will doubtless render them acceptable to our readers.]


For several years a man, a poet, excited the admiration of civilized
people. His sublime genius towered above the atmosphere, and penetrated,
with a searching look, even into the deepest abysses of the human heart.
Envy, which could not reach the poet, attacked the man, and wounded him
cruelly; but, too great to defend, and too generous to revenge himself,
he only sought for elevated impressions, and "_vivoit de grand
sensations_," (which we cannot translate), capable of the most noble
devotedness, and, persuaded that excellence is comprised in justice, he
embraced the cause of the Greeks. Still young, Byron had traversed Greece,
_properly so called_, and described the moral picture of its inhabitants.
He quitted these countries, pitying in his verses the misery of the
Greeks, blaming their lethargy, and despising their stupid submission; so
difficult is it to know a nation by a rapid glance. What was the
astonishment of the poet, when some years later he saw these people, whom
he had thought unworthy to bear the name of Greeks, rise up with
simultaneous eagerness, and declare, in the face of the world, that "they
_would_ again become a nation." Byron hesitated at first; ancient
prepossessions made him attribute this rupture to a partial convulsion,
the ultimate effort of a being ready to breathe the last sigh. Soon new
prodigies, brilliant exploits, and heroic constancy, which sustained
itself in spite of every opposition, proved to him that he had ill-judged
this people, and excited him to repair his error by the sacrifice of his
fortune and life; he wished to concur in the work of regeneration. From
the shores of the beautiful Etruria he set sail for Greece, in the month
of August, 1823. He visited at first the seven Ionian Isles, where he
sojourned some time, busied in concluding the first Greek loan. The death
of Marco Botzaris redoubled the enthusiasm of Byron, and perhaps