Note 624 — CANTO THE TWELFTH.
Reading edition
See [William] Mitford's Greece (1829, v. 314, 315), "Græcia Verax." His great pleasure consists in praising tyrants, abusing Plutarch, spelling oddly, and writing quaintly; and what is strange, after all, his is the best modern history of Greece in any language, and he is perhaps the best of all modern historians whatsoever. Having named his sins, it is but fair to state his virtues—learning, labour, research, wrath, and partiality. I call the latter virtues in a writer, because they make him write in earnest.
[Byron consulted Mitford when he was at work on Sardanapalus. (See Extracts from a Diary, January 5, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 152, note 1.)]