ols in their own dear belief that a man is a
_loup-garou_.

"I suppose I told you that the 'Giaour' story had actually some
foundation in fact.... I should not like marvels to rest upon any
account of my own, and shall say nothing about it.... The worst of any
real adventures is that they involve living people."

He at last tired of always appearing in the guise of a corsair, or of a
mysterious criminal, or of a hero of melodrama. These various disguises
had afforded him too much pain, and one day he said to Mr. Medwin:--

"When Galignani thought of publishing a fresh edition of my works he
wrote to Moore to ask him to give him some anecdotes respecting me: and
we thought of composing a narrative filled with the most impossible and
incredible adventures, to amuse the Parisians. But I reflected that
there were already too many ready-made stories about me, to puzzle my
brain to invent new ones."

Mr. Medwin adds:--

"The reader will laugh when he hears that one of my friends assured me
that the lines of Thyrza, published with the first canto to 'Childe
Harold,' were addressed by Byron to his bear! There is nothing too
wicked to be invented by hatred, or believed by ignorance."

Moore often refers to the wonderful contrast which existed between the
real and imaginary Byron. Thus, in speaking of his incredibly active and
sublime genius at Venice, he says:--

"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, chameleon-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...."

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 reputation which he had acquired for himself abroad, prevented
numbers, of course, of his countrymen, whom he would most cordially have
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