putation of most of us; while in the
case of an impulsive, wayward, high-spirited man, exposed to strong
temptations, with all a poet's traditional irritability, whose rank
and genius concentrated public attention on his writings from his
early youth, this test must be extremely severe. Many of the letters
are of a sort that do not ordinarily appear in a biography. Byron's
letters to his wife at the time of their separation, which are
moderate and even dignified, are supplemented by his wife's letters to
him and to her friends, full of mysterious imputations; and there are
letters to and from the lady with whom his _liaison_ was notorious.
His own reckless letters from Venice to Moore, and those from Shelley
and others describing his dissipated habits, were clearly never
intended for general reading after his death. Of course most of these
are not now produced for the first time, nor do we argue that they
ought never to have appeared, for the biographical interest is
undeniable. Our point is that the publication of such private and
damaging correspondence is so very unusual in biographies that it
places Byron at a special disadvantage, and that when we pass our
judgment upon him we are bound to take into account the unsparing use
that has been made of papers connected with the most intimate
transactions of a lifetime which was no more than a short and stormy
passage from youth to manhood; for he was cut off before the age at
which men abandon the wild ways of their springtide, and are usually
disposed to obliterate the record of them. At least one recent
biography might be mentioned which would have read differently if it
had been compiled with similar candour.

The annotations subjoined to almost every page of the text are so
ample and particular as to furnish in themselves extensive reading.
The notices of every person named would go far to serve as a brief
biographical dictionary of Byron's contemporaries, whether known or
unknown to fame. We get a concise account of Madame de Stael--her
birth, books, and political opinions--very useful to those who had no
previous acquaintance with her. Lady Morgan and Joanna Southcote
obtain quite as much space as would be allotted to them in any
handbook of celebrities. Beau Brummell and Lord Castlereagh are
treated with similar liberality. There is a full account, taken from
the _Examiner_, of the procession with which Louis XVIII. made his
entry into London in 1814. The notes--