otence of the
Creator, could he not modestly fear that God, who had made his soul out
of nothing, might cause it to return to nothing? Might he not imagine
that the contrary belief was rather the result of our wishes, of our
pride, and of the importance which we love to attach to ourselves? Can
the conviction of the existence of immortality, unless founded upon
revelation, be any thing else but a hope or a sentiment? Pantheists
alone find immortality to be the fatal consequence of their presumptuous
doctrine. But what an immortality! One to be laughed at, as a
philosopher of our days so well expresses it.

Accused of skepticism, Byron replied by explaining the meaning of his
lines in a note which, at the instance of Mr. Dallas, he also consented
to suppress with his habitual good-nature, and in which he endeavored to
show that the spirit which pervaded the whole of the poem was rather one
of discouragement and despair, than raillery at religion, and that,
after all, the effect of religion upon the world had been less to make
men love their equals than to excite the various sects to a hatred
against one another, and thus give rise to those fanatical wars which
have caused so much bloodshed and injured so deeply the cause which they
were intended to defend.

In reading this note again, one can with difficulty make out what
Dallas's objections were, and why he tried so hard to have it
suppressed; for it savors much more of a spirit of toleration and
charity than of skepticism. Lord Byron nevertheless withdrew it.

But this was not enough to satisfy the British straight-lacedness. As
the accusations against his skepticism were on the increase daily, Mr.
Gifford, for whose enlightened opinion Byron ever had great respect,
advised him to be more prudent, whereupon Byron replied:--

"I will do as you advise in regard to religious matters. The best would
perhaps be to avoid them altogether. Certainly the passages already
published are rather too rigorously interpreted. I am no bigot of
incredulity, and I did not expect that I should be accused of denying
the existence of God, because I had expressed some doubts as to the
immortality of the soul.... After all, I believe my doubts to be but
the effects of some mental illness."

It is clear from this letter, the tone of which is so honest and
sincere, that if in the stanzas which his rivals blamed there was really
more skepticism than can be gathered from the consideration of