Opinion various as his varying eye
In praise or railing—never passed him by.—[MS.]
[jo] {335} ——gayest of the gay.—[MS.]
[274] [The MS. omits lines 313-382. Stanza xviii. is written on a loose sheet belonging to the Murray MSS.; stanza xix. on a sheet inserted in the MS. Both stanzas must have been composed after the first draft of the poem was completed.]
[jp] ——an inward scorn of all.—[MS.]
[275] {336} [Compare Coleridge's Lines to a Gentleman [William Wordsworth] (written in 1807, but not published till 1817), lines 69, 70—
"Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,
And genius given, and knowledge won in vain.">[
And left Reflection: loth himself to blame,
He called on Nature's self to share the shame.—[MS.]
[jr] And half mistook for fate his wayward will.—[MS.]
[276] [For Byron's belief or half-persuasion that he was predestined to evil, compare Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza lxxxiii. lines 8, 9, and note. Compare, too, Canto III. stanza lxx. lines 8 and 9; and Canto IV. stanza xxxiv. line 6: Poetical Works, 1899, ii, 74, 260, 354.]