ABSTRACT

Alexander Pope's 'Epistle to a Lady' begins: 'Nothing so true as what you once let fall, / "Most Women have no Characters at all"'. He claims both loyalty to contradiction and yet a certain stability inherent in the adjective 'downright', without which he would have no ground from whence to critique characters such as Lord Hervey for being changeable. Lord Byron's own declaration of surprise that anyone could mistake him for his heroes seems to confirm it. It is difficult, nevertheless, to see Byron's dark heroes as simply an unconscious expression of hidden desires since he calls Lara 'a thing of dark imaginings'. Cardinal Newman was as acutely aware of minute changes in his self as Montaigne, Pope or Byron's Manfred, who notes an 'inexplicable stillness!' and instantly seeks to write it down. Newman has Manfred's writing compulsion and Byron's habit of projection, despite his lack of respect for either Byron or Pope.