a poet and a man, went on daily increasing; and the facility
with which he gave himself up to the current of fashionable life, and
mingled in all the gay scenes through which it led, showed that the
novelty, at least, of this mode of existence had charms for him, however
he might estimate its pleasures. That sort of vanity which is almost
inseparable from genius, and which consists in an extreme sensitiveness
on the subject of self, Lord Byron, I need not say, possessed in no
ordinary degree; and never was there a career in which this sensibility
to the opinions of others was exposed to more constant and various
excitement than that on which he was now entered. I find in a note of my
own to him, written at this period, some jesting allusions to the
"circle of star-gazers" whom I had left around him at some party on the
preceding night;--and such, in fact, was the flattering ordeal he had to
undergo wherever he went. On these occasions,--particularly before the
range of his acquaintance had become sufficiently extended to set him
wholly at his ease,--his air and port were those of one whose better
thoughts were elsewhere, and who looked with melancholy abstraction on
the gay crowd around him. This deportment, so rare in such scenes, and
so accordant with the romantic notions entertained of him, was the
result partly of shyness, and partly, perhaps, of that love of effect
and impression to which the poetical character of his mind naturally
led. Nothing, indeed, could be more amusing and delightful than the
contrast which his manners afterwards, when we were alone, presented to
his proud reserve in the brilliant circle we had just left. It was like
the bursting gaiety of a boy let loose from school, and seemed as if
there was no extent of fun or tricks of which he was not capable.
Finding him invariably thus lively when we were together, I often
rallied him on the gloomy tone of his poetry, as assumed; but his
constant answer was (and I soon ceased to doubt of its truth), that,
though thus merry and full of laughter with those he liked, he was, at
heart, one of the most melancholy wretches in existence.

Among the numerous notes which I received from him at this time,--some
of them relating to our joint engagements in society, and others to
matters now better forgotten,--I shall select a few that (as showing his
haunts and habits) may not, perhaps, be uninteresting.

"March 25. 1812.

"Know all men by these pr