which he had been destined, by his lameness; but directing his
attention to the study of books, and eventually of men, he at
length took rank amongst the greatest diplomatists of his time.

Byron's clubfoot had probably not a little to do with determining
his destiny as a poet. Had not his mind been embittered and made
morbid by his deformity, he might never have written a line--he
might have been the noblest fop of his day. But his misshapen
foot stimulated his mind, roused his ardour, threw him upon his
own resources--and we know with what result.

So, too, of Scarron, to whose hunchback we probably owe his
cynical verse; and of Pope, whose satire was in a measure the
outcome of his deformity--for he was, as Johnson described him,
"protuberant behind and before." What Lord Bacon said of
deformity is doubtless, to a great extent, true. "Whoever,"
said he, "hath anything fixed in his person that doth induce
contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself to rescue
and deliver himself from scorn; therefore, all deformed persons
are extremely bold."

As in portraiture, so in biography, there must be light and shade.
The portrait-painter does not pose his sitter so as to bring out
his deformities; nor does the biographer give undue prominence to
the defects of the character he portrays. Not many men are so
outspoken as Cromwell was when he sat to Cooper for his miniature:
"Paint me as I am," said he, "warts and all." Yet, if we would
have a faithful likeness of faces and characters, they must be
painted as they are. "Biography," said Sir Walter Scott, "the
most interesting of every species of composition, loses all its