was found more interesting than the writer.

During a long interval of twenty years, this little work was often
recalled to my recollection by several, and by some who have since
obtained celebrity. They imagined that their attachment to literary
pursuits had been strengthened even by so weak an effort. An extraordinary
circumstance concurred with these opinions. A copy accidentally fell into
my hands which had formerly belonged to the great poetical genius of our
times; and the singular fact, that it had been more than once read by him,
and twice in two subsequent years at Athens, in 1810 and 1811, instantly
convinced me that the volume deserved my renewed attention.

It was with these feelings that I was again strongly attracted to a
subject from which, indeed, during the course of a studious life, it
had never been long diverted. The consequence of my labours was the
publication, in 1818, of an octavo volume, under the title of "The
Literary Character, illustrated by the History of Men of Genius, drawn
from their own feelings and confessions."

In the preface to this edition, in mentioning the fact respecting Lord
Byron, which had been the immediate cause of its publication, I added
these words: "I tell this fact assuredly not from any little vanity which
it may appear to betray;--for the truth is, were I not as liberal and as
candid in respect to my own productions, as I hope I am to others, I could
not have been gratified by the present circumstance; for the marginal
notes of the noble author convey no flattery;--but amidst their pungency,
and sometimes their truth, the circumstance that a man of genius could
reperuse this slight effusion at two different periods of his life, was a
sufficient authority, at least for an author, to return it once more to
the anvil."