as at the beginning of the following year that an acquaintance
commenced between Lord Byron and a gentleman, related to his family by
marriage, Mr. Dallas,--the author of some novels, popular, I believe,
in their day, and also of a sort of Memoir of the noble Poet,
published soon after his death, which, from being founded chiefly on
original correspondence, is the most authentic and trust-worthy of any
that have yet appeared. In the letters addressed by Lord Byron to this
gentleman, among many details, curious in a literary point of view, we
find, what is much more important for our present purpose, some
particulars illustrative of the opinions which he had formed, at this
time of his life, on the two subjects most connected with the early
formation of character--morals and religion.

It is but rarely that infidelity or scepticism finds an entrance into
youthful minds. That readiness to take the future upon trust, which is
the charm of this period of life, would naturally, indeed, make it the
season of belief as well as of hope. There are also then, still fresh
in the mind, the impressions of early religious culture, which, even
in those who begin soonest to question their faith, give way but
slowly to the encroachments of doubt, and, in the mean time, extend
the benefit of their moral restraint over a portion of life when it is
acknowledged such restraints are most necessary. If exemption from the
checks of religion be, as infidels themselves allow,[81] a state of
freedom from responsibility dangerous at all times, it must be
peculiarly so in that season of temptation, youth, when the passions
are sufficiently disposed to usurp a latitude for themselves, without
taking a licence also from infidelity to enlarge their range. It is,
therefore, fortunate that, for the causes just stated, the inroads of
scepticism and disbelief should be seldom felt in the mind till a
period of life when the character, already formed, is out of the reach
of their disturbing influence,--when, being the result, however
erroneous, of thought and reasoning, they are likely to partake of the
sobriety of the process by which they were acquired, and, being
considered but as matters of pure speculation, to have as little share
in determining the mind towards evil as, too often, the most orthodox
creed has, at the same age, in influencing it towards good.

While, in this manner, the moral qualities of the unbeliever himself
are guarded from some of