Though eager for glory—especially at an age when not having yet arrived at it, he ignored the bite of the serpent that often lurks within a garland of roses—he yet repelled all undue praise, and was much more indignant at receiving it, than when unmerited blame was heaped upon him. Once, having been compared to a man of high standing in French literature, he, anxious to prove that there could be no resemblance between him and this great man, replied:—"If the thing were true, it might flatter me; but it is impossible to accept fictions with pleasure."
When Dallas—who only knew him then by his family name—read his early productions, he was enchanted with poetry that often rose to the sublime, and was always chivalrous in feeling, "which denoted," he said, "a heart full of honorable sentiments, and formed for virtue." This is a precious verdict, coming as it does, from a man so bigoted in all respects as the elder Dallas. He adds afterward that the perusal of these verses, and the sentiments contained in them, made him discover great affinity of mind between the young author and another literary man, who was equally remarkable as a poet, an orator, and a historian—"the great and good Lord Lyttelton of immortal fame." "And I doubt not," added Dallas, "that one day, like him, he will confer more honor on the peerage than it can ever reflect on him." Such a compliment from a man so rigid and respectable might certainly have tempted the most ordinary self-love, but Lord Byron, applying his magnifying-glass to his conscience, and comparing what he saw there with his ideal, did not conceive he merited such praise. Accordingly he answered with candor that enchanted Dallas himself:—
"Though our periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, I confess a tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering. But I am afraid I should forfeit all claim to candor, if I did not decline such praise as I do not deserve, and this is, I am sorry to say, the case in the present instance. My pretensions to virtue are, unluckily, so few, that, though I should be happy to deserve your praise, I can not accept your applause in that respect."
Thus, from fear of being wanting in truth, he exaggerated his youthful imperfections, nor could find any excuse for them. And in the same way throughout life his dread of making himself out better than he was, led him into the opposite defect of representing himself as far inferior to his real worth.
If from considering of the man, we turn to look at the author, we shall still always find the same passion for truth. By degrees, as he observed society around him, this passion increased, for he found the dominant vice was precisely that one most repugnant to his nature. If Lord Byron ever admitted, with La Rochefoucault, that hypocrisy is a homage vice renders to virtue, he did not the less consider this homage as degrading to him who offered it, insulting to those to whom it is addressed, and most corrupting in its effect upon the soul.
Thus, then, he from an early period considered hypocrisy and cant as monsters, in the moral world, to be combated energetically whenever an opportunity should present itself, and he resolved on doing so with all the intrepidity and independence of which his nature was capable. His natural gentleness disappeared in presence of the whited sepulchres, the Pharisees of our day. His whole literary life was one struggle against this vice, "the crying sin of the times,"[197] as he called it.
His conscience was quite as strict with regard to intellectual things as it was in the domain of morals. We might even call it marvellously strict for our epoch, for the decay of truth forms a sadly striking characteristic of the present time. I know not what modern critic it is who says that a general enervation of intelligence and languor of soul now prevail in this respect; that the majesty of truth has been profaned, and the ancient regard in which she was held has been destroyed by religious sects, philosophical systems, the insolent attacks of the press, and by the revolution that has taken place in ideas as well as in deeds. Thence the general tendency to place truth and error on the same footing, in theory and in practice. Thence the equality of rights established between both, and which has become like the normal state of mind general in society.
Certainly, in our day, the love and practice of truth have grown obsolete; dramatic pieces and works of fiction, indeed all kinds of literature, especially biography, and even history, combine to outrage truth with impunity; no compunction is felt in transforming great characters into monsters, and monsters into heroes. People are no longer astonished that travellers' narratives should be like poems, good or bad, works of imagination full of anachronisms, exaggerations, impossibilities, making the sea take the place of mountains, and putting mountains where the sea should be. Truth is hidden as dangerous, not always to humanity, but to private interests to which it might bring smaller gains. Now if, at an epoch like this, we meet with geniuses, or even conscientious talents, sacrificing, both in their works and their actions, every interest or consideration to truth, ought we not to look upon them as real marvels? Undoubtedly we ought, and there can be no question that Lord Byron belonged to the small number of such marvels. Friends and enemies are agreed thereupon.
Galt, who was brought into contact with the poet by chance, at the time of his first journey into Greece, and who travelled with him for several days, when remarking the beauty of Lord Byron's poems on Greece, says, "they possess the great and rare quality of being as true with regard to nature and facts as they are sublime for poetic expression."
He quotes those beautiful lines with which the third canto of the "Corsair" opens, wherein Lord Byron describes the lovely scenery that met his eye on ascending the Piræus;[198] and to the Cape Colonna, and to the so-called Tomb of Themistocles in the "Giaour;" and Galt fancies he can remember by what circumstance and aspect of nature they were inspired.