him all his life after_. This romantic incident is rendered highly
probable by innumerable allusions to it in his poems. As, for instance,
when turning his sad contemplations inwards, he applies to himself the
fatal history of the King of Sparta. It is as follows: Pausanias, a
Lacedaemonian General, acquires glory by the important victory at
Plataea; but afterwards forfeits the confidence of his countrymen by
his arrogance, obstinacy, and secret intrigues with the common enemy.
This man draws upon himself the heavy guilt of innocent blood, which
attends him to his end. For, while commanding the fleet of the allied
Greeks in the Black Sea, he is inflamed with a violent passion for a
Byzantine maiden. After long resistance, he at length obtains her from
her parents; and she is to be delivered up to him at night. She modestly
desires the servant to put out the lamp, and, while groping her way in
the dark, she overturns it. Pausanias is awakened from his sleep;
apprehensive of an attack from murderers he seizes his sword, and
destroys his mistress. The horrid sight never leaves him. Her shade
pursues him unceasingly; and in vain he implores aid of the gods and the
exorcising priests. That poet must have a lacerated heart who selects
such a scene from antiquity, appropriates it to himself, and burdens his
tragic image with it."[2]

It is extremely characteristic of Byron, that, instead of resenting
this charge of murder, he was so pleased by the criticism in which
it occurs that he afterwards dedicated "The Deformed Transformed" to
Goethe. Mr. Grote repeats the story above alluded to, with all the
sanction of his grave authority, and even mentions the name of the
young lady; apparently for the sake of adding a few black strokes to
the character of Pausanias. But the supernatural part of the legend
was, of course, beneath the notice of a nineteenth-century critic; and
he passes it by. This part of the story is, however, essential to