Note 126 — BOOK THE SECOND 1810 TO JUNE, 1812

I have altered this passage from “hitherto has been” to “was,” for since I originally wrote it in 1821 the great poetical genius of whom it treats has terminated his short and irregular, but brilliant, career in a place and in circumstances (and perhaps at a period of life) fortunate for his literary and political fame. He was perhaps the shortest, but surely not the least, miracle of our age.—V.H.