I have mentioned elsewhere how Moore, while justly appreciating the consequences of this youthful eccentricity,--of which later, but too late, Byron corrected himself,--does not equally appreciate the motives, or rather the principal motive, which gave rise to it. As, however, he judges rightly of the results, I shall continue to quote him for the reader's benefit. "M. Galignani, having expressed a wish to be furnished with a short memoir of Lord Byron for the purpose of prefixing it to the French edition of his works, I had said jestingly, in a preceding letter to his lordship, that it would but be a fair satire on the disposition of the world to 'remonster his features' if he would write for the public, English as well as French, a sort of mock heroic account of himself, outdoing in horrors and wonders all that had been yet related or believed of him, and leaving even Goethe's story of the double murder at Florence far behind." Lord Byron replied from Pisa, on the 12th of December, 1821:--"What you say about Galignani's two biographies is very amusing; and, if I were not lazy, I would certainly do what you desire. But I doubt my present stock of facetiousness--that is, of good serious humor--so as not to let the cat out of the bag. I wish you would undertake it. I will forgive and _indulge_ you (like a pope) beforehand, for any thing ludicrous that might keep those fools in their own dear belief that a man is a _loup-garou_. "I suppose I told you that the 'Giaour' story had actually some foundation in fact.... I should not like marvels to rest upon any account of my own, and shall say nothing about it.... The worst of any real adventures is that they involve living people." He at last tired of always appearing in the guise of a corsair, or of a mysterious criminal, or of a hero of melodrama. These various disguises had afforded him too much pain, and one day he said to Mr. Medwin:-- "When Galignani thought of publishing a fresh edition of my works he wrote to Moore to ask him to give him some anecdotes respecting me: and we thought of composing a narrative filled with the most impossible and incredible adventures, to amuse the Parisians. But I reflected that there were already too many ready-made stories about me, to puzzle my brain to invent new ones." Mr. Medwin adds:-- "The reader will laugh when he hears that one of my friends assured me that the lines of Thyrza, published with the first canto to 'Childe Harold,' were addressed by Byron to his bear! There is nothing too wicked to be invented by hatred, or believed by ignorance." Moore often refers to the wonderful contrast which existed between the real and imaginary Byron. Thus, in speaking of his incredibly active and sublime genius at Venice, he says:--