On the failure of the luckless conspiracy, Byron naturally betook himself to history, speculation, satire, and ideas of a journalistic propaganda; but all through, his mind was turning to the renewal of the action which was his destiny. "If I live ten years longer," he writes in 1822, "you will see that it is not all over with me. I don't mean in literature, for that is nothing--and I do not think it was my vocation; but I shall do something." The Greek war of liberation opened a new field for the exercise of his indomitable energy. This romantic struggle, begun in April, 1821, was carried on for two years with such remarkable success, that at the close of 1822 Greece was beginning to be recognized as an independent state; but in the following months the tide seemed to turn; dissensions broke out among the leaders, the spirit of intrigue seemed to stifle patriotism, and the energies of the insurgents were hampered for want of the sinews of war. There was a danger of the movement being starved out, and the committee of London sympathizers--of which the poet's intimate friend and frequent correspondent, Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, and Captain Blaquière, were leading promoters--was impressed with the necessity of procuring funds in support of the cause. With a view to this it seemed of consequence to attach to it some shining name, and men's thoughts almost inevitably turned to Byron. No other Englishman seemed so fit to be associated with the enterprise as the warlike poet, who had twelve years before linked his fame to that of "grey Marathon" and "Athena's tower," and, more recently immortalized the isles on which he cast so many a longing glance. Hobhouse broke the subject to him early in the spring of 1823: the committee opened communications in April. After hesitating through May, in June Byron consented to meet Blaquière at Zante, and, on hearing the results of the captain's expedition to the Morea, to decide on future steps. His share in this enterprise has been assigned to purely personal and comparatively mean motives. He was, it is said, disgusted with his periodical, sick of his editor, tired of his mistress, and bent on any change, from China to Peru, that would give him a new theatre for display. One grows weary of the perpetual half-truths of inveterate detraction. It is granted that Byron was restless, vain, imperious, never did anything without a desire to shine in the doing of it, and was to a great degree the slave of circumstances. Had the _Liberal_ proved a lamp to the nations, instead of a mere "red flag flaunted in the face of John Bull," he might have cast anchor at Genoa; but the whole drift of his work and life demonstrates that he was capable on occasion of merging himself in what he conceived to be great causes, especially in their evil days. Of the Hunts he may have had enough; but the invidious statement about La Guiccioli has no foundation, other than a