The Sun.
London, England, 1828-01-24 00:00:00

PRICE 7D.

had notsometimes left themselves under the neces-
sity of being assisted. The: headlong sympathies
that ran in their blood, and that diverted them some-
times from ordinary duties, have helped to carry us
all forwards to those great waters of humanity which
are now out over the world, and which shall assur-
edly give it a new level and a new life.
But I did not sit down to this letter, Sir, to take
up your time with theories. 1 have written even
more than wasvanencieyssainrytevf.ocrout7h.see r7evailtii
aofnylohpe b7iroickrif it which was to say-that nobody has a right to judge
oPrdst.ll-' Byron
roit
in question;
afofrnednthithpe
aatsrprtiiapr
7t.oextet
againstcts otit
whatso-
ever,st
unproduced by ,an acquaintance with the work
I may put a case in the n-iezto time, if I
please; and ask the reader what he thinks, on the
face of it, of my claims on Lord Byron as a partner,
invited to set up a work with him under all the cir,
cumstances, and of my right to speak as freely to
the vublic of him, as- he spoke secretly and under-
hand of lite. But for`a complete view of the case
I must refer him, (if he chooses to judge the matter)
to the book itself, • and to all the evidences it con-
tains, for me or against : for of one thing he may
be certain—that every jot of it' is true. I love
truth with a passion commensurate to what I.think
its 'desirableness, above all other things, for the se,
curity of good to the world; and if I did not, I
shonld love it the trouble it saves me in having
but one story and one answeffOr all men, and being
a slave to nobody.

I have a word, however, to add, with regard to
those who have hitherto thought fit td-make Objec-
tions to my book, without knoWing the whole of it.
—Some of these, I have been told, are really con-
scientious men, who are kind enough to entertain
an ill opinion of me with pain ;'..and I can believe
that partial extracts might possibly have led them
into that opinion. Ail that I complain of in this
case is, that they did not sufficiently think of their
conscientiousness, when they expressed the opinion
without knowing all I had to say. Some of them, I
believe, have -already become sensible of their
mistake; and are waiting to do me justice:—
As to the other anonymous writers, who have at-
tacked me in a different spirit, I concede even
to them the possibility of their having come to
a similar conclusion, out of the same partial de-
gree of knowledge. I will at present not stop to in-
quire how far they were led into It 'by motives of
their oWn.• tut -I warn them how, upon a better
acquaintance with the work, they renew the same
kind of attacks ; as, in that case, I shall be compell-
ed to let the public see, not only the whole amount
•of what-I have to object to them on my own part,
bat what their pretended hero thought and said of
them on his, And this, if they insist upon it, it
will only be less easy for me to do, that it is to
spare them in-the mean time. I will then answer
both their verse and their prose, if they please; and
:the public shall see who has the worst of it. Though
I have told nothing but the truth, I am far from
having told all the truth—and I never will tell it
all. Common humanity would not let me. But I .will
not have my very forbearance turned against me by
those Whose sufferings 'Would be tragic to themselves
only, and comic to all the rest of the world.

It has been said that I undervalue the genius of
Lord Byron, and think too highly of myself at the
same time. I belieVe, that when I speak seriously,
I am in the habit of using a tone of dedsidn and.
Confidence, which may produce mi.sta.kesi on that
point. It is owing to my having some decided opi-
nions,And an exalted view-of what may be done for
the world ; and it was the absence of such views in
Lord Byron, and the presence of an eternal persi-
flage and affectation, that led me to think of what
was petty instead of great in him, and perhaps
really made me undervalue his genius. I can only
say, that I heartily wish his head may have deserved
all the laurels that were stuck about it ; to the con.
cealment of his coronet, according to some, who
nevertheless can never separate the two ideas. My
own talents, unfortunately (if I may speak of such
things), I am not so conscious of, as I am of their
having fallen far short of what I once hoped they
would turn out. I have many infirmities, and
nothing great in me but my sympathy with man-
kind. It is for this only I desire 'any honour I pre-
tend to; and this, I allow, I cannot shut up, as I
would an opera hat, and convert it into a piece of
deference to the circles.

After all, Sir, I had no intention in writing my
book but to give a true portrait of Lord Byron, as
of a human being interesting to the times he lived
in, and worth painting at any time. My spleen
came across me, I own, as I called him to mind ;
if I had been actuated by ordinary motives, I should
have done it when I first returned to England, and
made, as the phrase is, "a good deal of money by
it;" which is what, in the ordinary sense of the
phrase, I cannot be said to have done now. My
bookseller had pleased me by advances of money ;
and it was a series of circumstances connected with
that liberal treatment, which finally led me to make
the book what it is. I have related them in the
preface, if any body thinks it worth his while to
know them. I wish, in his good nature to others,
and hi exceeding notion of mine, Mr. Collmirn had
not hazarded doing me a very painful disservice with
my readers, by omitting, in its passage through the
press, a concluding line or two in my notice of Mr.
Theodore Hook. I had no wish to say any thing
at all of Mr. Hook, and could, with pleasure, have
omitted the whole notice of him, had Mr. Colhurn
wished it. But after my pleasanter recollections of
him (as they now stand unqualified in the book), ir
became doubly necessary not to omit the drawbacks
I had to make on a writer of his outrageous descrip-
tion ; and my account of him, instead of ending with
the two or three words now concluding it, should
have terminated thus :—" That I wished he had
stuck to his humours and farces for which he had
real talent, instead of attempting to cut up a great
man for the hounds, and taking a silver fork and a
seat at a great table for the refinement that he has
missed."

I have only one opinion more to guard against,
which might be caused by something in my book
itself; to wit, the face which the engraver in his
hurry has been pleased to thrust upon me, and which
might lead people to suppose that I am not only
capable of calumniating my host, but of walking MI
with his tankard. I have no pretensions to hand-
someness—my face is rescued from insignificance
solely by thought; but I must really be allowed to
say, that there is nothing in it which ought to take
me to liow-street.

I am, Sir, your obliged and sincere servant,