pe, afterward Lord Harrington, who knew Lord Byron in
Greece, shortly before his death, says:--

"Most men affect a virtuous character; Lord Byron's ambition, on the
contrary, seemed to be to make the world believe that he was a sort of
_Satan_, though impelled by high sentiments to accomplish great actions.
_Happily for his reputation, he possessed another quality that unmasked
him completely: he was the most open and most sincere of men, and his
nature, inclined to good, ever swayed all his actions._"[99]

Mr. Finlay, who knew Lord Byron about the same time, says _that not only
he calumniated himself, but that he hid his best sentiments_.

Speaking of the simplicity of his manners, and his repugnance for all
_emphasis_:--

"I have always observed," continues Mr. Finlay, "that he adopted a very
simple and even monotonous tone, when he had to say any thing not quite
in the ordinary style of conversation. Whenever he had begun a sentence
which showed that the subject interested him, and which contained
sublime thought, he would check himself suddenly, and come to an end
without concluding, either with a smile of indifference or in a careless
tone. I thought he had adopted this mode _to hide his real sentiments
when he feared lest his tongue should be carried away by his heart_; and
often he did so evidently to hide the author or rather the poet. But in
satire or clever conversation his genius took full flight."[100]

And Stanhope further adds:--

"I also have observed that Lord Byron acted in this way. He often liked
to hide the noble sentiments that filled his soul, and even tried to
turn them into ridicule."[101]

This was only too true. The spirit of repartee and fun often made him
display his intellectual faculties at the expense of his moral nature
and his truest sentiments.

Moore says that when Lord Byron went to Ravenna to see Countess G----
again, he wrote to Hoppner, who looked after his affairs, in such a
light vein of pleasantry, that it would have been difficult for any one
not knowing him thoroughly to conceive the possibility of his expressing
himself thus, while under the influence of a passion so sincere:--

"But such is ever the wantonness of the mocking spirit, from which
nothing--not even love--remains sacred; and which at last, for want of
other food, turns upon self. The same horror, too, of hypocrisy that
led Lord Byron to exaggerate his own errors led him also to disguise,
under a seemin