In the preface to this edition, in mentioning the fact respecting Lord Byron, which had been the immediate cause of its publication, I added these words:  “I tell this fact assuredly not from any little vanity which it may appear to betray;—­for the truth is, were I not as liberal and as candid in respect to my own productions, as I hope I am to others, I could not have been gratified by the present circumstance; for the marginal notes of the noble author convey no flattery;—­but amidst their pungency, and sometimes their truth, the circumstance that a man of genius could reperuse this slight effusion at two different periods of his life, was a sufficient authority, at least for an author, to return it once more to the anvil.”

Some time after the publication of this edition of “The Literary Character,” which was in fact a new work, I was shown, through the kindness of an English gentleman lately returned from Italy, a copy of it, which had been given to him by Lord Byron, and which again contained marginal notes by the noble author.  These were peculiarly interesting, and were chiefly occasioned by observations on his character, which appeared in the work.

In 1822 I published a new edition of this work, greatly enlarged, and in two volumes.  I took this opportunity of inserting the manuscript Notes of Lord Byron, with the exception of one, which, however characteristic of the amiable feelings of the noble poet, and however gratifying to my own, I had no wish to obtrude on the notice of the public.[A]

[Footnote A:  As everything connected with the reading of a mind like Lord Byron’s interesting to the philosophical inquirer, this note may now be preserved.  On that passage of the Preface of the second Edition which I have already quoted, his Lordship was thus pleased to write: 

“I was wrong, but I was young and petulant, and probably wrote down anything, little thinking that those observations would be betrayed to the author, whose abilities I have always respected, and whose works in general I have read oftener than perhaps those of any English author whatever, except such as treat of Turkey.”]

Soon after the publication of this third edition, I received the following letter from his lordship:—­

"Montenero, Villa Dupuy, near Leghorn, June 10, 1822.

“Dear sir,—­If you will permit me to call you so,—­I had some time ago taken up my pen at Pisa, to thank you for the present of your new edition of the ‘Literary Character,’ which has often been to me a consolation, and always a pleasure.  I was interrupted, however, partly by business, and partly by vexation of different kinds,—­for I have not very long ago lost a child by fever, and I have had a good deal of petty trouble with the laws of this lawless country, on account of the prosecution of a servant for an attack upon a cowardly scoundrel of a dragoon, who drew his sword upon some unarmed Englishmen, and whom I had