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.

It is impossible to reflect on the boyhood of Byron without regret.
There is not one point in it all which could, otherwise than with
pain, have affected a young mind of sensibility. His works bear
testimony, that, while his memory retained the impressions of early
youth, fresh and unfaded, there was a gloom and shadow upon them,
which proved how little they had been really joyous.

The riper years of one so truly the nursling of pride, poverty, and
pain, could only be inconsistent, wild, and impassioned, even had his
temperament been moderate and well disciplined. But when it is
considered that in addition to all the awful influences of these
fatalities, for they can receive no lighter name, he possessed an
imagination of unbounded capacity--was inflamed with those
indescribable feelings which constitute, in the opinion of many, the
very elements of genius--fearfully quick in the discernment of the
darker qualities of character--and surrounded by temptation--his
career ceases to surprise. It would have been more wonderful had he