at
crisis. His pride had been wounded to the quick, and his ambition
humbled;--but this feeling of humiliation lasted but for a moment. The
very re-action of his spirit against aggression roused him to a full
consciousness of his own powers;[90] and the pain and the shame of the
injury were forgotten in the proud certainty of revenge.

Among the less sentimental effects of this review upon his mind, he
used to mention that, on the day he read it, he drank three bottles of
claret to his own share after dinner;--that nothing, however, relieved
him till he had given vent to his indignation in rhyme, and that
"after the first twenty lines, he felt himself considerably better."
His chief care, indeed, afterwards, was amiably devoted,--as we have
seen it was, in like manner, _before_ the criticism,--to allaying,
as far as he could, the sensitiveness of his mother; who, not having
the same motive or power to summon up a spirit of resistance, was, of
course, more helplessly alive to this attack upon his fame, and felt
it far more than, after the first burst of indignation, he did
himself. But the state of his mind upon the subject will be best
understood from the following letter.

LETTER 25.

TO MR. BECKER.

"Dorant's, March 28. 1808.

"I have lately received a copy of the new edition from Ridge, and it
is high time for me to return my best thanks to you for the trouble
you have taken in the superintendence. This I do most sincerely, and
only regret that Ridge has not seconded you as I could wish,--at
least, in the bindings, paper, &c., of the copy he sent to me. Perhaps
those for the public may be more respectable in such articles.

You have seen the Edinburgh Review, of course. I regret that Mrs.
Byron is so much annoyed. For my own part, these 'paper bullets of the
brain' have only taught me to stand fire; and, as I have been lucky
enough upon the whole, my repose and appetite are not discomposed.
Pratt, the gleaner, author, poet, &c. &c., addressed a long rhyming
epistle to me on the subject, by way of consolation; but it was not
well done, so I do not send it, though the name of the man might make
it go down. The E. R^s. have not performed their task well; at least
the literati tell me this; and I think _I_ could write a more
sarcastic critique on _myself_ than any yet published. For instance,
instead of the remark,--ill-natured enough, but not keen,--about
Macpherson, I (quoad reviewers) could have said, 'Ala