So little was Tasso ashamed of those casual imitations of other poets which are so often branded as plagiarisms, that, in his Commentary on his Rime, he takes pains to point out and avow whatever coincidences of this kind occur in his own verses. While on this subject, I may be allowed to mention one single instance, where a thought that had lain perhaps indistinctly in Byron's memory since his youth, comes out so improved and brightened as to be, by every right of genius, his own. In the Two Noble Kinsmen of Beaumont and Fletcher (a play to which the picture of passionate friendship, delineated in the characters of Palamon and Arcite, would be sure to draw the attention of Byron in his boyhood,) we find the following passage:-- "Oh never Shall we two exercise, like twins of Honour, Our arms again, and _feel our fiery horses Like proud seas under us_." Out of this somewhat forced simile, by a judicious transposition of the comparison, and by the substitution of the more definite word "waves" for "seas" the clear, noble thought in one of the Cantos of Childe Harold has been produced:-- "Once more upon the waters! yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me, as a steed That knows his rider."] [Footnote 47: "No man ever rose (says Pope) to any degree of perfection in writing but through obstinacy and an inveterate resolution against the stream of mankind."] * * * * * LETTER 446. TO MR. MOORE. "Ravenna, August 24. 1821. "Yours of the 5th only yesterday, while I had letters of the 8th from London. Doth the post dabble into our letters? Whatever agreement you make with Murray, if satisfactory to _you_, must be so to me. There need be no scruple, because, though I used sometimes to buffoon to myself, loving a quibble as well as the barbarian himself (Shakspeare, to wit)--'that, like a Spartan, I would sell my _life_ as _dearly_ as possible'--it never was my intention to turn it to personal, pecuniary account, but to bequeath it to a friend--yourself--in the event of survivorship. I anticipated that period, because we happened to meet, and I urged you to make what was possible _now_ by it, for reasons which are obvious. It has been no possible _privation_ to me, and therefore does not require the acknowledgments you mention. So, for God's sake, don't consider it like * * * "By the way, when you write to Lady Morgan, will you thank her for her handsome speeches in her book about _my_ books? I do not know her address. Her work is fearless and excellent on the subject of Italy--pray tell her so--and I know the country. I wish she had fallen in with _me_, I could have told her a thing or two that would have confirmed her positions.