Transcriber's Note:
This is the first volume of the Six volume series
Life of Lord Byron
with his Letters and Journals
by
Thomas Moore.
Links to the other five volumes.
LIFE
OF
LORD BYRON:
WITH HIS LETTERS AND JOURNALS.
BY THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.
IN SIX VOLUMES.—VOL. I.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1854.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices
of his Life, tothe Period of His Return from the
Continent, July, 1811.
TO
SIR WALTER SCOTT, BARONET,
THESE VOLUMES
ARE INSCRIBED
BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND,
THOMAS MOORE.
December, 1829.
PREFACE
TO THE
FIRST VOLUME OF THE FIRST EDITION.[1]
In presenting these Volumes to the public I should have felt, I own,considerable diffidence, from a sincere distrust in my own powers ofdoing justice to such a task, were I not well convinced that there isin the subject itself, and in the rich variety of materials herebrought to illustrate it, a degree of attraction and interest which itwould be difficult, even for hands the most unskilful, to extinguish.However lamentable were the circumstances under which Lord Byronbecame estranged from his country, to his long absence from England,during the most brilliant period of his powers, we are indebted forall those interesting letters which compose the greater part of theSecond Volume of this work, and which will be found equal, if notsuperior, in point of vigour, variety, and liveliness, to any thathave yet adorned this branch of our literature. [x]
What has been said of Petrarch, that "his correspondence and versestogether afford the progressive interest of a narrative in which thepoet is always identified with the man," will be found applicable, ina far greater degree, to Lord Byron, in whom the literary and thepersonal character were so closely interwoven, that to have left hisworks without the instructive commentary which his Life andCorrespondence afford, would have been equally an injustice both tohimself and to the world.
PREFACE
TO THE
SECOND VOLUME OF THE FIRST EDITION.
The favourable reception which