In proposing to show that the distinctive properties of Lord Byron's character, as well moral as literary, arose mainly from those two great sources, the unexampled versatility of his powers and feelings, and the facility with which he gave way to the impulses of both, it had been my intention to pursue the subject still further in detail, and to endeavour to trace throughout the various excellences and defects, both of his poetry and his life, the operation of these two dominant attributes of his nature. "No men," says Cowper, in speaking of persons of a versatile turn of mind, "are better qualified for companions in such a world as this than men of such temperament. Every scene of life has two sides, a dark and a bright one; and the mind that has an equal mixture of melancholy and vivacity is best of all qualified for the contemplation of either." It would not be difficult to show that to this readiness in reflecting all hues, whether of the shadows or the lights of our variegated existence, Lord Byron owed not only the great range of his influence as a poet, but those powers of fascination which he possessed as a man. This susceptibility, indeed, of immediate impressions, which in him was so active, lent a charm, of all others the most attractive, to his social intercourse, by giving to those who were, at the moment, present, such ascendant influence, that they alone for the time occupied all his thoughts and feelings, and brought whatever was most agreeable in his nature into play.[1] [Footnote 1: In reference to his power of adapting himself to all sorts of society, and taking upon himself all varieties of character, I find a passage in one of my early letters to him (from Ireland) which, though it might be expressed, perhaps, in better taste, is worth citing for its truth:--"Though I have not written, I have seldom ceased to think of you; for you are that sort of being whom every thing, high or low, brings into one's mind. Whether I am with the wise or the waggish, among poets or among pugilists, over the book or over the bottle, you are sure to connect yourself transcendently with all, and come 'armed for _every_ field' into my memory."]