faults; if not in applauding, in blaming him,--was, day and night,
the constant ambition of his soul; and in the correspondence he so
regularly maintained with his publisher, one of the chief mediums
through which this object was to be effected lay. Mr. Murray's house
being then, as now, the resort of most of those literary men who are,
at the same time, men of the world, his Lordship knew that whatever
particulars he might wish to make public concerning himself, would, if
transmitted to that quarter, be sure to circulate from thence
throughout society. It was on this presumption that he but rarely, as
we shall find him more than once stating, corresponded with any others
of his friends at home; and to the mere accident of my having been,
myself, away from England, at the time, was I indebted for the
numerous and no less interesting letters with which, during the same
period, he honoured me, and which now enrich this volume.

In these two sets of correspondence (given, as they are here, with as
little suppression as a regard to private feelings and to certain
other considerations, warrants) will be found a complete history, from
the pen of the poet himself, of the course of his life and thoughts,
during this most energetic period of his whole career;--presenting
altogether so wide a canvass of animated and, often, unconscious
self-portraiture, as even the communicative spirit of genius has
seldom, if ever, before bestowed on the world.

Some insinuations, calling into question the disinterestedness of the
lady whose fate was connected with that of Lord Byron during his
latter years, having been brought forward, or rather revived, in a
late work, entitled "Galt's Life of Byron,"--a work wholly unworthy of
the respectable name it bears,--I may be allowed to adduce here a
testimony on this subject, which has been omitted in its proper