extravagance.  But it cannot be controverted, that there was an innate predilection in the mind of Lord Byron to mystify everything about himself:  he was actuated by a passion to excite attention, and, like every other passion, it was often indulged at the expense of propriety.  He had the infirmity of speaking, though vaguely, and in obscure hints and allusions, more of his personal concerns than is commonly deemed consistent with a correct estimate of the interest which mankind take in the cares of one another.  But he lived to feel and to rue the consequences:  to repent he could not, for the cause was in the very element of his nature.  It was a blemish as incurable as the deformity of his foot.

On his arrival in London, his relation, Mr Dallas, called on him, and in the course of their first brief conversation his Lordship mentioned that he had written a paraphrase of Horace’s Art of Poetry, but said nothing then of Childe Harold, a circumstance which leads me to suspect that he offered him the slighter work first, to enjoy his surprise afterward at the greater.  If so, the result answered the intent.  Mr Dallas carried home with him the paraphrase of Horace, with which he was grievously disappointed; so much so, that on meeting his Lordship again in the morning, and being reluctant to speak of it as he really thought, he only expressed some surprise that his noble friend should have produced nothing else during his long absence.

I can easily conceive the emphatic indifference, if my conjecture be well founded, with which Lord Byron must have said to him, “I have occasionally written short poems, besides a great many stanzas in Spenser’s measure, relative to the countries I have visited:  they are not worth troubling you with, but you shall have them all with you, if you like.”

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was accordingly placed in his hands; Mr Dallas took it home, and was not slow in discovering its beauties, for in the course of the same evening he despatched a note to his Lordship, as fair a specimen of the style of an elderly patronising gentleman as can well be imagined:  “You have written,” said he, “one of the most delightful poems I ever read.  If I wrote this in flattery, I should deserve your contempt rather than your friendship.  I have been so fascinated with Childe Harold, that I have not been able to lay it down; I would almost pledge my life on its advancing the reputation of your poetical powers, and on its gaining you great honour and regard, if you will do me the credit and favour of attending to my suggestions.”