[Footnote 77: It is to this sentence Lord Byron refers at the conclusion of his letter, March 4.]
"I have written to the Longmans to try the ground, for I do _not_ think Galignani the man for you. The only thing he can do is what we can do, ourselves, without him,--and that is, employ an English bookseller. Paris, indeed, might be convenient for such refugee works as are set down in the _Index Expurgatorius_ of London; and if you have any political catamarans to explode, this is your place. But, _pray_, let them be only political ones. Boldness, and even licence, in politics, does good,--actual, present good; but, in religion, it profits neither here nor hereafter; and, for myself, such a horror have I of both extremes on this subject, that I know not _which_ I hate most, the bold, damning bigot, or the bold, annihilating infidel. 'Furiosa res est in tenebris impetus;'--and much as we are in the dark, even the wisest of us, upon these matters, a little modesty, in unbelief as well as belief, best becomes us. You will easily guess that, in all this, I am thinking not so much of you, as of a friend and, at present, companion of yours, whose influence over your mind (knowing you as I do, and knowing what Lady B. _ought_ to have found out, that you are a person the most tractable to those who live with you that, perhaps, ever existed) I own I dread and deprecate most earnestly."[78]
[Footnote 78: This passage having been shown by Lord Byron to Mr. Shelley, the latter wrote, in consequence, a letter to a gentleman with whom I was then in habits of intimacy, of which the following is an extract. The zeal and openness with which Shelley always professed his unbelief render any scruple that might otherwise be felt in giving publicity to such avowals unnecessary; besides which, the testimony of so near and clear an observer to the state of Lord Byron's mind upon religious subjects is of far too much importance to my object to be, from any over-fastidiousness, suppressed. We have here, too strikingly exemplified,--and in strong contrast, I must say, to the line taken by Mr. Hunt in similar circumstances,--the good breeding, gentle temper, and modesty for which Shelley was so remarkable, and of the latter of which Dualities in particular the undeserved compliment to myself affords a strong illustration, as showing how little this true poet had yet learned to know his own place.