ny thing that might chill his regard
for them [55]; and though Lord Byron was of a nature too full of social
and kindly impulses ever to think of such a precaution, it is a fact
confirmatory, at least, of the principle on which his brother poet,
Petrarch, acted, that the friends, whether of his youth or manhood, of
whom he had seen least, through life, were those of whom he always
thought and spoke with the most warmth and fondness. Being brought less
often to the touchstone of familiar intercourse, they stood naturally a
better chance of being adopted as the favourites of his imagination, and
of sharing, in consequence, a portion of that bright colouring reserved
for all that gave it interest and pleasure. Next to the dead, therefore,
whose hold upon his fancy had been placed beyond all risk of severance,
those friends whom he but saw occasionally, and by such favourable
glimpses as only renewed the first kindly impression they had made, were
the surest to live unchangingly, and without shadow, in his memory.

To this same cause, there is little doubt, his love for his sister owed
much of its devotedness and fervour. In a mind sensitive and versatile
as his, long habits of family intercourse might have estranged, or at
least dulled, his natural affection for her;--but their separation,
during youth, left this feeling fresh and untried.[56] His very
inexperience in such ties made the smile of a sister no less a novelty
than a charm to him; and before the first gloss of this newly awakened
sentiment had time to wear off, they were again separated, and for ever.

If the portrait which I have here attempted of the general character of
those gifted with high genius be allowed to bear, in any of its
features, a resemblance to the originals, it can no longer, I think, be
matter of question whether a class so set apart from the track of
ordinary life, so removed, by their very elevation, out of the
influences of our common atmosphere, are at all likely to furnish
tractable subjects for that most trying of all social experiments,
matrimony. In reviewing the great names of philosophy and science, we
shall find that all who have most distinguished themselves in those
walks have, at least, virtually admitted their own unfitness for the
marriage tie by remaining in celibacy;--Newton, Gassendi, Galileo,
Descartes, Bayle, Locke, Leibnitz, Boyle, Hume, and a long list of other
illustrious sages, having all led single lives.[57]

The