No man is great who has not the strength of mind to work utility from vast resources, and is able, besides, to appreciate the necessity of working that utility, in spite of whim, humor, flattery, success or misfortune: yet not one sentiment, of benefit to mankind or individual, amongst those now ministering upon this earth of trial, of suffering, and of temptation, can claim paternity in Lord Byron. As his poetry is a poetry of passion unregulated by principle, so was the life of his feelings and his intellect, a life of unbridled license. Let no one put forth, in extenuation, that he often meant well; and that his venom, when he spat it, was the secretion of unhappiness and misfortune; for we have no proof, no reason to believe that he ever meant well, but his own assertion—which is singular when contrasted with his life and his writings; and as to his sufferings, he courted, nursed suffering as the theme of all his writings. How strangely does the assertion of his moral intent, in his farewell to the “Childe,” contrast with the confession of the truth which a moment of intoxication beguiled from him in the II. Canto of Don Juan! In the one we read— “Farewell! with him alone may rest the _pain_, If such there were—with you, the moral of this strain.” In the other, where his true character speaks— “As for the ladies I have nought to say, A wanderer from the British world of fashion, Where I, like other dogs, have had my day, Like other men, too, may have had my passion— But that, like other things, has passed away, And all her fools whom I _could_ lay the lash on, Foes, friends, men, women, now are nought to me But dreams of what has been, no more to be.” Shall we say that he lies, or that he only writes the first crazy thing that comes uppermost in his brain? I prefer the latter—or both; for they equally prove that he had no positive intent of good. His history, romance, character, all are truthfully told in that one stanza. ’Tis useless to dwell upon it. That he had his inspirations of religious truth, which are common to all men, one may read abundantly in his works, especially in “Childe Harold.” Poor Byron seemed to grow sober and reflective, as the last Canto waned away. He could see the Almighty’s form glassed in the tempest, calm or convulsed; in its never-ending oscillation, the image of Eternity; in its incomprehensibility, “the throne of the Invisible.” The first time (how melancholy to him must have been the feeling!) that he ever longed to be associated with exalted womanly virtue, was, when in the CXVII. stanza—he breaks forth: “Ye elements!—in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted—can ye not Accord me such a being?” And how unmistakably does he not confess himself a stranger to it, as he continues—