ds
perhaps for the thorns that had so long beset it; if he sometimes
accepted distractions in the form of light pleasures, as well as in the
form of study,[54] did he not likewise always impose hard laborious
occupation upon his mind, thus chaining it to beautiful immaterial
things? Did his intellectual activity slacken? Was his soul less
energetic, less sublime? The works of genius that issued from his pen at
Venice are a sufficient reply. "Manfred," conceived on the summit of the
Alps, was written at Venice; the fourth canto of "Childe Harold" was
conceived and written at Venice. The "Lament of Tasso," "Mazeppa," the
"Ode to Venice," "Beppo" (from his studies of Berni), the first two
cantos of "Don Juan," were all written at Venice.

Moreover, it was there he collected materials for his dramas; there he
studied the Armenian language, making sufficient progress to translate
St. Paul's Epistles into English. And all that, in less than twenty-six
months, including his journeys to Rome and to Florence. Let moralists
say whether a man steeped in sensual pleasures could have done all that.

"The truth is," says Moore, "that, so far from the strength of his
intellect being impaired or dissipated by these irregularities, it never
was perhaps at any period of his life more than at Venice in full
possession of all its energies."[55]

All the concessions Moore was obliged to make, from a sort of weakness,
not to compromise his position, to certain extreme opinions in politics
or religion, cloaking in reality personal hatred; are they not all
destroyed by this single avowal?

Shelley, who came to Venice to see Lord Byron, said that all he
observed of Lord Byron's state during his visit gave him a much higher
idea of his intellectual grandeur than what he had noticed before. Then
it was, and under this impression, that Shelley sketched almost the
whole poem of "Julian and Maddalo." "It is in this latter character,"
says Moore, "that he has so picturesquely personated his noble friend;
his allusions to the 'Swan of Albion,' in the verses written on the
Engancennes hills, are also the result of this fit of enthusiastic
admiration." At Venice Lord Byron saw few English; but those he did see,
and who have spoken of him, have expressed themselves in the same way as
Shelley; which caused Galt to say, that even at Venice, with regard to
his pleasures, his conduct had been that of most young men! but that the
whole difference must hav