Much of what has already been pointed out with regard to the sources and inspiration of _Don Juan_ may be applied without alteration to _The Vision of Judgment_, which is, as Byron told Moore, written “in the Pulci style, which the fools in England think was invented by Whistlecraft--it is as old as the hills in Italy.”[369] The _Vision_, being shorter and more unified, contains few digressions which do not bear directly upon the plot; but it has the same colloquial and conversational style, the same occasional rise into true imaginative poetry with the inevitable following drop into the commonplace, the same fondness for realism, and the same broad burlesque.[370] Hampered as it is by the necessity of keeping the story well-knit, Byron’s personality has ample opportunity for expression. It is probable that Byron’s description of Saint Peter and the angels owes much to his reading of Pulci.[371] In at least one instance there is a palpable imitation. Saint Peter in the _Vision_, who was so terrified by the approach of Lucifer that, “He patter’d with his keys at a great rate, And sweated through his apostolic skin,”[372] suffered as did the same saint in the _Morgante Maggiore_ who was weary with the duty of opening the celestial gate for slaughtered Christians: “Credo che molto quel giorno s’affana: E converrà ch’egli abbi buono orecchio, Tanto gridavan quello anime Osanna Ch’eran portate dagli angeli in cielo; Sicchè la barba gli sudava e ’l pelo.”[373] In employing the realistic method in depicting the angels, Byron seems to have caught something of Pulci’s grotesque spirit. One line of the _Vision_, “When this old, blind, mad, helpless, weak, poor worm,” seems to imitate the opening of Shelley’s powerful _Sonnet_; _England in 1819_, already quoted, “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king.” Professor Courthope has suggested that Byron’s _Don Juan_ owes something to the work of Peter Pindar.[374] The evidence for the relationship seems, however, to be very scanty. Wolcot never employed the octave stanza, nor, indeed, did he ever show evidences of true poetic power. The two men were, of course, alike in that they were both liberals, both avowedly enemies of George III, and both outspoken in their dislikes. But Byron seldom except in parts of the _Vision_ used the method of broad caricature so characteristic of Pindar. In the _Vision_, too, occurs the only obvious reference on Byron’s part to Pindar’s satire. He describes the effect of Southey’s dactyls on George III, in the lines: “The monarch, mute till then, exclaim’d, ‘What! What! Pye come again? No more--No more of that.’”[375] The couplet recalls Pindar’s delightful imitations of that king’s eccentric habit of repeating words and phrases. However, Byron’s style in both _Don Juan_ and the _Vision_ is drawn more from Italian than from English models.