ized the first
opportunity that presented itself of writing in "Childe Harold" those
pathetic generous lines on the death of his son, Major Howard. He acted
just in the same way every time he thought he had any fault to repair.
But could this same love of justice, that had guided him through life,
have caused him equally to disavow what he said of Lord Castlereagh and
of Ireland in "Avatar?" of Southey and the Austrians at Venice? or the
greater part of the satirical traits contained in "Don Juan" and the
"Age of Bronze?" I do not think so. I believe, even, that if on his
death-bed, he had been asked to retract some of his writings, he would
have answered as Pascal did. And this because the sentiment which under
all circumstances guided his pen did not arise from any personal
interest, but was only, to use the beautiful language of a great
contemporary philosopher, "the indignation and revolt of the generous
faculties of the soul, which, hurt by injustice, rose up proudly, to
protest against human dignity, offended in one's own person or in that
of others."

This sentiment not being capable of change, neither could its
consequences bring any repentance. According to Lord Byron, Castlereagh
was a scourge for mankind. Faithful to this opinion, as to all his great
principles, he wrote to Moore in 1815:--

"I am sick at heart of politics and slaughters; and the luck which
Providence is pleased to lavish on Lord Castlereagh, is only a proof of
the little value the gods set upon prosperity, when they permit such
rogues as he and that drunken corporal, old Bl----, to bully their
betters. From this, however, Wellington should be excepted. He _is_ a
man, and the Scipio of our Hannibal."

Let people read the "Avatar," the eleventh octave and following of the
dedication of "Don Juan," the forty-ninth and fiftieth stanzas of the
ninth canto of "Don Juan," as well as the epigrams; and they will have a
fair idea of the generous sentiments that provoked his indignation
against the inhuman policy of this minister. They will understand why he
wished to denounce him to the execration of posterity. As to his
satirical verses and anger against the poet laureate, it has already
been seen on whose side lay the fault, and how this jealous poet,
through a combination of bad feelings, in which envy and revenge
predominated, spared no means, no occasion, of doing him harm. Thus Lord
Byron saw himself and his friends enveloped in one of those