But this very versatility, which renders it so difficult to fix the fairy fabric of his character, is itself the clue to whatever was most dazzling in his might, or startling in his levity, or most attractive or most repellent in his life and genius.  A variety of powers almost boundless, and a pride no less vast in displaying them; an unusual susceptibility and an uncontrolled impetuosity—­such were the two great sources of all that varied spectacle of his life—­unchecked feeling and dominant self-will.

Great versatility of power will hardly be found without a tendency to versatility of principle.  Byron was fully aware, not only of this characteristic quality of his nature, but also of its danger to singleness of character; and this consciousness had the effect of keeping him in a general line of consistency, throughout life, on certain great subjects, and helped him to preserve unbroken the greater number of his personal attachments.  But, except in some few respects, he gave way to his versatile humour without scruple or check; and it was impossible but that such a range of will and power should be abused.  Is it to be wondered at that in the works of one thus gifted and carried away we should find, without any design of corrupting on his side, evil too often invested with a grandeur which belongs intrinsically but to good?

Nay, it will be found that even the strength and impressiveness of Byron’s poetry is sometimes injured by a capricious and desultory quality due to this very pliancy of mind.  It may be questioned whether a concentration of his powers would not have afforded a grander result.  It may be that, if Lord Byron had not been so actively versatile, he would have been, not less wonderful, but more great.

Again, this love of variety was one of the most pervading weaknesses, not only to his poetry, but of his life.  The pride of personating every kind of character, evil as well as good, influenced his ambition and his conduct; and to such a perverse length did he carry this fancy for self-defamation that, if there was any tendency to mental derangement, it was in this point that it manifested itself.  I have known him more than once, as we have sat together, to throw out dark hints of his past life with an air of gloom and mystery designed to awaken interest; and I have little doubt that, to produce effect at the moment, there is hardly any crime so dark or so desperate of which, in the excitement of acting upon the imaginations of others, he would not have hinted that he had been guilty.  It has sometimes occurred to me that the occult cause of his lady’s separation from him may have been nothing more, after all, than some imposture of this kind, some dim confession of undefined horror.

But the over-frankness with which he uttered every chance impression of the moment was by itself enough to bring his character unfavourably before the world.  Which of us could bear to be judged by the unnumbered thoughts that course like waves of the sea through our minds and pass away unuttered and even unowned by ourselves?  To such a test was Byron’s character, throughout his life, exposed.