"After an instant's pause, Lord Byron replied, 'I am damned sorry for it;' and then, after another slight pause, he added, 'I didn't know but I might live to see Lord Castlereagh's head on a pole. But I suppose I shan't now.'"
Byron's liking for Buonaparte was probably increased by his dislike of Wellington and Blucher. The following passages are taken from the
Detached Thoughts
(1821):
"The vanity of Victories is considerable. Of all who fell at Waterloo or Trafalgar, ask any man in company to name you ten off hand. They will stick at Nelson: the other will survive himself. Nelson was a hero, the other is a mere Corporal, dividing with Prussians and Spaniards the luck which he never deserved. He even—but I hate the fool, and will be silent."
"The Miscreant Wellington is the Cub of Fortune, but she will never lick him into shape. If he lives, he will be beaten; that's certain. Victory was never before wasted upon such an unprofitable soil as this dunghill of Tyranny, whence nothing springs but Viper's eggs."
"I remember seeing Blucher in the London Assemblies, and never saw anything of his age less venerable. With the voice and manners of a recruiting Sergeant, he pretended to the honours of a hero; just as if a stone could be worshipped because a man stumbled over it."
Henry IV
., Part II. act iv. se. 3.