167 [Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanzas cvi.-cix.]

168 [For "begun," compare Don Juan, Canto II. stanza clxvii. line 1.]

169 [Compare—

" ... but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrenched."

Paradise Lost, i. 600.]

bg Summons——.—[MS. M.]

170
"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."

Paradise Lost, i. 254, 255.]

171 [In the first edition (p. 75), this line was left out at Gifford's suggestion (Memoirs, etc., 1891, i. 387). Byron was indignant, and wrote to Murray, August 12, 1817 (Letters, 1900, iv. 157), "You have destroyed the whole effect and moral of the poem, by omitting the last line of Manfred's speaking."]

172 [For Goethes translation of the following passages in Manfred, viz (i) Manfred's soliloquy, act 1. sc. 1, line 1 seq.; (ii) "The Incantation." act i. sc. 1, lines 192-261; (iii)Manfred's soliloquy, act ii, sc. 2 lines 164-204; (iv.) the duologue between Manfred and Astarte, act ii. sc. 4, lines 116-155; (v) a couplet, "For the night hath been to me," etc., act iii. sc. 4, lines 3, 4;—see Professor A. Brandl's Goethe-Jahrbuch. 1899, and Goethe's Werke, 1874, iii. 201, as quoted in Appendix II., Letters, 1901. v. 503-514.]

The Life of Lord Byron by John Galt

Table of Contents

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER XLIII

CHAPTER XLIV

CHAPTER XLV

CHAPTER XLVI

CHAPTER XLVII

CHAPTER XLVIII

CHAPTER XLIX

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

Table of Contents

My present task is one of considerable difficulty; but I have long had a notion that some time or another it would fall to my lot to perform it. I approach it, therefore, without apprehension, entirely in consequence of having determined, to my own satisfaction, the manner in which the biography of so singular and so richly endowed a character as that of the late Lord Byron should be treated, but still with no small degree of diffidence; for there is a wide difference between determining a rule for one’s self, and producing, according to that rule, a work which shall please the public.

It has happened, both with regard to the man and the poet, that from the first time his name came before the public, there has been a vehement and continual controversy concerning him; and the chief difficulties of the task arise out of the heat with which the adverse parties have maintained their respective opinions. The circumstances in which he was placed, until his accession to the title and estates of his ancestors, were not such as to prepare a boy that would be father to a prudent or judicious man. Nor, according to the history of his family, was his blood without a taint of sullenness, which disqualified him from conciliating the good opinion of those whom his innate superiority must have often prompted him to desire for friends. He was branded, moreover, with a personal deformity; and the grudge against Nature for inflicting this defect not only deeply disturbed his happiness, but so generally affected his feelings as to embitter them with a vindictive sentiment, so strong as, at times, to exhibit the disagreeable energy of misanthropy. This was not all. He enjoyed high rank, and was conscious of possessing great talents; but his fortune was inadequate to his desires, and his talents were not of an order to redeem the deficiencies of fortune. It likewise so happened that while indulged by his only friend, his mother, to an excess that impaired the manliness of his character, her conduct was such as in no degree to merit the affection which her wayward fondness inspired.