, to Chatterton, to 'oft have I heard of thee, my
Lord Biron,' in Shakspeare, to Churchill the poet, to Kean the actor,
to Alfieri, &c. &c. &c.

"The likeness to Alfieri was asserted very seriously by an Italian
who had known him in his younger days. It of course related merely to
our apparent personal dispositions. He did not assert it to _me_ (for
we were not then good friends), but in society.

"The object of so many contradictory comparisons must probably be
like something different from them all; but what _that_ is, is more
than _I_ know, or any body else."

It would not be uninteresting, were there either space or time for
such a task, to take a review of the names of note in the preceding
list, and show in how many points, though differing so materially
among themselves, it might be found that each presented a striking
resemblance to Lord Byron. We have seen, for instance, that wrongs
and sufferings were, through life, the main sources of Byron's
inspiration. Where the hoof of the critic struck, the fountain was
first disclosed; and all the tramplings of the world afterwards but
forced out the stream stronger and brighter. The same obligations to
misfortune, the same debt to the "oppressor's wrong," for having
wrung out from bitter thoughts the pure essence of his genius, was
due no less deeply by Dante!--"quum illam sub amara cogitatione
excitatam, occulti divinique ingenii vim exacuerit et
inflammarit."[1]

[Footnote 1: Paulus Jovius.--Bayle, too, says of him, "Il fit entrer
plus de feu et plus de force dans ses livres qu'il n'y en eut mis
s'il avoit joui d'une condition plus tranquille."]

In that contempt for the world's opinion, which led Dante to exclaim,
"Lascia dir le genti," Lord Byron also bore a strong resemblance to
that poet,--though far more, it must be confessed, in profession than
reality. For, while scorn for the public voice was on his lips, the
keenest sensitiveness to its every breath was in his heart; and, as
if every feeling of his nature was to have some painful mixture in
it, together with the pride of Dante which led him to disdain public
opinion, he combined the susceptibility of Petrarch which placed him
shrinkingly at its mercy.

His agreement, in some other features of character, with Petrarch, I
have already had occasion to remark[1]; and if it be true, as is
often surmised, that Byron's want of a due reverence for Shakspeare
arose from some latent and hardly conscious jealou