[18] ["In the eighth and concluding lecture of Mr. Hazlitt's canons of criticism, delivered at the Surrey Institution (_The English Poets_, 1870, pp. 203, 204), I am accused of having 'lauded Buonaparte to the skies in the hour of his success, and then peevishly wreaking my disappointment on the god of my idolatry.' The first lines I ever wrote upon Buonaparte were the 'Ode to Napoleon,' after his abdication in 1814. All that I have ever written on that subject has been done since his decline;--I never 'met him in the hour of his success.' I have considered his character at different periods, in its strength and in its weakness: by his zealots I am accused of injustice--by his enemies as his warmest partisan, in many publications, both English and foreign. "For the accuracy of my delineation I have high authority. A year and some months ago, I had the pleasure of seeing at Venice my friend the honourable Douglas Kinnaird. In his way through Germany, he told me that he had been honoured with a presentation to, and some interviews with, one of the nearest family connections of Napoleon (Eugène Beauharnais). During one of these, he read and translated the lines alluding to Buonaparte, in the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_. He informed me, that he was authorized by the illustrious personage--(still recognized as such by the Legitimacy in Europe)--to whom they were read, to say, _that 'the delineation was complete,'_ or words to this effect. It is no puerile vanity which induces me to publish this fact;--but Mr. Hazlitt accuses my inconsistency, and infers my inaccuracy. Perhaps he will admit that, with regard to the latter, one of the most intimate family connections of the Emperor may be equally capable of deciding on the subject. I tell Mr. Hazlitt that I never flattered Napoleon on the throne, nor maligned him since his fall. I wrote what I think are the incredible antitheses of his character. "Mr. Hazlitt accuses me further of delineating _myself_ in _Childe Harold_, etc., etc. I have denied this long ago--but, even were it true, Locke tells us, that all his knowledge of human understanding was derived from studying his own mind. From Mr. Hazlitt's opinion of my poetry I do not appeal; but I request that gentleman not to insult me by imputing the basest of crimes,--viz. 'praising publicly the same man whom I wished to depreciate in his adversity:'--the _first_ lines I ever wrote on Buonaparte were in his dispraise, in 1814,--the _last_, though not at all in his favour, were more impartial and discriminative, in 1818. Has he become more fortunate since 1814?" For Byron's various estimates of Napoleon's character and career, see _Childe Harold_, Canto III, stanza xxxvi. line 7, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 238, note 1.]