Note 9 — LORD BYRON:
Reading edition
"Harvey, the circulator of the circulation of the blood, used to fling away Virgil in his ecstasy of admiration, and say 'the book had a devil.' Now, such a character as I am copying would probably fling it away also, but rather wish that the devil had the book; not from a dislike to the poet, but a well-founded horror of hexameters. Indeed, the public-school penance of 'Long and Short' is enough to beget an antipathy to poetry for the residue of a man's life, and perhaps so far may be an advantage."