dark mind." He has drawn his own
picture more effectively in _Lara_ than any strange hand could do.

In him, inexplicably mix'd, appear'd
Much to be loved and hated, sought and fear'd;
Opinion, varying o'er his hidden lot,
In praise or railing ne'er his name forgot....

There was in him a vital scorn of all:
As if the worst had fall'n which could befall;
He stood a stranger in this breathing world,
An erring spirit from another hurl'd....

His early dreams of good outstripp'd the truth,
And troubled manhood follow'd baffled youth.

His men, in short, as has been observed, are "made after his own image,
and his women after his own heart." Yet the inveterate family likeness
of these heroes is not shared by the heroines of his romantic stanzas:
for Byron has an eclectic taste in beauty. One can hardly imagine a
wider dissimilarity than between the _Bride of Abydos_, the gentle
Zuleika, with her

"Nameless charms unmark'd by her alone--

The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonised the whole,
And oh! that eye was in itself a Soul."

and "Circassia's daughter," the stately Leila of _The Giaour_, whose
black and flowing hair "swept the marble where her feet gleamed whiter
than the mountain sleet." Or, if the reader seek a further choice, there
is Medora, beloved of the Corsair,--Medora of the deep blue eye and long
fair hair; or the nameless Eastern maiden of the _Hebrew Melodies_:

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

Yet all these heroines are alike in one respect--their potentiality of
passionate emotion: since Byron's "passions and his powers," according
to his intense admirer Shelley, "are incomparably greater than thos