"]

[Footnote 47: See "Life in Italy."]

[Footnote 48: The heroism of the young Zuleika, says Mr. G. Ellis in his
criticism, is full of purity and loveliness. Never was a more perfect
character traced with greater delicacy and truth; her piety,
intelligence, her exquisite sentiment of duty and her unalterable love
of truth seem born in her soul rather than acquired by education. She is
ever natural, seductive, affectionate, and we must confess that her
affection for Selim is well placed.]

[Footnote 49: "Childe Harold," canto iv. stanza 177.]

[Footnote 50: See "Don Juan," canto xvi.]

[Footnote 51: See chapter on Marriage.]

[Footnote 52: Medwin, p. 13.]

[Footnote 53: See "Life in Italy."]

[Footnote 54: Ibid.]

[Footnote 55: Moore, vol. ii, p. 182.]

[Footnote 56: See "Life in Italy," at Venice.]

[Footnote 57: See "Life in Italy."]

[Footnote 58: Dallas, 171.]

[Footnote 59: Moore, 315.]

[Footnote 60: Moore, first vol.]

[Footnote 61: Moore, 315.]

[Footnote 62: See "Life in Italy."]

[Footnote 63: "He was more a mental being, if I may use this phrase,"
said Captain Parry, who knew him at Missolonghi, "than any one I ever
saw; he lived on thoughts more than on food."]

CHAPTER XI.

THE CONSTANCY OF LORD BYRON.

Among Lord Byron's moral virtues, may we count that of constancy? Men in
general, not finding this virtue in their own lives, refuse to believe
in its existence among those who, in exception to the common rule, do
possess it. They must be forced to this act of justice as to many
others. This is comprehensible; constancy is so rare!

"I less easily believe constancy in men than any thing else," says
Montaigne, "and nothing more easily than inconstancy."

Besides the difficulties common to every one, Lord Byron had also to
fight against those difficulties peculiar to his sensitive nature and
his vast intelligence.

"The largest minds," says Bacon, "are the least constant, because they
find reasons for deliberating, where others only see occasion for
acting."

But if these difficulties overcame Lord Bacon's constancy, could they
have the same power over Lord Byron, who was indeed his equal in mind,
but his opposite in conduct and strength of soul? There are three sorts
of constancy: that of affection, which has its source in goodness of
heart; that of taste, flowing from beauty of soul; that of idea, derived
from rectitude of intelligence.

Did Lord Byron possess the w