A book might be written--indeed more than one book has been written--about that picturesque last phase of Byron's life which dazzled the imagination of mankind. Coming to it at the end of a book already long, one owes it to one's sense of proportion to treat it briefly, noting only the outstanding facts. The details, when all is said, are of small importance. What matters is that here is an instance, almost unique in history, of a poet transforming himself into a man of action, and proving himself a very competent man of action, very sober and sensible, and quite free from the characteristic vices of the poetical and artistic temperaments. So far, though he had succeeded as a poet, Byron had failed as a man. The one deep and sincere passion of his life had only made trouble for him; and still more trouble had been made by his own violence, and vanity, and faults of temper. Through them he had allowed himself to be manoeuvred into a false position from which, in the bitterness of his indignation at the injustice done to him, he had made no serious effort to escape. Sitting in the midst of the wreck of his household gods, he had given vent to his anger in winged words; while, at the same time, making the persecution which he endured an excuse for sensual indulgence. Sensuality had wrecked his health without yielding him any real satisfaction, and, of course, without giving his censors any reason to reconsider their disapproval. He understood now what a poor figure he would have cut, in the eyes alike of his contemporaries and of future generations, if he had died, as he so nearly did, in the days of his degradation, in the arms of the baker's wife, or of some hired mistress. He understood, too, that he was capable of greater things than any of these virtuous people who would then have pointed the finger of scorn at him. He had thought to demonstrate as much by his association with the Carbonari. It was not he who had failed the Carbonari, but the Carbonari who had failed him. That failure being however, through their fault and foolishness, complete, it still remained for him to give his proofs, in a much more striking style, in Greece.