"Dorant's, January 21. 1808.
"Sir,
"Whenever leisure and inclination permit me the pleasure of a visit, I
shall feel truly gratified in a personal acquaintance with one whose
mind has been long known to me in his writings.
"You are so far correct in your conjecture, that I am a member of the
University of Cambridge, where I shall take my degree of A. M. this
term; but were reasoning, eloquence, or virtue, the objects of my
search, Granta is not their metropolis, nor is the place of her
situation an 'El Dorado,' far less an Utopia. The intellects of her
children are as stagnant as her Cam, and their pursuits limited to the
church--not of Christ, but of the nearest benefice.
"As to my reading, I believe I may aver, without hyperbole, it has
been tolerably extensive in the historical; so that few nations exist,
or have existed, with whose records I am not in some degree
acquainted, from Herodotus down to Gibbon. Of the classics, I know
about as much as most schoolboys after a discipline of thirteen years;
of the law of the land as much as enables me to keep 'within the
statute'--to use the poacher's vocabulary. I did study the 'Spirit of
Laws' and the Law of Nations; but when I saw the latter violated every
month, I gave up my attempts at so useless an accomplishment;--of
geography, I have seen more land on maps than I should wish to
traverse on foot;--of mathematics, enough to give me the headache
without clearing the part affected;--of philosophy, astronomy, and
metaphysics, more than I can comprehend;[85] and of common sense so
little, that I mean to leave a Byronian prize at each of our 'Almæ
Matres' for the first discovery,--though I rather fear that of the
longitude will precede it.
"I once thought myself a philosopher, and talked nonsense with great
decorum: I defied pain, and preached up equanimity. For some time this
did very well, for no one was in _pain_ for me but my friends, and none
lost their patience but my hearers. At last, a fall from my horse
convinced me bodily suffering was an evil; and the worst of an argument
overset my maxims and my temper at the same moment: so I quitted Zeno
for Aristippus, and conceive that pleasure constitutes the {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}. I
hold virtue, in general, or the virtues severally, to be only in the
disposition, each a _feeling_, not a principle.[86] I believe truth the
prime attribute of the Deity, and death an eternal sleep, at least of
the body. You have here a brief compendium of the sentiments of the
_wicked_ George Lord Byron; and, till I get a new suit, you will
perceive I am badly clothed.