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with the most passionate feelings , and ( hiding sympathy "with only the ruder parts of his nature at home , the little world of school afforded a vent for his affections , which was sure to call them forth in their most ardent form . Accordingly , the friendships which he contracted
both at school and college were little less than what he himself describes them , ' passions / The want he felt at home of those kindred dispositions which greeted him among c Ida ' s social band / is thus strongly described in one of bis early poems :
" ' Is there no cause beyond the common claim , Eudear'd to all in childhood ' s very name ? Ah ! sure some stronger impulse vibrates here , Which whispers , friendship will be doubly dear To one who thus for kiudred hearts must roam , And seek abroad the love denied at
home : Those hearts , dear Ida , have I found in thee , A home , a world , a paradise to me . ' " This early volume , indeed , abounds with the most affectionate tributes to his school-fellows . Even his expostulations to one of them , who had given him some cause for Complaint , are thus tenderly conveyed :
" ' You knew that my soul , that my heart , my existence , If danger demanded were wholly your own ; You knew me unalter'd by years or by distance , Devoted to lore and to friendship alone .
You knew—but away with the vain retrospection , The bond of affection no longer endures ; Too late you may droop o ' er the fond recollection , And sigh for the friend who was formerly yours . '
" The following description of what he felt after leaving Harrow , when he encountered in the world any of his old school-fellows , falls far short of the scene which actually occurred , but a few years before his death , in Italy ,-t ~ when , ou meeting with his friend Lord Clare , after a long separation , he was affected almost to tears by the recollections which rushed on him . " < 4 It is but rarely that infidelity or
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scepticism finds an entrance into youthful minds . That readiness to take the future upon trust , which is the charm of this period of life , would naturally , indeed , make it the season of belief as well as of hope . "—** Uufortunately , Lord Byron was an exception to the usual course of such lapses . With him , th ^ canker shewed itself ' in the morn and
dew of youth , * when the effect of > such ' blastments' is , for every reason , most fatal , —and , in addition to the real misfortune of being an unbeliever at any age , he exhibited the rare and melancholy spectacle of an unbelieving school-boy . The same prematurity of development
which brought his passions and genius so early into action , enabled him also to anticipate this worst , dreariest result of reason ; and at the very time of life when a spirit and temperament like his most required controul , those checks which religious prepossessions best supply were almost wholly wanting .
' * We have seen , in those two Addresses to the Deity which I have selected from among his unpublished poems , and still more strongly in a passage of the Catalogue of his studies , at wiiat a boyish age the authority of all systems and sects was avowedly shaken
off by his inquiring spirit . Yet , even in these , there is a fervour of adoration mingled with his defiance of creeds , through which the piety implanted in his nature ( as it is deeply io alJ poetic natures ) unequivocally shews itself ; and had he then fallen within the reach of such
guidance and example as wquld have seconded and fostered these natnral dispositions , the license of opinion iuto which he afterwards broke loose , might have been averted . " He associated , however , much with sceptics . " It is not wonderful , therefore , that in such society , the opinions of the noble poet should have been , at least , accelerated frn that direction to
winch their bias already le&ued 9 and though he cannot be said to have become thus confirmed in these doctrines- —a * ueither now , nor at any time of his life , was he a confirmed unbeliever , —he had undoubtedly learned to feel less uneasy under hie scepticism , aud even to nj ingle
somewhat of boast aud of levity with his expression of it . At the very first onset of his correspondence with Mr . Dallas , we find him proclaiming his sentiment !) ou all such subjects with a flippancy and confidence , far differeut from the tone in which he had first ventured on his doubts , —from that fervid sadness , as of a heart loth to part with its illusions ,
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Critical Notices . — Miscellaneous . \ 27
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1830, page 127, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2581/page/55/
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