the sun in its
atmosphere: for facts give birth to truth, and are mortal to calumny.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 42: The history of the page is, however, true. Lord Byron was
then nineteen years of age. Not to give his mother the grief of seeing
that he had made an acquaintance she would have disapproved, he brought
Miss ---- from Brighton to the Abbey, dressed as a page, that she might
pass for her brother Gordon.]

[Footnote 43: See "Newstead Abbey," by Washington Irving.]

[Footnote 44: Moore, vol. i. p. 346.]

[Footnote 45: See Galt, "Life of Lord Byron."]

[Footnote 46: See chapter on "Generosity.