BYRONIANA. THE OPINIONS OF LORD BYRON ON MEN, MANNERS, AND THINGS; WITH THE PARISH CLERK'S ALBUM, KEPT AT HIS BURIAL PLACE, HUCKNALL TORKARD. CREDE BYRON LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW. M.DCCC.XXXIV. IN the following pages will be found many passages of great beauty, all of them evincing an extraordinary command of language, and some of them containing opinions of profound depth and acute judgment; and whether they are considered in the light of general aphorisms, or merely as individual opinions, they are all of them interesting, either as beautiful specimens of composition, or as the first conceptions of a gifted but eccentric man, who fearlessly and without reserve was in the habit of speaking and writing his inmost thoughts. Had those thoughts emanated from a man of virtue as well as genius, the task of selecting would not have been so difficult. In the opinions of Lord Byron no one will expect to find examples of pure orthodoxy; but it is trusted that in this little book will be found. none of the unnecessary and prurient coarseness which is too often mixed up with the excellencies of his writings. If Lord Byron had cultivated his talents for writing prose as he did for poetry, he would have had as few rivals in the one as in the other. His style is pecu PREFACE. vii liarly forcible and pure. His letters are among the best in our literature; though from the freedom with which he was in the habit of writing, they contain many passages that must prevent their being read with any degree of safety by the young, or with unmingled pleasure by the virtuous. His conversation was brilliant; the rapid flow of his ideas-his ready command of language-his keen, caustic, and, at times, sportive wit, aided by the play of his expressive features, which varied with almost every passing thought -must have made him, to those with whom he was on familiar terms, the most delightful of companions. Of his talents in each of these ways, this selection can give but a faint idea; it is made from a mass of correspond |