egotism, which, just now, would be no vanity.

"I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called
'The Devil's Drive[102],' the notion of which I took from Porson's
'Devil's Walk.'

"Redde some Italian, and wrote two Sonnets on * * *. I never wrote but
one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as
an exercise--and I will never write another. They are the most puling,
petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions. I detest the Petrarch so
much[104], that I would not be the man even to have obtained his Laura,
which the metaphysical, whining dotard never could.

[Footnote 100: This passage of the Journal has already appeared in my
Life of Sheridan.]

[Footnote 101: These names are all left blank in the original.]

[Footnote 102: Of this strange, wild poem, which extends to about two
hundred and fifty lines, the only copy that Lord Byron, I believe, ever
wrote, he presented to Lord Holland. Though with a good deal of vigour
and imagination, it is, for the most part, rather clumsily executed,
wanting the point and condensation of those clever verses of Mr.
Coleridge[103], which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has
attributed to Professor Person. There are, however, some of the stanzas
of "The Devil's Drive" well worth preserving.

1.

"The Devil return'd to hell by two,