The Henson Journals

[157]

Friday, February 8th, 1924.

E'en I – least thinking of a thoughtless throng,

Just skilled to know the right and choose the wrong,

Freed at that age when Reason's shield is lost,

To fight my course through Passion's countless host,

Whom every path of Pleasure's flowery way

Has lured in turn, and all have led astray –

E'en I must raise my voice, e'en I must feel

Such scenes, such men, destroy the public weal:

Altho' some kind, censorious friend will say,

"What art thou better, meddling fool, than they?"

And every Brother Rake will smile to see

That Miracle, a Moralist in me.

Byron "English Bard Scotch Reviewers" 689–700

Byron was enormously interesting to himself. Indeed, a morbid egotism is the note that never fails in his writing. The poem which contains these lines appears in March 1809, when the author was hardly more than 21.

I remained indoors all day, nursing a chill. Alexander appears to be stricken with influenza, so that the whole burden of butlery fell upon John. The plague is reported to be raging in many districts. In Hartlepool the schools have to be closed and many deaths are reported, among them that of old Sedcole, the churchwarden of South Shields.

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