" The confession brings before us a type of the transitions of the
century, on its way from the Byronic to the anti-Byronic fever, of which
later state Mrs. Norton and Miss Martineau are among the most pronounced
representatives.
Byron's garrulity with regard to those delicate matters on which men of
more prudence or chivalry are wont to set the seal of silence, has often
the same practical effect as reticence; for he talks so much at
large--every page of his Journal being, by his own admission, apt to
"confute and abjure its predecessor"--that we are often none the wiser.
Amid a mass of conjecture, it is manifest that during the years between
his return from Greece and final expatriation (1811-1816), including the
whole period of his social glory--though not yet of his solid fame--he was
lured into liaisons of all sorts and shades. Some, now acknowledged as
innocent, were blared abroad by tongues less skilled in pure invention
than in distorting truth. On others, as commonplaces of a temperament "all
meridian," it were waste of time to dwell. Byron rarely put aside a
pleasure in his path; but his passions were seldom unaccompanied by
affectionate emotions, genuine while they lasted.
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