ium, it need little
surprise us that Lord Byron's conduct in Greece should, on the same
principle, have engendered a similar insinuation against him; nor
should I have at all noticed the weak slander, but for the
opportunity which it affords me of endeavouring to point out what
appears to me the peculiar nature of the courage by which, on all
occasions that called for it, he so strikingly distinguished himself.

Whatever virtue may be allowed to belong to personal courage, it is,
most assuredly, they who are endowed by nature with the liveliest
imaginations, and who have therefore most vividly and simultaneously
before their eyes all the remote and possible consequences of danger,
that are most deserving of whatever praise attends the exercise of
that virtue. A bravery of this kind, which springs more out of mind
than temperament,--or rather, perhaps, out of the conquest of the
former over the latter,--will naturally proportion its exertion to
the importance of the occasion; and the same person who is seen to
shrink with an almost feminine fear from ignoble and every-day
perils, may be found foremost in the very jaws of danger where honour
is to be either maintained or won. Nor does this remark apply only to
the imaginative class, of whom I am chiefly treating. By the same
calculating principle, it will be found that most men whose bravery
is the result not of temperament but reflection, are regulated in
their daring. The wise De Wit, though negligent of his life on great
occasions, was not ashamed, we are told, of dreading and avoiding
whatever endangered it on others.

Of the apprehensiveness that attends quick imaginations, Lord Byron
had, of course, a considerable share, and in all situations of
ordinary peril gave way to it without reserve. I have seldom seen any
person, male or female, more timid in a carriage; and, in riding, his
preparation against accidents showed the same nervous and imaginative
fearfulness. "His bridle," says the late Lord B----, who rode
frequently with him at Genoa, "had, besides cavesson and martingale,
various reins; and whenever he came near a place where his horse was
likely to shy, he gathered up these said reins and fixed himself as
if he was going at a five-barred gate." None surely but the most
superficial or most prejudiced observers could ever seriously found
upon such indications of nervousness any conclusion against the real
courage of him who was subject to them. The poet Ari