171. Ce monde est fait pour les méchants.

L. à M. D...

7 févr. 1755. 172. Le crime adroit jouit dans cette vie de tous les avantages de la fortune et même de la gloire. La justice et les scrupules ne font ici-bas que des dupes.

3. L. à M. l'Abbé de... 4 mars 1764.

173. Le plus rampant, le plus bas, le plus servile est toujours le plus

honoré.

Em. V.

174. L'intérêt présent, voilà le grand mobile, le seul qui mène sûrement et loin. Rousseau.

175. My Dama is in the country for three days. But as I never live but for one human being at a time (and I assure you, that one has never been myself, as you may know by the consequences, for the selfish are successful in life) I feel alone and unhappy.

178. I think society, as now constituted fatal to all great original undertakings of every kind. to Moore, March. 4. 1822. 179. I should hardly have thought it possible for society to leave a being (seinen Freund Clare) with so little of the leaven of bad passions. Detached Thoughts. Nov. 5. 1821.

180. C'est la force et la liberté qui font les excellents hommes. faiblesse et l'esclavage n'ont jamais fait que des méchants.

6. Prom.

La

181. „Alas! Venice, and her people and her nobles, are alike returning fast to the ocean; and where there is no independence, there can be no real self-respect.“ Byron. M. II. 85.

182. List of historical writers whose works I have perused in different languages. Greece: . . . Plutarch. 183. I pray you to send me a copy of Mr. Wrangham's reformation of „Langhorne's Plutarch." I have the Greek, which is somewhat small of print, and the Italian, which is too heavy in style, and as false as a Neapolitan patriot proclamation.

to Murray. Ravenna May 28. 1821.

184. Plutarch says, in his Life of Lysander, that Aristotle observes „that in general great geniuses are of a melancholy turn." Memoirs M. II. 516.

185. When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse*),
Her voice their only ransom from afar :
See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins
Fall from his hands his idle scimitar
Starts from its belt he rends his captive's chains,
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.

H. IV. 16.

*) The story is told in Plutarch's Life of Nicias. 186. Rousseau trouva le terrain prêt; le germe de l'insurrection contre la société en dissolution était au fond de toutes les âmes ardentes; le moment était venu de protester contre elle.

187.

Vinet: Hist. de la litt. française au 18. siècle.

„Er entbürdete Tausende von gepressten Seelen von ihrem stummen Grolle, als er, ungehindert und ungeahndet in den furchtbarsten Ausdrücken des revolutionären Zornes die trotzigen Machthaber trotzig zu brandmarken wagte in jener ungeschminktesten Sprache der gröbsten Wahrheit, die das empörte Rechtsgefühl überall in sich hineinfluchte, aber der Gewalt gegenüber nicht durfte laut werden lassen." Gervinus.

-

188. And I will war, at least in words, (and should
My chance so happen
With Thought;

deeds), with all who war

and of Thought's foes by far most rude,
Tyrants and sycophants have been and are.
I know not who may conquer: if I could
Have such a prescience, it should be no bar
To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation
Of every despotism in every nation.

189. It makes my blood boil, like the springs of Hecla,
To see men let these scoundrel sovereigns break law

190. Mind, good people! what I say

(Or rather peoples) go on without pause!
The web of these tarantulas each day
Increases; till you shall make common cause.

191. What icebergs in the hearts of mighty men,
With self-love in the centre, as their pole!
What Anthropophagi are nine of ten
Of those who hold the kingdoms in control!

D. J. IX. 24.

D. J XV. 92.

D. J. IX. 28.

D. J. XIV. 102.

192. Kings, who now at least must talk of law,

Before they butcher.

D. J. X. 74.

193. So the interests of millions are in the hands of about twenty coxcombs, at a place called Laibach!

„God save the king!" and kings!

For if he don't, I doubt if men will longer
I think I hear a little bird, who sings
The people by and by will be the stronger.
The mob (will)

At last fall sick of imitating Job.

Diary. Jan. 11. 1821.

At first it grumbles, then it swears, and then,
Like David, flings smooth pebbles 'gainst a giant;
At last it takes to weapons such as men

D. J. VIII. 50.

D. J. VIII. 50.

Snatch when despair makes human hearts less pliant.
Then comes the tug of war“ 't will come again,
I rather doubt; and I would fain say „fie on't",

If I had not perceived that revolution

Alone can save the earth from hell's pollution.

D. J. VIII. 51.

194. J'ai dit beaucoup de mal de vous; j'en dirai peut-être encore cependant, chassé de France, de Genève, du canton de Berne, je viens chercher un asile dans vos États.

„Puissé-je voir Frédéric, le juste et le redouté, couvrir enfin ses états d'un peuple heureux dont il soit le père! et J.-J. Rousseau, l'ennemi des rois, ira mourir au pied de son trône.

Lettre au roi de Prusse.

195. Col. Stanhope and myself had considerable differences of opinion on this subject, and (what will appear laughable enough) to such a degree, that he charged me with despotic principles, and I him with ultra radicalism. to Mr. Barff. March 19. 1824.

196. „On politics, he used sometimes to express a high strain of what is now called Liberalism; but it appeared to me that the pleasure it afforded him as a vehicle of displaying his wit and satire against individuals in office was at the bottom of this habit of thinking, rather than any real conviction of the political principles on which he talked. He was certainly proud of his rank and ancient family and, in that respect, as much an aristocrat as was consistent with good sense and good breeding. Some disgusts, how adopted I know not, seemed to me to have given this peculiar and, as it appeared to me, contradictory cast of mind: but, at heart, I would have termed Byron a patrician on principle."

Walter Scott M. I. 440.

197. Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?

Ch. H. II. 76.

198. La tyrannie et la guerre ne sont-elles pas les plus grands fléaux de

l'humanité?

19 9. Sard. I am no soldier, but a man: speak not

200.

201.

202.

Of soldiership, I loathe the word, and those
Wo pride themselves upon it.

He would not delight

(Born beneath some remote inglorious star)
In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight,

Em. V.

Sard. IV. 1.

But loathed the bravo's trade, and laugh'd at martial wight.

The mass of never-dying ill,

Ch. H. II. 40.

The Plague, the Prince, the stranger, and the Sword,
Vials of wrath but emptied to refiil

And flow again.

Prophecy III.

We are just recovering from tumult and train oil, and transparent fripperies, and all the noise and nonsense of victory.

to Moore. July 8. 1813.

20 3. As the sword is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last. Speech on the Frame-work bill. 204. When the minds of men are stirred about essentials, life finds its highest utterance, and Literature, the voice of life, is at its best. For this reason there was in England at the beginning of the

Nineteenth Century a fresh development of power. The genius of Byron represented the whole passionate movement of the Revolutionary time, and most clearly expressed sympathy with the nations who desired to throw off tyranny and be themselves.

Morley: Of Engl. Lit. in the Reign of Queen Victoria.. 20 5. Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at the conclusion of my Ode on Waterloo, written in the year 1815, and, comparing it with the Duke de Berri's catastrophe in 1820, tell me if I have not as good a right to the character of , Vates", in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and Coleridge?

to Murray. Apr. 24, 1820.

2 C6. Hélas! dit-elle (Julie) avec attendrissement, le spectacle de la nature, si vivant, si animé pour nous, est mort aux yeux de l'infortuné Wolmar; et dans cette grande harmonie des êtres, où tout parle de Dieu d'une voix si douce, il n'aperçoit qu'un silence éternel.

N. H.

207. J'aperçois Dieu partout dans ses œuvres, je le sens en moi, je le vois

tout autour de moi.

Emile. IV.

cœur.

171

208. Je regarde toutes les religions particulières comme autant d'institutions salutaires, qui prescrivent dans chaque pays une manière uniforme d'honorer Dieu par un culte public; et qui peuvent toutes avoir leurs raisons dans le climat, dans le gouvernement, dans le génie du peuple ou dans quelqu'autre cause locale. qui rend l'une préférable à l'autre, selon les temps et les lieux. Je les croix toutes bonnes quand on y sert Dieu convenablement: le culte essentiel est celui du Em. IV. 209. That he himself attributed every thing to fortune, appears from the following passage in one of his Journals: „Like Sylla, I have always believed that all things depend upon fortune, and nothing upon ourselves. I am not aware of any one thought or action worthy of being called good to myself or others, which is not to be attributed to the good goddess, Fortune!" M. I. 203. 210. La première partie de la Profession du Vicaire Savoyard est destinée à combattre le moderne matérialisme, à établir l'existence de Dieu et la Religion naturelle.

La seconde partie propose des doutes et des difficultés sur les révélations en général; l'objet de cette seconde partie est de rendre chacun plus réservé dans sa religion à taxer les autres de mauvaise foi dans la leur. Rousseau.

211. The consequence is, being of no party,

I shall offend all parties: never mind!

D. J. IX. 26.

212. Can you imagine, that after having rever flattered man, nor beast, nor opinion, nor politics, there would not be a party against a man,

214. List of writers whose works I have perused (1807): Divinity: — I abhor books of religion, though I reverence and love my God, without the blasphemous notions of sectaries, or belief in their absurd and damnable heresies, mysteries, and Thirty-nine Articles.

215. Cut me up root and branch, quarter me in the Quarterly; send around my disjecta membra poetae", like those of the Levite's concubine;

the truth.

make me, if you will, a spectacle to men and angels; but don't ask me to alter, for I won't: I am obstinate and lazy and there's to Murray, Aug. 12. 1819. 216. This gentleman (Mr. Becher) acknowledges that with the poetical parts of the Scripture he found Lord Byron deeply conversant:

a circumstance which corroborates the account given by his early
master, Dr. Glennie, of his great proficiency in scriptural knowledge
while yet but a child under his care.
M. I. 66.