hough altered with regard to individuals, as I
have been more or less informed of their conduct since my
departure; for it was only a considerable time after it that I was
made acquainted with the real facts and full extent of some of
their proceedings and language. My friends, like other friends,
from conciliatory motives, withheld from me much that they could,
and some things which they _should_ have unfolded; however, that
which is deferred is not lost--but it has been no fault of mine
that it has been deferred at all.

"I have alluded to what is said to have passed at Rome merely to
show that the sentiment which I have described was not confined to
the English in England, and as forming part of my answer to the
reproach cast upon what has been called my 'selfish exile,' and my
'voluntary exile.' 'Voluntary' it has been; for who would dwell
among a people entertaining strong hostility against him? How far
it has been 'selfish' has been already explained."

[Footnote 2: While these sheets are passing through the press, a printed
statement has been transmitted to me by Lady Noel Byron, which the
reader will find inserted in the Appendix to this volume. (_First
Edition_.)]

* * * * *

The following passages from the same unpublished pamphlet will be found,
in a literary point of view, not less curious.

"And here I wish to say a few words on the present state of English
poetry. That this is the age of the decline of English poetry will
be doubted by few who have calmly considered the subject. That
there are men of genius among the present poets makes little
against the fact, because it has been well said, that 'next to him
who forms the taste of his country, the greatest genius is he who
corrupts it.' No one has ever denied genius to Marino, who
corrupted not merely the taste of Italy, but that of all Europe for
nearly a century. The great cause of the present deplorable state
of English poetry is to be attributed to that absurd and systematic
depreciation of Pope, in which, for the last few years, there has
been a kind of epidemical concurrence. Men of the most opposite
opinions have united upon this topic. Warton and Churchill began
it, having borrowed the hint probably from the heroes of the
Dunciad, and their own internal conviction