liever,--he had undoubtedly
learned to feel less uneasy under his scepticism, and even to mingle
somewhat of boast and of levity with his expression of it. At the very
first onset of his correspondence with Mr. Dallas, we find him
proclaiming his sentiments on all such subjects with a flippancy and
confidence far different from the tone in which he had first ventured
on his doubts,--from that fervid sadness, as of a heart loth to part
with its illusions, which breathes through every line of those
prayers, that, but a year before, his pen had traced.

Here again, however, we should recollect, there must be a considerable
share of allowance for his usual tendency to make the most and the
worst of his own obliquities. There occurs, indeed, in his first
letter to Mr. Dallas, an instance of this strange ambition,--the very
reverse, it must be allowed, of hypocrisy,--which led him to court,
rather than avoid, the reputation of profligacy, and to put, at all
times, the worst face on his own character and conduct. His new
correspondent having, in introducing himself to his acquaintance,
passed some compliments on the tone of moral and charitable feeling
which breathed through one of his poems, had added, that it "brought
to his mind another noble author, who was not only a fine poet,
orator, and historian, but one of the closest reasoners we have on the
truth of that religion of which forgiveness is a prominent principle,
the great and good Lord Lyttleton, whose fame will never die. His
son," adds Mr. Dallas, "to whom he had transmitted genius, but not
virtue, sparkled for a moment and went out like a star,--and with him
the title became extinct." To this Lord Byron answers in the following
letter:--

LETTER 20.

TO MR. DALLAS.

"Dorant's Hotel, Albemarle Street, Jan. 20. 1808.

"Sir,

"Your letter was not received till this morning, I presume from being
addressed to me in Notts., where I have not resided since last June,
and as the date is the 6th, you will excuse the delay of my answer.

"If the little volume you mention has given pleasure to the author of
_Percival_ and _Aubrey_, I am sufficiently repaid by his praise.
Though our periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, I confess
a tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering.
But I am afraid I should forfeit all claim to candour, if I did not
decline such praise as I do not deserve; and this is, I am sorry to
say, the case in the