the
subject, he, whose splendid fame had already thrown all his
contemporaries into the shade, answered simply, that supported by such
poets as Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and many others, the undertaking
would of course succeed; and that for his part, he would unite with
Hobhouse and Moore so as to furnish occasionally--a failure! and at the
same time he made use of the opportunity to praise Campbell and
Canning.

His memorandum-book is one perpetual record of his humility, even at a
time when the public, of all classes and sexes, had made him their idol.

After having expressed in his memoranda for 1813 his sublime aspirations
after glory--that is to say, the happiness he should experience in being
_not a ruler, but a guide and benefactor of humanity, a Washington, a
Franklin, a Penn_; "but no," added he; "no, I shall never be any thing:
or rather, I shall always be nothing. The most I can hope is that some
one may say of me, '_He might_, _perhaps_, if he would.'"

The low estimation in which he held his poetical genius, to which he
preferred action, amounted almost to a fault; for he forgot that grand
and beautiful truths, couched in burning words and lighted up by genius,
are also actions. He really seemed to have difficulty in forgiving
himself for writing at all. Even at the outset of his literary career he
was indignant with his publisher for having taken steps with Gifford
which looked like asking for praise.

"It is bad enough to be a scribbler," said he, "without having recourse
to such subterfuges for extorting praise or warding off criticism."

"I have never contemplated the prospect," wrote he, in 1819, "of
occupying a permanent place in the literature of my country. Those who
know me best are aware of that; and they also know that I have been
considerably astonished at even the transient success of my works, never
having flattered any one person or party, and having expressed opinions
which are not those of readers in general. If I could have guessed the
high degree of attention that has been awarded to them, I should
certainly have made all possible efforts to merit it. But I have lived
abroad, in distant countries, or else in the midst of worldly
dissipation in England: circumstances by no means favorable to study and
reflection. So that almost all I have written is but passion; for in me
(if it is not Irishism to say so) indifference itself was a _sort of
passion_, the result of experience and not