116 
to contemplate for one day one of these 
privileged beings. Ido not dream of their 
friendship; I desire only to see and hear 
them. I wish not to draw their attention : 
no feeling of self remains. I feel for talent 
what a courtier does for power; though he 
still desires some profit, whilst I only 
wish to admire. Never does death ap- 
pear so dreadful as when he strikes at one 
of these demi-gods.”’ 
The woman who has avowed such 
worship to genius—who feels so strongly 
the value of this celestial gift, has re- 
ceived, from nature, the command to act 
as the interpreter and defender of Lord 
Byron. No doubt this admiration some- 
times becomes enthusiastic. But reason 
rises above the impassioned sentiment ; 
she is indulgent to the faults of an ex- 
traordinary man; but she knows and 
appreciates him entirely. 
* “ Gifted with ardent talent, an exalted 
mind, and sentiments of terrific energy, 
Lord Byron (says his amiable panegyrist) 
could not be understood by the crowd; 
their inferiority shocked and oppressed 
them. He had a sovereign contempt for 
the interests of a world so puerile in his 
eyes; he was roused to activity only by 
great undertakings. Life enclosed in the 
narrow frame of cities and of courts, 
seemed to him a useless, or a fatal gift: he 
shunned all that contracted the mind. 
Passion, the moyer of the noblest actions, 
as of the most culpable errors, transported 
him to heayen or to hell. In his pride, 
kings were to him but as_ pigmies, 
struggling below his feet to retain, or to 
lose their bauble crowns.” 
This portrait of Lord Byron is traced 
in the style of Goéthe, in his Werther. 
Thoughts, no less just, and more origi- 
nal, serve to initiate us in the knowledge 
of a character of such mingled con- 
trasts, and to acquaint us with the 
circumstances which constituted Lord 
Byron the man of nature, Madame 
Belloc, after reverting to the storm 
raised against him in the higher circles 
of London, thus expresses herself : 
“ Tf we go back to the cause of these 
clamours, we shall find it, I think, in the 
character of Lord Byron himself, and in 
the manners of the nation. Placed, by 
birth, in the first rank of English aristo- 
cracy, he always despised its prerogatives. 
He exposed the worthlessness of those 
distinctions which shelter inferiority. He 
attacked men of high station, confronted 
them boldly, and disclosed their duplicity 
to the people. He overwhelmed them 
with that contemptuous satire, more diffi- 
cult to bear than direct censure. He un- 
masked the prudery of women, and the 
pretended honour of men. Ina word, he 
‘Madame Belloc's Defence of Lord Byron. 
{ Mar. 1, 
roused the pride of England. This people, 
who think themselves the greatest in the 
world, were astonished to find themselves 
insignificant. ‘They pereeived not thatthe 
giant who crushed them represented thus 
the nation to the eyes of Europe, which 
they treated with the like disdain.’’* 
With exception to the excess of en- 
thusiasm which aseribes the power of 
abasing an entire nation, and all its men 
of consequence, before him, to a poet 
incapable of bearing for a single day the 
weight of public authority,—we cannot 
but recognize in this a striking picture, 
and perceive, through it, the genuine 
reasons of the moral proscription of 
Lord Byron. He wished to be the 
Juvenal or the Dante of the English 
patriciate: he has expiated his am- 
bition and his glory by the storms of 
his life. Madame Belloc perfectly 
pourtrays this natural re-action of social 
power against a man bold enough to 
provoke it; but should we have ex- 
pected the following refiections from a 
female pen ? 
“* Wealth serves as a counterpoise to the 
aristocracy of England; but its tyranny is 
still more debasing. A great name is 
sometimes the reward of a noble action: 
at least, it is an excitement to seem worthy 
of obtaining it; but opulence is often ac- 
quired by indirect means, or by calculations 
which contract the mind. Besides, in yield- 
ing to the illusions of nobility, we yield to 
the recollections of a sort of moral great- 
ness; to an illusion of the mind: whilst 
the influence of gold is merely physical, 
It strikes our senses, addresses itself to 
our most vulgar enjoyments, promises the 
easy access of pleasures; demoralizes’ and 
corrupts us. A nobleman, who thinks to 
be respected, with no other claim toesteem 
than his title, becomes ridiculous’; while a 
rich man who humbles you, because he 
has money and you want bread, is base, 
insolent and cruel. 
** From day to day, money gains impor- 
tance in England: every thing becomes 
matter of bargain and speculation: coffers 
are filled, and hearts are withered. The 
whole nation seems struck with the fatal 
malediction of Midas: they turn every 
thing to gold. A very superior woman, 
of a noble and elevated spirit (adds the 
authoress), wrote to me from London: 
‘ We are near the epoch predicted by Burke, and 
which, despite his prejudices, he contemplated 
with 
- 
* We cannot in France form a just idea of the 
English aristocracy. This hydra with a hundred 
heads ‘devours every thing; glory, honour, con- 
sideration, riches. She reigns over opinion; and 
this species of despotism is more absolute than that 
of kings; intellect, and even genius, bends for a 
while before its power. tia 
