[Footnote 18: Among his "Detached Thoughts" I find this general passion for liberty thus strikingly expressed. After saying, in reference to his own choice of Venice as a place of residence, "I remembered General Ludlow's domal inscription, 'Omne solum forti patria,' and sat down free in a country which had been one of slavery for centuries," he adds, "But there is _no_ freedom, even for _masters_, in the midst of slaves. It makes my blood boil to see the thing. I sometimes wish that I was the owner of Africa, to do at once what Wilberforce will do in time, viz. sweep slavery from her deserts, and look on upon the first dance of their freedom.
"As to political slavery, so general, it is men's own fault: if they _will_ be slaves, let them! Yet it is but 'a word and a blow.' See how England formerly, France, Spain, Portugal, America, Switzerland, freed themselves! There is no one instance of a long contest in which men did not triumph over systems. If Tyranny misses her _first_ spring, she is cowardly as the tiger, and retires to be hunted."]
EXTRACTS FROM A DIARY OF LORD BYRON. 1821.
"'A sudden thought strikes me.' Let me begin a Journal once more. The last I kept was in Switzerland, in record of a tour made in the Bernese Alps, which I made to send to my sister in 1816, and I suppose that she has it still, for she wrote to me that she was pleased with it. Another, and longer, I kept in 1813-1814, which I gave to Thomas Moore in the same year.
"This morning I gat me up late, as usual--weather bad--bad as England--worse. The snow of last week melting to the sirocco of to-day, so that there were two d----d things at once. Could not even get to ride on horseback in the forest. Stayed at home all the morning--looked at the fire--wondered when the post would come. Post came at the Ave Maria, instead of half-past one o'clock, as it ought, Galignani's Messengers, six in number--a letter from Faenza, but none from England. Very sulky in consequence (for there ought to have been letters), and ate in consequence a copious dinner; for when I am vexed, it makes me swallow quicker--but drank very little.
"I was out of spirits--read the papers--thought what _fame_ was, on reading, in a case of murder, that 'Mr. Wych, grocer, at Tunbridge, sold some bacon, flour, cheese, and, it is believed, some plums, to some gipsy woman accused. He had on his counter (I quote faithfully) a _book_, the Life of _Pamela_, which he was _tearing_ for _waste_ paper, &c. &c. In the cheese was found, &c. and a _leaf_ of _Pamela wrapt round the bacon._' What would Richardson, the vainest and luckiest of _living_ authors (_i.e._ while alive)--he who, with Aaron Hill, used to prophesy and chuckle over the presumed fall of Fielding (the prose Homer of human nature) and of Pope (the most beautiful of poets)--what would he have said, could he have traced his pages from their place on the French prince's toilets (see Boswell's Johnson) to the grocer's counter and the gipsy-murderess's bacon!!!