Trelawny, who appreciated Shelley with an intensity that is often apt to
be exclusive, saw, or has reported, for the most part the weaker side of
Byron. We are constrained to accept as correct the conjecture that his
judgment was biassed by their rivalry in physical prowess, and the
political differences which afterwards developed between them. Letters to
his old correspondents--to Scott about the _Waverleys_, to Murray about
the Dramas, and the _Vision of Judgment_, and _Cain_--make up almost the
sole record of the poet's pursuits during the five following months. In
February 6th he sent, through Mr. Kinnaird, the challenge to Southey, of
the suppression of which he was not aware till May 17. The same letter
contains a sheaf of the random cynicisms, as--"Cash is virtue," "Money is
power; and when Socrates said he knew nothing, he meant he had not a
drachma"--by which he sharpened the shafts of his assailants. A little
later, on occasion of the death of Lady Noel, he expresses himself with
natural bitterness on hearing that she had in her will recorded a wish
against his daughter Ada seeing his portrait.
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