Byron, Byron is (or ought to be) mentioned many times. I expect, nay
exact, that Bryon shall be mentioned again and again. But my
undergraduate has a blushing sense that to call Byron Byron twice on one
page is indelicate. So Byron, after starting bravely as Byron, in the
second sentence turns into 'that great but unequal poet' and
thenceforward I have as much trouble with Byron as ever Telemachus with
Proteus to hold and pin him back to his proper self. Half-way down the
page he becomes 'the gloomy master of Newstead': overleaf he is
reincarnated into 'the meteoric darling of society': and so proceeds
through successive avatars--'this arch-rebel,' 'the author of Childe
Harold,' 'the apostle of scorn,' 'the ex-Harrovian, proud, but abnormally
sensitive of his club-foot,' 'the martyr of Missolonghi,' 'the
pageant-monger of a bleeding heart.' Now this again is Jargon. It does
not, as most Jargon does, come of laziness; but it comes of timidity,
which is worse. In literature as in life he makes himself felt who not
only calls a spade a spade but has the pluck to double spades and
re-double.

For another rule--just as rough and ready, but just as useful: Train your
suspicions to bristle up whenever you come upon 'as regards,' 'with
regard to,' 'in respect of,' 'in connection with,' 'according as to
whether,' and the like. They are all dodges of Jargon, circumlocutions
for evading this or that simple statement: and I say that it is not
enough to avoid them nine times out of ten, or nine-and-ninety times out
of a hundred. You should never use them. That is positive enough, I hope?
Though I cannot admire his style, I admire the man who wrote to me, 'Re
Tennyson--your remarks anent his "In Memoriam" make me sick': for though
re is not a preposition of the first water, and 'anent' has enjoyed its
day, the finish crowned the work. But here are a few specimens far, very
far, worse:--