ew nerve for
its strength, and new fuel for its fire.

While thus at this period, more remarkably than at any other during
his life, the unparalleled versatility of his genius was unfolding
itself, those quick, cameleon-like changes of which his character,
too, was capable were, during the same time, most vividly, and in
strongest contrast, drawn out. To the world, and more especially to
England,--the scene at once of his glories and his wrongs,--he
presented himself in no other aspect than that of a stern, haughty
misanthrope, self-banished from the fellowship of men, and, most of
all, from that of Englishmen. The more genial and beautiful
inspirations of his muse were, in this point of view, looked upon but
as lucid intervals between the paroxysms of an inherent malignancy of
nature; and even the laughing effusions of his wit and humour got
credit for no other aim than that which Swift boasted of, as the end
of all his own labours, "to vex the world rather than divert it."

How totally all this differed from the Byron of the social hour, they
who lived in familiar intercourse with him may be safely left to
tell. The sort of ferine reputation which he had acquired for himself
abroad prevented numbers, of course, of his countrymen, whom he would
have most cordially welcomed, from seeking his acquaintance. But, as
it was, no English gentleman ever approached him, with the common
forms of introduction, that did not come away at once surprised and
charmed by the kind courtesy and facility of his manners, the
unpretending play of his conversation, and, on a nearer intercourse,
the frank, youthful spirits, to the flow of which he gave way with
such a zest, as even to deceive some of those who best knew him into
the impression, that gaiety was after all the true bent of his
disposition.

To these contrasts which he presented, as viewed publicly and
privately, is to be added also the fact, that, while braving the
world's ban so boldly, and asserting man's right to think for himself
with a freedom and even daringness unequalled, the original shyness
of his nature never ceased to hang about him; and while at a distance
he was regarded as a sort of autocrat in intellect, revelling in all
the confidence of his own great powers, a somewhat nearer observation
enabled a common acquaintance at Venice[1] to detect, under all this,
traces of that self-distrust and bashfulness which had marked him as
a boy, and which never entirely f