ng him of pride.

Was Lord Byron proud as a poet and as a man? We shall have occasion to
answer this question in another chapter. Here we shall only examine his
claims to modesty; and we say, without hesitation, that it was as great
in him as it has ever been in others. It shines in every line of his
poetry and his prose, at every age and in all the circumstances of his
life.

"There is no real modesty" (says a great moralist of the present day)
"without diffidence of self, inspired by a deep sense of the beautiful
and by the fear of not being able to reach the perfection we conceive."

As a poet, Lord Byron always undervalued or despised himself. As a man,
he did so still more; he exaggerated this quality so far as to convert
it into a fault, for he calumniated himself.

We have seen how unambitious Lord Byron was as a child, and with what
facility he allowed his comrades to surpass him in intellectual
exercises, reserving for his sole ambition the wish of excelling them in
boyish games and in bodily exercises.

As a youth he did nothing but censure his own conduct, which, was not at
all different from that which his comrades thought allowable in
themselves. We have seen with what modest feelings he published his
first poems; with what docility he accepted criticisms, and yielded to
the advice of friends whom he esteemed.

When cruel criticism showed him neither mercy nor justice,
notwithstanding his youthful age, he lost, it is true, serenity and
moderation of spirit, but never once put aside his modesty.

Instigated by a passion for truth, he exclaims in his first satire,--

"Truth! rouse some genuine bard, and guide his hand
To drive this pestilence from out the land."

Certainly, he does not spare censure in this passionate satire; but,
while inflicting it, he questions whether he should be the one to apply
the lash:--

"E'en I, least thinking of a thoughtless throng,
Just skill'd to know the right and choose the wrong."

It was during the time of his first travels that Lord Byron wrote his
first _chef-d'oeuvre_,[82] but so little was he aware of possessing
great faculties that, while suffering from the exactions and torments
they created within him, he only asked in return some amusement, an
occupation for long hours of solitude.

Having begun "Childe Harold" as a memorial of his travelling
impressions, he communicated it, on his return to England, to the friend
who had been his companion thr