rose; as the light on the cloud; as the bloom on the cheek of beauty,
of which the possessor is unconscious until the charm has been seen
by its influence on others; it is the internal golden flame of the
opal; a something which may be abstracted from the thing in which it
appears, without changing the quality of its substance, its form, or
its affinities. I am not, therefore, disposed to consider the idle
and reckless childhood of Byron as unfavourable to the development of
his genius; but, on the contrary, inclined to think, that the
indulgence of his mother, leaving him so much to the accidents of
undisciplined impression, was calculated to cherish associations
which rendered them, in the maturity of his powers, ingredients of
spell that ruled his memory.

It is singular, and I am not aware it has been before noticed, that
with all his tender and impassioned apostrophes to beauty and love,
Byron has in no instance, not even in the freest passages of Don
Juan, associated either the one or the other with sensual images.
The extravagance of Shakespeare's Juliet, when she speaks of Romeo
being cut after his death into stars, that all the world may be in
love with night, is flame and ecstasy compared to the icy
metaphysical glitter of Byron's amorous allusions. The verses
beginning with


She walks in beauty like the light
Of eastern climes and starry skies,


are a perfect example of what I have conceived of his bodiless
admiration of beauty, and objectless enthusiasm of love. The