Already, short as has been the interval since Lord Byron's death, the charitable influence of time in softening, if not rescinding, the harsh judgments of the world against genius is visible. The utter unreasonableness of trying such a character by ordinary standards, or of expecting to find the materials of order and happiness in a bosom constantly heaving forth from its depths such "lava floods," is--now that big spirit has passed from among us--felt and acknowledged. In reviewing the circumstances of his marriage, a more even scale of justice is held; and while every tribute of sympathy and commiseration is accorded to her, who, unluckily for her own peace, became involved in such a destiny,--who, with virtues and attainments that would have made the home of a more ordinary man happy, undertook, in evil hour, to "turn and wind a fiery Pegasus," and but failed where it may be doubted whether even the fittest for such a task would have succeeded,--full allowance is, at the same time, made for the great martyr of genius himself, whom so many other causes, beside that restless fire within him, concurred to unsettle in mind and (as he himself feelingly expresses it) "disqualify for comfort;"--whose doom it was to be either thus or less great, and whom to have tamed might have been to extinguish; there never, perhaps, having existed an individual to whom, whether as author or man, the following line was more applicable:-- "Si non errasset, fecerat ille minus."[98] While these events were going on,--events, of which his memory and heart bore painfully the traces through the remainder of his short life,--some occurrences took place, connected with his literary history, to which it is a relief to divert the attention of the reader from the distressing subject that has now so long detained us. The letter that follows was in answer to one received from Mr. Murray, in which that gentleman had enclosed him a draft for a thousand guineas for the copyright of his two poems, The Siege of Corinth and Parisina:-- * * * * * LETTER 236. TO MR. MURRAY. "January 3. 1816. "Your offer is _liberal_ in the extreme, (you see I use the word _to_ you and _of_ you, though I would not consent to your using it of yourself to Mr. * * * *,) and much more than the two poems can possibly be worth; but I cannot accept it, nor will not. You are most welcome to them as additions to the collected volumes, without any demand or expectation on my part whatever. But I cannot consent to their separate publication. I do not like to risk any fame (whether merited or not), which I have been favoured with, upon compositions which I do not feel to be at all equal to my own notions of what they should be, (and as I flatter myself some _have been_, here and there,) though they may do very well as things without pretension, to add to the publication with the lighter pieces.