depravity of disposition. He was devoid of selfishness, which I take
to be the basest ingredient in the human composition. He was generous,
humane, and noble-minded, when passion did not blind him."

About this time, 1823, the great struggle of the Greeks to shake off the
Ottoman yoke was in progress. I have already in another volume[1]
attempted to give the facts in relation to that memorable movement.
Christendom sympathized with the gallant but apparently hopeless
struggle of a weak nation to secure its independence, both from a
sentiment of admiration for the freedom of ancient Greece in the period
of its highest glories, and from the love of liberty which animated the
liberal classes amid the political convulsions of the day. But the
governments of Europe were loath to complicate the difficulties which
existed between nations in that stormy period, and dared not extend any
open aid to struggling Greece, beyond giving their moral aid to the
Greek cause, lest it should embroil Europe in war, of which she was
weary. Less than ten years had elapsed since Europe had combined to
dethrone Napoleon, and some of her leading powers, like Austria and
Russia, had a detestation of popular insurrections.

In this complicated state of political affairs, when any indiscretion on
the part of friendly governments might kindle anew the flames of war,
Lord Byron was living in Genoa, taking such an interest in the Greek
struggle that he abandoned poetry for politics. He had always
sympathized with enslaved nations struggling for independence, and was
driven from Ravenna on account of his alliance with the revolutionary
Society of the Carbonari. A new passion now seized him. He entered heart
and soul into the struggles of the Greeks. Their cause absorbed him. He
would aid them to the full extent of his means, with money and arms, as
a private individual. He would be a political or military hero,--a man
of action, not of literary leisure.

Every lover of liberty must respect Byron's noble aspirations to assist
the Greeks. It was a new field for him, but one in which he might
retrieve his reputation,--for it must be borne in mind that his ruling
passion was fame, and that he had gained all he could expect by his
literary productions. Whether loved or hated, admired or censured, his
poetry had placed him in the front rank of literary geniuses throughout
the world. As a poet his immortality was secured. In literary efforts he
had also pro