[Footnote 1:  Paulus Jovius.—­Bayle, too, says of him, “Il fit entrer plus de feu et plus de force dans ses livres qu’il n’y en eut mis s’il avoit joui d’une condition plus tranquille.”]

In that contempt for the world’s opinion, which led Dante to exclaim, “Lascia dir le genti,” Lord Byron also bore a strong resemblance to that poet,—­though far more, it must be confessed, in profession than reality.  For, while scorn for the public voice was on his lips, the keenest sensitiveness to its every breath was in his heart; and, as if every feeling of his nature was to have some painful mixture in it, together with the pride of Dante which led him to disdain public opinion, he combined the susceptibility of Petrarch which placed him shrinkingly at its mercy.

His agreement, in some other features of character, with Petrarch, I have already had occasion to remark[1]; and if it be true, as is often surmised, that Byron’s want of a due reverence for Shakspeare arose from some latent and hardly conscious jealousy of that poet’s fame, a similar feeling is known to have existed in Petrarch towards Dante; and the same reason assigned for it,—­that from the living he had nothing to fear, while before the shade of Dante he might have reason to feel humbled,—­is also not a little applicable[2] in the case of Lord Byron.

[Footnote 1:  Some passages in Foscolo’s Essay on Petrarch may be applied, with equal truth, to Lord Byron.—­For instance, “It was hardly possible with Petrarch to write a sentence without portraying himself”—­“Petrarch, allured by the idea that his celebrity would magnify into importance all the ordinary occurrences of his life, satisfied the curiosity of the world,” &c. &c.—­and again, with still more striking applicability,—­“In Petrarch’s letters, as well as in his Poems and Treatises, we always identify the author with the man, who felt himself irresistibly impelled to develope his own intense feelings.  Being endowed with almost all the noble, and with some of the paltry passions of our nature, and having never attempted to conceal them, he awakens us to reflection upon ourselves while we contemplate in him a being of our own species, yet different from any other, and whose originality excites even more sympathy than admiration.”]

[Footnote 2:  “II Petrarca poteva credere candidamente ch’ei non pativa d’invidia solamente, perche fra tutti i viventi non v’era chi non s’arretrasse per cedergli il passo alla prima gloria, ch’ei non poteva sentirsi umiliato, fuorche dall’ ombra di Dante.”]

Between the dispositions and habits of Alfieri and those of the noble poet of England, no less remarkable coincidences might be traced; and the sonnet in which the Italian dramatist professes to paint his own character contains, in one comprehensive line, a portrait of the versatile author of Don Juan,—­

  “Or stimandome Achille ed or Tersite.”