The

LIFE

of

LORD BYR O N;

with

His letters and journals.

By Thomas Moore, Esq.

In two volumes.

Vol. I.

Philadelphia:

Published by J.& J.L. Gihon,

No.98 Chestnut Street.

1852?

B B95600 1852 VF-2

PREFACE

TO THE

FIRST VOLUME OF THE FIRST LONDON EDITION.*

IN presenting these Volumes to the public I snould have felt, I own, considerable diffidence, from a sincere distrust in my own powers of doing justice to such a task, were I not well convinced that there is in the subject itself, and in the rich variety of materials here brought to illustrate it, a degree of attraction and interest which it would be difficult, even for hands the most unskilful, to extinguish. However lamentable were the circumstances under which Lord Byron became estranged from his country, to his long absence from England, during the most brilliant period of his powers, we are indebted for all those interesting letters which compose the greater part of the Second Volume of this work, and which will be found equal, if not superior, in point of vigour, variety, and liveliness, to any that have yet adorned this branch of our literature.

What has been said of Petrarch, that "his correspondence and verses together afford the progressive interest of a narrative in which the poet is always identified with the man," will be found applicable, in a far greater degree, to Lord Byron, in whom the literary and the personal character were so closely interwoven, that to have left his works without the instructive commentary which his Life and Correspondence afford, would have been equally an injustice both to himself and to the world.

*Published in 1829.

VOL 1.-1.

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