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THE SPINGARN COLLECTION 

OF 

CRITICISM AND LITERARY THEORY 

PRE^NTED BY 

J. E. SPINGARN 




LETTERSL 



Prtnttd by A. ft R. flpottnwootei 



LETTERS 



ON THE 



C IIAKACTEK AND POETICAL GENIUS 



OF 



LORD BYRON. 



BY 

Sir EGEKTON BRYDGES. Bakt. 

Ac. Ac. &r. 



liiSOMAM, III' 



LONDON: 

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PREFACE. 



More than twenty of the first of these 
letters were written with little intention 
to publish them. They were the succes- 
sive daily impressions which a continued 
musing on the subject produced in my 
mind, registered as they occurred with 
the utmost frankness and fearlessness. If 
the reader shall suspect that he now and 
then perceives some inconsistency in 
thenit a little candour and reflection will, 
I hope, induce him to alter his opini<m. 
He must recollect that these are Letters^ 
— not a formal essaif or dissertation^ where 

a 



VI PREFACE. 

an author is bound to digest the whok be- 
fore he commences to write it. 

As to any deprecation of censure and 
criticism, or any anxiety about it, he who 
has had intercourse with the literary world 
for more than forty years must know too 
much of its private history, its passions^ 
prejudices, and intrigues, to concern him- 
setf with any thing of such utter inutility. 
He who cannot endure heartless and fitful 
criticism, or is not prepared even for foul 
and perverted criticism, must not write. 
All first reception is at best a chance ; 
what is just and solid will some day find 
its due place in the public mind j what is 
not so wiU receive little benefit from tem- 
porary favour : — it is much more mortify- 
ing to be lifted up, and then to sink again, 
than never to have risen. What good 



PREFACE. 



Ml 



did the fame of Danvhi or of HayUy do 
either of them ? 

Sonu* will censure my warmth : if they 
cannot prove it affected^ they are welcome 
to ail which they can make of the ohjec- 
tion. 

Gtmrca, July 14. 1824. 









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LETTERS. 



LETTER I. 

SatunUy, May M. 18S4. 

I ESTEBDAY the {Nipers brought me the 
nems of Lord Btron's death, on Monday 
April 19th, at Missolonghi in Greece, of 
a ten days' inflammatory fever. He was 
bom in January 1788f &nd was, therefore, 
aged thirty-six years, and three months, 
wanting a few days. 

On the first emotion of such intel- 
ligcnce it is too early to discuss calmly 
his genius, his merits or demerits. 

It will be always difficult to separate 
one from the other, because they are 
almost always found together. His splen- 
dours and his extravagances ; his beauties 



2 LETTERS ON THE 

and his offences against morality and 
taste, too commonly occur in the same 
work, and even frequently in the same 
page. 

There is, indeed, a great difference 
between the fault which arises from ideas 
unchastisedf and ideas exaggerated. The 
former comes from excess of force; 
the latter, from weakness which endea- 
vours to supply the place of strength 
by unnatural and artificial efforts : Lord 
Byron's fault is of the former kind; 
never of the latter. 

It seems as if he idways disdained to 
chastise his first impressions ; and yielded 
to all their unpoised violence. He saw 
things therefore in detached lights : and 
though his impressions were those of a 
faithful as well as brilliant mirror, which 
reflected objects under one single aspect ; 
like a landscape under a burning and 
unshaded sun ; yet he never seems to have 
received those mingled and graduated 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 3 

news, where gilded clouds soflen, and a 
thousand counteracting tints correct ex- 
coses, and turn glare into mellowed 
beauty. 

Either his faculty of reason was very 
much infarior to his fancy and his imagi- 
nation, or he little exercised it He 
seemed always resolved to take things in 
the shape and colour in which his momen- 
tary passion would have them appear, and 
relied on the force of his fancy to make 
them appear so to others. He placed his 
spectators, like a magician, in the sole 
point of view where what he presented 
to them appeared just as he would have 
it ; but as he, when his humour altered, 
could change the position both of himself 
and the object, he was often likely to 
laugh at those whom he had misled by 
his partial exhibitions. 

I think that this will account for the 
instability of opinion, which he so often 
di s tu y er cd He was not 

B 2 



% LETTERS ON THE 

he -would not give himself* time to be 
profound, and comprehensive. He could 
not see good working out of evil ; and 
how that, which on a narrow aspect of 
it, seemed severe, unreasonable, or foolish, 
would on a broader regard of all the cir- 
-cumstances be found beneficial and wise. 
He was ingenious, acute, and vigorous, 
and therefore could enforce whatever 
impression he chose to take : but he had 
not that moral monitor within, which is 
independent of the intellect and the ge- 
nius ; and which is a guard against par- 
tial views ; against the freaks of ability ; 
and against the indulgence of the tempt- 
ation, 

" To make the worse appear the better cause." 

He had a sort of self-confidence and 
arrogance, which made him feel as if he 
exulted to sport with the public mind ; 
as if he had dominion over it, like an evil 
spirit } as if his powers by some irresistible 



GENIUS OF LORD BY AON. S 

destiny were fated to defy control ; as 
if he was ordained to ride in mockery on 
the necks of the people ; to spurn public 
opinion ; and to trample down morality, 
in order to show lus strength I 

He who was endowed with this almost 
superhuman audacity of ^irit, combined 
with a rare splendour of intellectual gifb» 
was firee to produce compositions, which 
would possess a striking character, such 
as more restrained pens had no chance 
of reaching. All regions of possible 
thought were open to him ; and in the 
universal license of his mind, he could 
see news and gather flowers, which no 
other could visit, or collect There was 
the chance of barrenness, of barbarism, 
of terror, of deformity, and disgust, 
in his excursions; but this mattered 
not to him : he laughed at the objec- 
tions to what he produced of rude, or 
dry, or revolting; it was a part of his 
sport ; a part of the trial of his power, to 

B 9 



6 LETTERS ON THE 

which he was destined ; and it set off the 
brilliant and magnificent parts more 
strongly by the contrast 

He had the powers of copious and rich 
fiction : but it wanted one essential part of 
the fiction which is requisite to the highest 
poetry — it was not cast in the mould of 
truth. All the characters of his creation 
partook of the defects of his own mental 
and moral composition. They are beings 
of violence; of extravagant and partial 
endowment ; of scorn at moral ties ; of 
splendid vice ; of disdain of the state of 
existence in which they are moving; 
of mysterious claims to excellence above 
their destiny, which exempt them from 
the common restraints of life, and entitle 
them to do whatever eccentric and auda- 
cious things passion or caprice prompts, 
without loss of esteem or admiration, as 
if in revenge for their degradation among 
creatures of an inferior order. 

These are mysteries into which genius 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON* 



may throw the beings of its invention ; 
lod such fictions may open a thousand 
opportunities for splendid imagery, glow* 
ing description, and striking sentiment ; 
— but they are not mysteries out of which 
they can so easily get them again. Truths 
^eternal truth, ^ is against them; and 
truth only will allow of developments^ 
which may justify the temporary agitation 
<^' the passions, and the excitement of 
temporary wonder. 

Lord Byron, accordingly, leaves almost 
ail liis fictions at last under the veil of 
the darkness in which they commenced, 
and with which Uiey have been carried on. 
— The Corsair; — Lara ;—Manfredj &c 
how is our curiosity satisfied in these? 
To what end do they lead ? What truth 
is ezempUfied by them ? 

An exercise of imagination without 
producing an end^ is Uke ** long pas- 
** sages'* in a palace, or casUe, ** which 
«• lead to nothing !" 

B 4 



8 LETTERS ON THE 

So far as there is an undeveloped re- 
sult» •— so far as inferences rise firom the 
qualities and conduct of the characters 
in the progress of these fictions, — it is 
contrary to what our sober reason and 
conscience can admit, — contrary to the 
necessary duties of morality, which bind 
society together, — and such only as in the 
momentary demands of our passions can 
please us, or be admitted by us ; because 
we cannot admit that generosity is con- 
nected with selfish indulgences; kind- 
ness with ferocity ; and affection with 
violence, rapine, revenge, and reckless 
audacity. 

They who are inclined to defend such 
indulgences of the imagination as Lord 
Byron gave way to, will probably meet 
me here, and charge me with begging the 
question, even if they admit the position 
that TRUTH ought to be the result of the 
Jiction. — They wiU contend, that the 
qualities, of which I deny the union, are. 



GEKIU8 OF LOED BTROM. 9 

in &cU otften united ; they will my that 
it is necesBaiy to tear off the diaguise 
of hypocrisy, and that we must look at 
human nature as it is ; — that the vigour 
of virtue is often joined to great vices ; 
— and that the boldness which dares to 
|Munt things as they are, however con- 
trary to prejudices, deserves aU the dis* 
tiiicti<m it has obtained, for force of 
mind, as well as of heart. 

Undoubtedly, if these counter-assump- 
tions be just, there is an end of my ob- 
jections. — But are they just ? Is such 
mysterious conduct as is attributed to 
Lara consistent with a predominance of 
virtuous over vicious qualities ? 

Wickedness may be painted, but then 
it must be painted, not as an object 
of attraction, but as an object of avoid- 
ance. It must not be so painted in 
cokHuns of unquaUfied darkness, that we 
feel no interest in it} but the conse- 
quence of its ill qualities or ill deeds must 



10 



LETTERS ON THE 



be unhappiness; and we must be the 
more affected by that unhappiness by the 
mixture of some attractive qualities with 
those which we condemn. 

Is it not dangerous to the moraUty of 
the popular mind, to represent crime in 
attractive hues, and temporarily trium- 
phant, without following it by the antidote 
of misery, regret, and punishment? 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. U 



'■« 



LETfER II. 

May 93. 

HE fiercer passions seem to have pre- 
vailed exclusively over the mind of Lord 
Byron. Tender affection, timidity, sor- 
row, sympathy, appear to have had little 
influence over him ; a love of power and 
of tlie unlimited exercise of his caprice, 
and anger and violent resentment at 
whatever thwarted his purposes, were his 
lud)itual temperament It did not seem, 
that any hold could be made upon his 
conMrience, or the nicety of his r^ard 
to the interests or happiness of others. 
He was one who lived according to his 
own humours, and whose will was his 
law. 

In one sense he could not be properly 
said to have any enthusiasm, because en- 
thusiasm is unilbrm, sincere, and cannot 



12 USTTERS Off THE 

change ; whereas in his fits of highest 
fervour he could change at once to raillery, 
sarcasm, and jest ^ he could ridicule what 
he himself had the moment before ad- 
mired most, and could turn round upon 
those who agreed with him, by taking 
the direct contrary side. 

When he was pleased, he could be 
generous and kind; but no one was 
certain of being able to please him, or 
to continue to please him. He took 
offence without cause ; and revenged, 
without bounds, trifling or imagined in- 
juries. Goodness gave him no pleasure, 
as goodness ; but only so ^u* as it hap- 
pened to suit some transient humour. 

This disposition of mind and temper 
aided the^rce and direct vigour of what- 
ever he wrote or said. He compromised 
nothing; he took every object in the 
single unbroken light of the moment ; he 
had no qualms, no reserves, but drove 
onward to his point with a reckless 



OBIflUS OP LORD BTRON. IS 

energy. He had risen above the breath 
not only of vulgar opinion, but of all 
public opinion. He found himself, or 
thought himself above the reach of any 
atsault which should endanger his fame ; 
mndt therefore, that, in the chances which 
he was free to run, all that was good 
would elevate him, nothing which was 
bad could depress him ; — a state of ex- 
traordinary advantage for the due ex- 
pansion of powers magnificent in degree, 
as well as rare in kind. 

But still it was a dangerous and too 
tempting license : it encouraged him to 
let out all the dregs, as well as all the 
splendours of his great genius ; hei there- 
forey let out many things trite, many 
coarse, some foolish, and some exe- 
crable ; he put no guard upon the bitter- 
ness of a temper sometimes fouU and 
sometimes ungenerous; and it will be 
wellt if this vast mass of objectionable 
does not finally hang heavy on hit 



14 LETTERS ON THE 

It must not be understood that by 
these objections to the poems or the 
genius of Lord Byron any idea is meant 
to be conveyed, that it ought in any 
respect to be brought down to the level 
of minor authors, or compared with 
those faint fabricators of artificial poetry, 
who, though they may sometimes acquire 
an ephemeral celebrity, yet are in truth 
gifted with nothing worth regard, and 
have produced nothing worthy of the 
labour of criticism. 

Lord Byron always communicated 
images, or sentiments, or thoughts ; he 
never dealt in mere empty language, — in 
the poetry of words and style. He con- 
veyed some unafiected, undisguised, un- 
qualified, and, for the most part, some 
unlaboured conception. He dashed out, 
with bold and able strokes, the impres- 
sions which had dominion over his mind. 
They were oft:en impressions which others 
would contend to be partial, diseased. 



GENIUS or LORD BTRON. 15 

over-deep, and discoloured^ and not 
sufficiently softened by reflection ; but 
still they were impressions received and 
communicated with splendour, fidelity, 
and skill. There is a magic in im« 
pre«ions powerfully represented, even 
though they are themselves not such as 
we approve. We delight to see the 
secrets which lie in the penetration of 
the mind and heart broadly developed 
to our gaze. We oflen suspect that there 
are private movements in the recesses of 
the bosom, contradictory to what is 
spoken, which too many feel, though 
scarcely any one is bold enough to avow. 
There is something of the pleasure and 
•urprise of discovery in seeing these 
hidden impressions brought from their 
lurking holes out into day. There is a 
frankness in the confession, which wins 
by the charm of generosity. 

There are, however,»many tendencies 
10 give to this sent of merit a Uttle more 



16 LETTERS ON THE 

weight than it deserves. In admiring 
the confession, we ought not, therefore, to 
admire the thing confessed; but this 
we are often inclined to do. Hypocrisy 
is bad, but open error or vice of opinion 
is not therefore good. Not all who have 
been famed for virtue have been virtuous ; 
but it does not follow, that all who have 
been pursued by scorn, or indignation, or 
obloquy, have been meritorious. To 
strain the eye to behold with an excess 
of severity, whatever has been sanctioned 
by time, and concurrent opinion, and 
with an excess of candour, whatever has 
been damned by it, is an inconsistent 
alternation of contrary extremes. 

The general love of novelty, the im- 
pulse that is given by the attempt to 
change the current of popular judgment, 
will always render such an attempt ac- 
ceptable, if executed with talent It will 
possess a temporary attraction for its 
native strength and justness. Even when 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 17 

it is erroneous, stilly it may be the means 
of discovering truth, by the broad and 
distinct light in which it thus shows 
itselC 

So far, then, wrong impressions of the 
fancy, wrong combinations of the imagi- 
nation, wrong sentiments of the heart, 
and wrong conclusions of the head, may 
produce good by a bold, able, and striking 
picture of thenu But this is a sort of 
praise, with which the poet and his ad- 
miren would be in no degree content 
They would say, ** We scorn the praise 
^ of having afibrded a warning ; and not 
•• a model !" 

Others would say, ** We do not enter 
** into the question whether what is re- 
** presented does or does not exist in 
** nature^ or what are its moral effects ; 
** whether it is desirable that it should 
** exist ; whether its existence does or 
** would produce good or evil : our 
** business is with the picture as a pic- 

c 



18 LETTERS ON THE 

<< ture. Is it Of is it not forcibly de- 
« signed, drawn, coloured, and executed ? 
** If it is, the question is decided ; the 
** poet's power and merit is established ; 
" and we need go no farther !** 

But to argue thus, is surely to build 
on a narrow theory. It puts aside the 
quality, the character, the dignity, and 
rank of the design, and supposes all to 
lie in the execution. It is admitted that 
many essentials of poetical power would 
be thus exhibited ; but not all, nor even 
the most essential of all, — that of truth or 
verismdlity, in magnificence, pathos, or 
beauty. 



OBVIUS OP LORD BTROH. 19 



LETTER III. 

Ilaj84. 

JLoRD Btron, however, was a very ex- 
tnordinary man, not only in his own 
oountry and age; but, compared with 
any country and age, the brilliancy of his 
fimcy and the power of his imagination 
have not been surpassed ; and the active 
UK of them was almost as wonderful as 
the gift itself. For twelve years, — from 
the age of twenty-four to his death at the 
age of thirty-six, — he never let them 
sleep ; and he exerted them with this unex- 
ampled vigour in a course of life which 
seemed in some respects a great impedi^ 
ment to them. He was a wanderer ; he 
gave himself up to sensual pleasures; 
and be delighted in personal dangers and 
the fiitigues of the body. 

c t 



20 LETTERS ON THE 

On the other hand, it must be admitted, 
that in some other regards his eccentric 
habits were extremely favourable to the 
nutriment and display of those daring 
Acuities which he so pre-eminently pos- 
sessed. His solitude ; his defiance of the 
petty formalities of the world ; his fre- 
quent abstinence from those ordinaiy in- 
dulgences of the table, which cloud and 
enfeeble the mind, while they inflame the 
body, — all tended to aid and invigorate 
the energies of his intellect: while his 
enterprises, his change of scenery, his 
observation of new manners, his search 
after striking incidents, and his intercourse 
with what abounded both with energy 
and novelty, continually supplied new 
mental stores ; kept all his talents fresh 
and in constant activity ; and gave force, 
life, and novelty to all his inventions. 

He was endowed by nature with a 
feverish and burning intensity of intellect 
and genius ; a restless vigour which never 



GENIUS or LOJiO BYKON. 21 

slept, and which consumed him at an 
early age. Had it not been fed and re- 
freshed by variety, it probably could not 
have lasted so long. There is a pmnt 
bejood which intensity defeats itself: it 
penetrates beyond the depth of life, and 
loses the charm of which it was in search. 
This would probably have been Lord 
Byron's case, had he not sought variety 
and adventure. 

But it is curious to observe how that 
native intensity of Acuities gradually 
de^'eloped itself. It shows itself* little, if 
at all, in his earliest compositions : some 
of them show taste and poetical feeling 
«— but not fofce;— he seems to have 
been fearful of unwrought ideas, and the 
attempt to touch upon new ground ; he 
keeps near the shore, and uses the 
materials already worked into form, and 
polistiecL There can be no doubt that 
tiiese were but a very inadequate picture 
of what was already passing in his mind ; 

c 3 



9t LETTERS ON THE 

but he had not yet strength enough to 
appear in his own poetical character. 

Even in his Jirst two cantos of Childe 
Harold there is much mixture of common- 
place ; and an ambition rather to catch 
and rival the tones of some of his prede- 
cessors, than the original and inspired 
strain of one who spoke directly from 
the muse herself; — and the charm con- 
sisted more in frankness of confession, and 
force of daring and undisguised feeling, 
than of eminent vigour and novelty of 
poetry. 

There were, indeed, passages which 
showed a commencing disposition to ex- 
press his own strong thoughts and feel- 
ings in his own fearless words : but they 
were scarcely more than preludes, and 
such as proved that practice and labour 
were still necessary to give him an ade- 
quate command oyer his own resources. 
Luckily for the expansion of intellect, 
the public received this production with 



GJmiUS OF LORD BTmOlf. 2S 

Jagh fiivour. How much of this fitvour 
arose from a due iq>preciation of the 
merits of his poem, — and how much from: 
the eccentric reputation of the author, 
and &mn the boldness with which he 
bad repelled the unprovoked assaults of 
criticism, and the powerful bittemesa 
with whidi he had turned back on the 
critics their own wei^ns, — matters not. 
It had at once the efiect of setting free 
those rare powers, which have ever since 
been exerted in the production of public 
fruit, that has always astonished and often 
delighted the world. Encouragement 
will not confer powers which did not pre* 
viously exist; but encouragement will 
bring them forth. It seems clear that 
Lord Byron himself had no strong con* 
sdousness of them, till the warmth of 
the sun put them into due motion. 

They were powers which did not lie 
upon the surface. They sprang from 
gioomy musingfi; from watchfulness of 

c 4 



24 VETTEES OK TH£ 

his own fierce passioiis ; from a habit of 
looidng, not only without pain, but with 
a dark delight, on objects of terror ; of 
contemplating with an unaccountable sort 
of scornful triumph the strange inconsist- 
encies of frail human nature, — its occa- 
sional mixture of horrible crimes, with 
the ^lendour of magnificent qualities, — 
and its seeming propensity to evil, as if 
bom to be unhappy, and to incur punish- 
ment for that which it could not avoid, 
— *and in exercising the severity of a sar* 
castic and relentless talent for tearing 
the disguise from hypocrisy,— and of an 
unsparing acuteness in piercing the robes 
of power, and detecting oppression and 
selfishness where the world bad given 
credit for beneficence and public virtue. 
To this task, and these mental occupa- 
tions, both his talents and his temper 
were qualified to a degree beyond those of 
other men. The violence of his feelings 
was of a very peculiar cast ; he had few 



GENIUS OP LORD BVaON. 25 

of the ordinary sympathies of mankind ; 
—his sympathy was with contradictions 
eccentricities* impetuosities, wonders, ter- 
rors, violences, hatreds, resentments, 
scorns, indignations ; — to play upon the 
brinks of precipices; — to snatch at for- 
bidden fruit, while death stood to guard 
it; — and enjoy pleasure in the midst of 
storm and tumult This appetite for the 
jo)-s which arise from strong excitement, 
this love of extreme contrasts, this pas- 
sion to battle with the tempest, to live 
in agitated waters, ruled over his intel- 
lectual, as strongly as over his material^ 
nature. But such a state and such re- 
sults were not to be produced by slight 
and gentle efforts. It required a con- 
stant mental travel out of beaten tracks ; 
an eye perpetually in search of all pecu- 
liar appearances ; a steadiness of sight 
in regarding objects from which others 
would shrink ; and a fearless notice of 



it6 LETTERS ON THE; 

circumstances which others, would not 
trust themselves to mention. 

It is not strange, therefore, that these 
characteristics of his genius did not break 
out in the compositions which lie first 
gave to the public. It is not in the nature 
of such fruits to be matured without much 
culture, and a strong sun. They cannot 
for the first time be embodied without 
long and familiar intercourse with them : 
they are too flitting and evanescent ta be 
easily pictured ; — not a glimpse of* them 
can be traced by a common eye. The 
paths to them are intricate, mysterious, 
and forbidding : they are like a forest of 
terrible enchantment, enveloped in black 
clouds, which none but a daring spirit, of 
dazzling brightness, dares to enter. 

The world would have lost whatever 
delight it has received from Lord Byron, 
but for an accidental coincidence of 
circumstances that encouraged his rare 
faculties into the path in which they were 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. 



«7 



moit fitted to shine. Whatever be the 
snxHint or the benefit of that delight, it 
is not likely that one will soon arise again, 
capable of producing the same, or similar. 
The most powerful invention cannot by 
mere simple, uninstructed, undisciplined, 
unlaboured, exertion effect it. 



S8 LETTERS ON THE^ 



LETTER IV. 

May 25. 

SoBfE minds are cast in so sombre a 
mould, that they seem naturally disposed 
to delight in gloom, mysteries, and terrors. 
There is something in human existence 
which dissatisfies them, and produces a 
discontent and ill humour that drive 
them to seek familiarity with painful 
emotions. They love " to enforce the 
*< awful, darken the gloomy, and aggra- 
*< vate the dreadful.'' No one, I think, 
will deny that this was the bent and 
ruling genius of Lord Byron. 

Our nature is in some respects inscru- 
table, wonderful, and strange : we are 
oflen seized with an irresistible impulse 
to gaze curiously and intently on that 
which fills us with horror while we gaze. 
There are impressions sometimes made 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 99 

on a sensitive intellect or heart in early 
life, before reason has gained dominion, 
which nothing afterwards can eflbce. 
We know not what accidental circum- 
stance may have given an impression of 
horror or bitterness to Lord Byron in tus 
iofimcy. 



90 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER V. 

Msjr ffi. 

It seems natural to the mind to love 
mysterious agitation. The tales of the 
nursery are principally characterised by 
the purpose of working upon ignorant 
and superstitious fear. Lord Byron's ac- 
tive mind, fond of strong emotion, pro- 
bably always delighted itself with this 
violent food. Irascible, gloomy, per- 
verse, proud, it nursed, perhaps, the 
seeds of discontent from infimcy. The 
belief in evil spirits, whose dominion 
could not be resisted, may have been a 
strange sort of balm which reconciled 
him to himself. His family were under 
a doud : his great-uncle, who possessed 
the peerage, had been thrown into sad 
and misanthropic seclusion by the unfor- 
tunate result of the duel with Mr. Cha^ 



0£NIUft OF LORD BTKON.^ 81 

worth ; and a great declension of fortune 
darkened the veil which hung over the 
waning splendours of his ancient and 
eminent house. His father's Jirst mar- 
riage, at least, had been unhappy ; and 
his temper was said to have been harsh 
and de^xrtic. 

When Lord Byron entered a great 
public school, somewhat late and back- 
ward in the attainments pursued at these 
exclusively-classical institutions, with a 
person marked out by cme of those de- 
fects which boys treat so mercilessly 
in each other, and with the reputation 
of a fortune very far below his rank, his 
proud and supercilious spirit received a 
shock, which seems to have operated on 
the colour of the rest of his life. He 
was ambitious, ardent for distinction, 
and vain. Obstructed and oppressed in 
the regular course, his energies, prompted 
by a daring and bitter temper, broke out 
into the most eccentric pursuits and 



S2 LETTERS ON THE 

amusements. He grew defiant, misan- 
thropic, and careless of moral charact^ • 
He felt within him the stirrings of a 
genius, of which he perceived that others 
had not only no suspicion, but of which 
they even scoffed at the pretension. In 
the midst of this discouragement, in the 
midst of the rude and coarse habits in 
which it encouraged a temper naturally 
fierce, he still had returns of that higher 
ambition, of those more refined and more 
noble occupations, of which his mighty 
gifts of intellect had in the happier 
moments of his boyhood given him 
glimpses. 

He wrote a variety of small poems^ 
which he collected into a volume, and 
printed under the title of Hours qf Idk-' 
ness. Though these productions were un- 
equal, a discerning eye could see in them 
passages which could not have sprung 
but from a true poetical feeling, and 
which could not have been brought 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 93 

forth but by a considerable command of 
language and power of execution. But 
perhaps it will at first seem a little sin- 
guIaTt that this volume was marked by 
no hint of any one of the striking 
traits of the author's character. It ap- 
proached to elegance, and sometimes 
betrayed a tender melancholy ; but it 
was not remarkable for vigour and daring 
originaUty. 

It is a proof that the author did not 
yet know his own strength ; or, perhi4>s, 
had not y^JeU the commencement of it 
But still conscious to himself that the 
domains of the Muse were his proper 
province, he paid his offerings to her, 
though with timidity, and in the forms 
which common usage had prescribed* 

We may imagine him now soothing 
himself with the hope that a new aera 
was dawning upon him ; that they who 
had looked upon him as one formed of 
groas, hard, and savage materials ; as one 

D 



34 LETTERS ON THE 

aspiring to vulgar distinctions by fero- 
cious eccentricities ; as one *< fit for trei^ 
'< sonSy stratagems, and wars ;'' as one 
not of melting mood, who was insensible 
to the elevated refinements of literature ; 
would now see w^ith surprise their illi- 
beral and unjust misconception of his 
character and endowments, and receive 
them perhaps with the more favour from 
the contrast to the outward appearances 
he had lately exhibited. 

But he was first disappointed, and tlien 
outraged. His volume for some time 
attracted no notice. In truth, there 
must be something very fortunate, or 
very singular, in the first work of a young 
poet, which shall in these days engage 
the public attention. Verses from a 
young nobleman had nothing in the an- 
nouncement to awaken curiosity ; and 
Lord Byron had not yet raised in the 
world any rumour of genius to counter- 



CKSWS OF LORD BYRON. 35 

act the general indifference to such an- 
Douncements. 

The periodical critics were looking 
out for prey to pounce upon : Lord By- 
ron's volume seemed such a subject as 
would answer the purpose. They had 
probably never heard any thing about 
the author ; and there was nothing in the 
volume which promised the retaliation 
that followed. 

The severity of the criticism touched 
Lord Byron in the point where his ori- 
ginal strength lay : it wounded his pride, 
and roused his bitter indignation. He 
published his English Bards and Scotch 
Reviewers^ and bowed down those who 
had hitherto held a despotic victory over 
the public mind. There was, after aU, 
more in the boldness of the enterprise, 
in the fearlessness of the attack, than in 
its intrinsic force. But the moral effect 
ci the gallantry' of the assault, and of the 

D 2 



36 LETTERS ON THE 

justice of the cause, made it victorious 
and triumphant 

This was one of those lucky develop- 
ments which cannot often occur; and 
which fixed Lord Byron's fame. From 
that day he enjoyed the public notice as 
a writer of undoubted talent, and eneigy 
both of intellect and temper. He had 
yet to show himself as a poet in any high 
department. 

Though Lord Byron might now be 
considered to be successful, his success 
was not sufficient to soothe his wounded 
pride. His manners were not calculated 
to conciliate love or esteem in general 
society. He was scornful, reserved, 
sullen, and unbending: suspicious of ne- 
glect, resentful for fancied insult, jealous 
that the inequality of his fortune to his 
rank would subject him to disrespect ; 
of fiery ambition, yet of a disdainful con- 
tempt of the means of gratifying it; 
indulgent to his passions whithersoever 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 97 

they led him ; abhorrent of hypocrisy, 
mnd disregardtul of decorum. 

In the course of life which all these 
qualities and propensities fostered^ he 
made numerous enemies and few friends. 
They who admired him feared him ^ 
they who thought candidly of him, had 
not yet courage to speak well of him ; 
Ihey who envied him, libelled him ; and 
they whom he had repulsed with surly 
haughtiness or disdain affected to have 
shunned him. 

He therefore sought recreation and 
escape from this sort of life by foreign 
travel. He went to Spain and Portugal, 
and thence into Greece. Here he wrote 
hiB^/Srsi two cantos of Childe Harold's 
Pilgrimage. ** The scenes attempted 
^ to be sketched are in Spain, Portugal, 
•* Eptrus, Acamania, and Greece. The 
'* whole, except a few concluding stanzas, 
•* was written in the Levant'' 

Whatever favour these two ctotos re- 

D 3 



S8 



LETTERS ON THE 



ceived, — a favour probably springing 
from the impression Lord Byron had now 
made on the public, — I think that a 
calm examination of their intrinsic merit 
will not support. Lord Byron either 
had not yet found out his strength, or 
he had not yet sufficient practice and 
technical skill to bring it forth. It is 
true, however, that he wrote, not from 
memory, but from observation. 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 59 



LETTER VI. 

MST 97. 

M MK Giaour was published about 181d» 
after the^rsi toco cantos of Childe Harold- 
In thbi poem Lord Byron began to show 
his powers; he liad now received en- 
couragement which set tree his daring 
hands Rnd gave his strokes their natural 
force. Here then we first find passages 
€^' a tone peculiar to Lord Byron ; but 
atill this appearance was not uniform : he 
often returned to his trammels, and re- 
minds us of the manner of some favourite 
predecessor; among these, I think, we 
sometimes catch the notes of Sir Walter 
Scon. But the internal tempest; the 
deep passion, sometimes buried, and some- 
times blazing from some accidental touch ; 
the intensity of agonising reflection, 
which will always distinguish Lord Byron 

D 4 



40 I^TTERS ON THE 

from other writers ; now began to display 
themselves. 

In the next poem, The Corsair^ he first 
felt himself at full liberty ; and then all at 
once he shows the unbroken stream of 
his native eloquence, of rapid narrative, 
of vigorous and intense, yet unforced, im- 
agery, sentiment, and thought ; of extra- 
ordinary elasticity, transparency, purity, 
ease, and harmony of language ; of an 
arrangement of words never trite, yet 
always simple and flowing ; — in such a 
perfect expression of ideas always im« 
pressive, generally pointed, frequently 
passionate, and oflen new, that it is per- 
spicuity itself, with not a superfluous 
word, and not a word out of its natural 
place. 

It is strange how he who was so young, 
who had led a life of adventure more 
than of study, nay, who had often seemed 
a good deal encumbered in his phraseo- 
logy, could all at once arrive at this 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 41 

excellence. It must have been the ex- 
altation of spirit caused by temporary 
and unexpected favour, which by re- 
OKning the gloom from his heart im- 
parted extraordinar}' vigour to his 
intellect. 

I am not aware that he ever again ex- 
hibited the exact kind or degree of elas- 
ticity which distinguishes The Corsair. 

Lara is commonlv considered as the 
second pari of The Corsair. — Lara has 
some charms which the Corsair has not ; 
it b more domestic; it calls fortli more 
sympathies with polished society ; it is 
more intellectual, but much less pas- 
sionate, less vigorous, and less brilliant ; 
it is sometimes even languid, at any rate, 
it is more diffuse. 

The year 1814 was the great year of 
Lord Byron's triumph. Domestic disa- 
greements, which came in with 1815, re- 
embittered all. 

In the spring of 181(i, he quitted Eng- 



42 LETTERS ON THE 

land, never to return. Then came Man- 
Jred,—The Priso?iers of Chillon. — The 
Lament of TassOy — tlie t/iird canto of 
Childe Harold. All these betrayed his in- 
creasing gloom and discontent. 

In Mattfred there is most invention : 
it is full of poetry : the imagery, the 
language, the dark, mysterious, yet burn- 
ing, thoughts, are all poetical. It is the 
inspiration of the muse herself, which, 
giving full dominion to the imaginings 
that it causes, seeks only for words ade- 
quate to breathe out its fulness. It is 
above art : it has nothing to which the 
tests of art can be applied. 

The Lament of Tasso is written with 
exquisite pathos, and force of sentiment 
both intellectual and moral. It has no 
false eloquence, no false splendour, no 
over-wrought efforts at panegyric, no 
attempt to dress up genius with affected 
power or common-place glare of miracles. 
It displays great knowledge of the human 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 43 

heart, great rectitude of understanding, 
and a great sensibility to one of the 
deepest afflictions to which humanity is 
subject. The style is pure, nervous, 
tender, plaintive, and profoundly touch- 
ing. The whole has a solidity and just- 
ness which will secure it attraction as 
long as our language lasts. 

In the third canto of Childe Harold 
tliere Ls much more inequality. Whether 
it arises from the complex form of the 
stanza, or whatever be the cause, the 
style M nmch more encumbered ; and 
even the thoughts and images are some- 
times laboured. But still they are a very 
great hnpravemeni upon the Jirst two 
cantos. Lord Byron here speaks in hit 
own language and character, not in the 
tone of* others; — he is describings not 
inventing^ therefore he has not, and 
cannot have, the freedom with which 
Jictian is composed. Sometimes he has 
a concifenett which is very powerful. 



44 JLETTERS ON THE 

but almost abrupt. From trusting him- 
self alone, and working out his 0¥m 
deep-buried thoughts, he now, perhaps, 
fell into a habit of labouring, even 
where there was no occasion to labour. 
In the first sixteen stanzas, there is yet a 
mighty, but groaning, burst of dark and 
most appalling strength. It was unques- 
tionably the unexaggerated picture of 
a most tempestuous, and sombre, but 
magnificent soul. 

Stanza xxiii., regarding the Duke of 
Brunswick, is very grand, even from its 
total unadornment. It is, with the two 
or three stanzas which follow, only a 
versification of the common narratives ; 
but here may well be applied a position 
of Johnson, that " where truth is sufficient 
«* to fill the mind, fiction is worse than 
«* useless." 

There is, I think, very little flow in 
this canto : — it brings forth strength, 
and it draws from the fountain, but 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 45 

it does not come without a struggle : 
— it has far more of depth tlian The 
Corsair^ but not so much of inspiration. 
The words (as Johnson says of some 
one) MTQjbrced into their places ; there is 
none of that felicity of expression, which 
teems beyond the reach of art Lord 
Byron no longer seeks aid from others ; 
but what he seeks from himself comes 
slowly, though it comes at last He does 
not lose his self-confidence ; he does not 
grow weary and languid ; — but his spirit 
is here profound, rather than airy and 

From stanza lxix. to stanza lxxv. are 
some fine developments of his own spirit, 
and peculiar conformation of mind and 
heart ; and here he arrives at ike Lake 
qf Geneva. 



46 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER VII. 

May 98. 

Since I have written thus far, I have 
recurred to the criticisms on Childe 
Haroldj cantos 1. and 2., — The Corsahr^ 
— The Bride qfAhydos^ in the Edinburgh 
Review. 1 do not find much essential 
difference of opinion from that which I 
have given in the preceding letters. The 
critics set out with observing that the 
taste of the age requires poetry calculated 
to excite strong emotion ^ and they endea- 
vour, by a long philosophic speculation, to 
account for it in a manner a Uttle, per- 
haps, too subtle and far fetched. It is 
more probable that it arose out of that 
general commotion and subversion of 
opinions caused by the French Re- 
volution. 

The critics go on to declare that in 
Childe Harold Lord Byron discovers 



^ 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 47 

powers likely to gratity this new taste of 
the public, and, therefore, likely to make 
him %'ery popular. Here their anticipation 
has been proved true by the event. 

They then say that he discovers in these 
two cantos a good deal of original vigour ; 
and yet they say that he often imitates 
Scoii and Crabbe ; of whom, however, 
they state the poems of the former to be 
but a cento from the works of his prede- 
Gosors, assigning to him, at the same 
time, the praise of original gemm. All 
this is possible ; but it requires a much 
more nice and distinct development than 
the pages which contain these assertions 
afibrd. The nature of on^iiailriy seems, 
in the generahty of critical works, very 
imperfectly understood, and still more 
imperfectly exphuned. I must not say 
more of it here, because it requires the 
space of a separate dissertation. 

The critics object to many particular 
as deformed by harshness. 



48 LETTERS ON THE 

inequality, abruptness, and bad taste; but, 
above all, they object, in bitter terms, 
to the gloomy and unamiable character 
of the hero, — Childe Harold ; — while, 
with an irony a little too palpable, they 
affect to give credit to Lord Byron's 
assurance that that character was not 
intended for his own. 

They speak with moral indignation of 
the hardy vanity, which, having encour- 
aged such morose and gloomy discon- 
tent, can expose it to the world as a 
subject of boast. 

They admit, in this poem, merits of a 
kind which it surely had not yet exhi- 
bited ; but still there is a lurking shade of 
equivocal and extorted, rather than will- 
ing praise. 

The Giaour followed quick ; and here 
the critics are more direct There were 
passages in this poem which put Lord 
Byron's powers, both in point of origina- 
lity and force, beyond question ; and they 



GENIUS OP LORD UYRON. 49 

teem now to have had no lingering doubt 
that Lord Byron was a real genius ; and 
firom this moment were perhaps inclined 
to give him credit for even more than he 
had yet displayed ; but their taste was 
too mcvte not to perceive his inequalities 
and his faults ; nor could it be expected, 
that when they saw them so distinctly, 
they should forbear to pmnt them out 
They did do so { but with sufficient can- 
dour and justice; and their criticism 
on this poem is altogether fiur, precise, 
and able. 

When they came to The Corsair^ they 
commenced by speaking of the author as 
of one whose great genius was now ad- 
mitted by all, and put beyond question. 
And they fdt, (as all judges must, I pre- 
sume fed,) that the poem then before 
them, was one, which not only confirmed 
but much increased the proofs of his ex- 
tram'dinary gifts of genius. 

They praise in high terms the manner 

c 



LCrTERS ON THE 



«i: «rhK^N he has managed the couplet : 

^„( «'hcii they assimilate it to the tone 
^ Jhydcfh they do not seem to have a 
Hv^ry nice ear, 

I1iey remark with force, — what is, in- 
deed» sufficiently obvious, — the danger of 
always choosing for subjects of interest 
characters stained with crime and blood- 
shed, and of associating vioKMice and fe^ 
rocity with genius and splendid \irtues. 

They regret the sort of perversity, 
which always seems to dwell with particu- 
lar delight on these strange and impro- 
bable mixtures. — If) indeed, though these 
odd combinations do not exist, they 
ouglit to exist, it would be well! but if 
they neither do exist, nor ought to exist, 
why create tlie picture of them ? 

In thiH article of the Review, though 
Ihi? praiHc is high, the criticism is not very 
diMcrrinjiiiale. It is principally made up 
of aa:tniciH. 

And now I will resume my own ex- 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. 51 

aarination of the tkird caato of ChUde 
Harold. 

Lord Byron's character of Rousseau is 
drawn with great forces great power of 
discrimination, and great eloquence. I 
know not that he says any thii^ which 
has not been said before ; but what he 
nys issues apparently from the recesses 
of his own mind; it is a little laboured, 
which possibly may be caused by the 
Ibrm q€ the stanza into which it was 
necessary to throw it ; but it cannot be 
doubted that the poet felt a sympathy 
for the enthusiastic tenderness of Rous- 
stau*% genius, which he could not have 
recognised with such extreme fervour, 
except from a consciousness of having 
at least occasionally experienced similar 
emotions. 

In this part of his poem he does not 
think of other writers, or of the art of 
poetry, but only of his subject ; of ex- 
pressing his own emotions, and of giving 

E 2 



5S LETTERS ON THE 

a reflection of what is actually before 
him. Here are no technical splendours, 
the actual scenes are not made pegs to 
hang the stores of memory upon : all is 
precise, particular, and growing out of 
the occasion. 

Lord Byron is sometimes a little ob- 
scure: he was now in solitude, occup3ring 
himself with intense thought, but perhaps 
this intense thought was new to him, 
and he could not yet entirely manage his 
materials. He sent his dark musings 
out, to penetrate into the nature of man, 
the course of human events, and the fate 
of nations. But gloomy, discontented, 
and disdainful, he saw for the most part 
only the unfavourable side. He was 
ambitious, and therefore the solitude 
which he loved did not give him un« 
mixed pleasure. He was willing to per- 
suade himself to hate that world for 
which he sometimes sighed, and anxious 



GENIIft or LORD BTEON. 53 



to confimi himself in the 
mindb were only fit to live alone. 

The description of T%e Storm has a 
mixture of originality and grandeur, but 
it is a good deal laboured, and some- 
tunes scarce intelligible; nay, it has some 
passages, which can scarcely be denied 
to be made up of false thoughts, though 
which must have been painfully sought 
for, and yet were never clearly found; 
thoughts to which, after some attention, 
I cannot give any precise and satisfactory 
meaning. I canhardly therefore ccmfer on 
this description the praise of positive ge> 
nius: it shews research, and intensity, and 
strength, — but not perfected strength : 
it shews the incipient exercise of powers, 
which, after more maturity, (the result of 
proper discipline,) would be o^mble of 
all good. 

The stanzas on Oarens (xcix. to cxv.) 
are exquisite: they have every thing which 
makes a poetical picture of local and par* 



.54 LETTERS ON THE 

ticular scenery perfect They exhibit a 
miraculous brilliancy aiid force oifancy^ 
but the very fidelity causes a little con- 
straint and labour of language: sometimes 
there is a little too much compression 
and abruptness, and the Vords, almost 
throughout, want an easy flow. The 
. poet seems to have been so engrossed by 
the attention to give vigour and fire to 
the imagery, that he both neglected and 
disdained to render himself more har- 
monious by difiiiser words, which, while 
they might have improved the effect upon 
the ear, might have weakened the im* 
pression upon the mind. This mastery 
over new matter, this supply of powers 
equal not only to an untouched subject^ 
but that subject one of peculiar and ud^ 
equalled grandeur and beauty, was suf- 
ficient to occupy the strongest poetical 
faculties, young as the author was, with- 
out adding to it all the practical skill of 
the artist 



OMMtm or LORD BTRON. 55 

The stanzas on Voltmbre and Gibbon 
are discriminative^ sagaciousi and just. 
They are among the proc^ of that very 
great varie^ erf* talent, which this canto 
of Lord Bjrron exhibits. It is trae, that 
taking this production by itsdf, we might 
hesitate to ascribe to Lord Byron tiiat 
freedom, that . native brilliancy, that 
copiousness and ease of rich fiction, which 
are rssrnfisi to constitute a great poet. 
We sboidd say that the author was a 
strong and intense thinker, that he had 
deep, but perhaps not quick feelings, 
that he was very laborious, and that he 
had the just and successful amlntion of 
giving his own thoughts in his own 
words; but that his language was not 
eaayt that he seined to have no com- 
mand over it till afier great eflRxrt, and 
that even it ofien remained harsh and 
crude; that he wanted simplicity, and 
tlmt transparency of ideas which show 
the perfect master ; and that the admir« 

B 4 



56 I>£TT£ES ON THB 

ation we bestowed on him was often ra- 
ther extorted than quick and voluntary* 

But when we bring to our minds The 
Corsair and Lar€if we acknowlege that 
these are defects which are not really in^ 
herent in the author's genius. In them 
we find the reverse of these defects ; in 
diem we find ease, harmony, rapidity^ 
fire, a perfect command over language^ 
and no obscure undeveloped thought. 

The difference must have been tb^ 
efl^t of a casual chamge of temperament 
of the author's mind ; of an effort in a 
new department, of a struggle at amomesit 
cdf tempestuous suffering, when the calm 
sought by solitude had not worked its 
effect ; when the severe course <^ mental 
investigation which he had endeavotured 
to impose on himself was impeded, though 
not frustrated, by the uphewing which 
the past storm had still left behind it: 
when sadness, and regret, and anger, 
must have continually brought back on 
his mind impenetrable clouds. 



G£NWt OF LORD BTRON. 57 

The defects, therefore, of canto iik, (if* 
84ich they were,) contrasted with the 
powers which Lord Byron had already 
shown, did not operate disadvantageoualy 
for his reputation : they were at least the 
germs of such a new and unexpected 
kind of power, that, when joined to 
opposite powers so unequivocally proved, 
they added to the public wonder and ad- 
miration, and raised expectation of fruits 
not hitherto offered to the world 

In this state of fascination, the public 
is apt to take very faults as beauties) 
and Lord Byron became now supreme! 

In a course of ages poetry is apt to fall 
into conventional phrases, and a sort of 
hackneyed veil of flowers. Almost all 
poet% at their commencement, partake^ 
more or less, of* tliis fault : «— none free 
themselves, except gradually, from the 
thraldom, and the greater part never: 
scarce any one entirely, even at last. 
Lord Byron was now in progress to this 
great and rarely*attained end. 



58 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER VIII. 

May 89. 

I HAVE, Since my former letters, read the 
articles in the Edinburgh Eevietv, on the 
Prisoners qfChiUon; on Manfred; on 
the third canto of Childe Harold; on 
Parisina ; on the Siege qf Corinth ; and 
past of that on the fourth canto qf Childe 
Harold. 

The best is what is said of Ma$^d : 
the praise is just, discriminative, and 
temperate :-»it is not so, I think, in that 
r^arding Childe Harold^ which is com- 
mended, but not in the right places. 
The improvement on the first two cantos 
is noticed, but not with sufficient dis- 
tinctness; and it is strange, that the 
critic passes unobserved the relapse into 
inversion, and harshness of language and 



GENIUS OF LORD BTROK. 59 

verse, after the specimen of inimitable 
ease and harmony given in The Corsair. 

On ca9iio iv. qfCkUde Harold^ however 
strong an exhibition it may be of vigorous 
thought, intense reflection, splendid fancy, 
and fervid expression, the praises be- 
stowed on its poetical merit are far too 
high. It contains a good deal too mudi 
exaggeration and violence, to be con- 
sistent with true taste ; it ofien discovers 
the fury of its own contortions ; it is fire* 
quently abrupt, harsh, and obscure ; and 
the mder is fatigued and often pained 
at a tone of constant indignation, leprth 
bation» and bitter anger, which rqiresents 
the past as furnishing nothing but a 
series of unvaried expression, injustice, 
cruelty, bloodshed, delusive expectatioos» 
unmerited fame, and fidse judgments. 

If it be the business of the poet^s 
imagination to picture out the world 
better than it is, how is it consistent 
with this rule to draw the worid worse 



60 LETTERS ON THE 

than it is ? The poet's purpose ought to 
be to awaken our nobler passions, our 
more generous sympathies, our emulation 
of virtue, our belief in the delights of 
true glory, our desire to incur toil, and 
vexation, and suffering, and danger, in 
the certainty of a final recompense from 
the justice of human admiration, and 
the felicity to be conferred in some 
higher order of existence. Is not the 
tenor of all the sentiments inculcated 
by Lord Byron in this canto the reverse 
of this ? Does he not paint reputation 
always unjust ; crime always successful ; 
prosperity always the result of intrigue 
and violence ? 

Is this in the true spirit of poetry ? Is 
it not oratorical rather than poetical ? Is 
its purpose to represent general truths ? 
Is it not rather to enforce narrow and 
detached points of view? But truth 
ought to be the essence of what the 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 61 

mu9e dictates ; and what is narrow and 
detached can never be truth ! 

There in, for the most part» amazing 
force in the light in which Lord Byron 
sees objects: but it is very commonly 
the force of a diseased and feverish mind. 
Sometimes we are caught by it, when we 
are in a state of excitation ; but it is in* 
consistent with the state of a sober mind, 
and a calm and enduring pleasure. 

Such blazes may, indeed, sometimes 
throw lights on dark spots, of which cold 
philosophy may take advantage: but, 
where they become an useful lamp to a 
few, they mislead thousands. 

Intensity is made the subject of un- 
qualified praise : but if the intensity be 
not exerted to discover truth, is it not an 
evil, rather than a good ? Intensity in 
wrong is worse than feebleness. — 
Neither our imagination nor our fancy 
ia given us to act uncontrouled by our 
reason. To encourage these uncontroul* 



6S LETTERS ON THE 

ed impressions is to bring back thtf hu- 
man mind to a state of in£incy. 

And this very effect was, periiaps, that 
which it was the deaore to bring back,- at 
the crisis when the &shion of poetry of 
this sort became so alarmingly prevalent 
«— -The French Revolution had endea- 
voured to inculcate that all artificial in^ 
stitutions had gone too far ; had beccnne 
corrupt ; were worn out, and ought to be 
abolished : that a resort to first princi- 
ples was necessary; and that society 
ought to be taken down, and rebuilt firom 
die fi^undations. Conformable to this^ 
poetry was required to return to babyism ; 
and to represent all first and unmodified 
impressions. In the demand for simpli- 
city, there was an immediate lapse into 
rudeness. All was to be energy and 
eflfect; and every subject was there- 
fore chosen where the features were 
most prominent, and the thoughts, and 



OSKIUS OF LORD BTRON. 6S 

tentiiiienti^ and maiinera, least pdiahed 
down. 

The fashion of an age has a necessary 
tendency to draw forth those candidates 
for distinctioo» whose talents are *best 
fitted to shine in the career most fiivour- 
ed. I think it was fortunate for that love 
of distinction, with which Lord Byron 
certainly burned, that the date of his 
birth agreed with the character of his 
genius. His temper, his heart, his mind^ 
were all vident He would not have 
eacelled in what was calm : the intensity 
of his colours would have been too ex- 
travagant for sober and temperate re- 
flection. 

It is true, indeed, of Lord Bjnon, that 
though his are commonly first and un- 
modified impressions, they are the first and 
unmodified impressions of a most power- 
ful mind ; and of a heart of profound, 
though not always tender, sensibility. He 
is never, or scarcely ever, affected : be is 



64 LETTERS ON THE 

never touched by what is trifling, insipid, 
or unworthy of existing emotions : — • 
taste and strong intellect, though c^n 
without temperate reason^ mix themselves 
up in all his mental movements. 

L(H*d Byron had a stem, direct, severe 
mind: a sarcasti<^ disdainful, gloomy 
temper : he had no* light S3anpathy with 
heartless cheerfiilness : — upon the sur- 
face was sourness, discontent, displeasure^ 
ill-will : — beneath all this weight of 
clouds and darkness lay buried in the 
deepest recesses of his heart a foun- 
tain of enthusiastic tenderness and vehe- 
mently fond passion, which could only be 
touched in the abstraction of the most 
profound solitude by the wand of imagin- 
ation, when his sharp and ^ry temper 
was abscJutely secure from the irritation 
of human intercourse. 

Hence it would seem that he had two 
opposite natures contending in him ; — 
the nature with which his imagination 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. ti5 

would hRve clothed him ; and the iir> 
ture which his frail corporeal constitutioa 
impoaed on hinu The regret at these 
incompatibilitiet J the aggression which 
one nature was continually makii^ on 
the other; perhaps produced those rest- 
lessnesses, those compunctious visitings, 
by which his liie seeniied to be harassed. 

But, in answer to these speculations, it 
may be asked, '* How the ihiits of his 
** secluded imagination did not then con- 
** sist of ideal beauty, and sublime un- 
*< contaminated virtue ?" 

Because it was seldom in his utmost 
seduskm that he could purify himself 
from the eflfects of the irritated temper 
which be carried thither ! When he could 
so purify himself, then it was that the 
buried fountain began to flow, and to 
throw forth those waters of exquisite ten- 
derness, which, though they sometimes, 
even then in their passage, catch some 
ckwds from his opposing temper, yet, on 

p 



66 LETTERS ON THE 

the whole, melt and enrapture the reader ; 
and overcome and effitce for a time the 
memory of the poet's great faults, and 
fierce and relentless passions. 

So it is, that no faults will sink a poet, 
where there are grand, rare, and scarcely 
equalled beauties. When once the reader 
is unaffectedly and deeply touched, the 
reflection of his feelings is even apt to 
throw itself on the poet's &ults them- 
selves. 

Those powers of Lord Byron, so ex- 
traordinarily possessed, and sometimes so 
happily exerted, seem to have had this 
effect on the public. His imagination, 
when he chose to put it forth, was mag- 
nificent and unlaboured : but, unluckily, 
he more often exercised his Jhncy than 
his imagination ; and his fancy was too 
often encumbered, clouded, and embit- 
tered. 

I think that this distinction will be 
found to be the clue, in many important 



GENIUS OP LORD BTBON. &f 

instancesy both to xhejault$ and to the 
meriis of Lord Byron. When he spoke 
of actual experiences, he was gloomy, 
harsh, and bitter: when he saw only 
what his imagination presented, then it 
was someiimes full of exquisite beau^ and 
deep taodemess ; not always: sometimes, 
in his ill humours, his imagination sub- 
mitted to the dominion of his temper ; 
and on these unh^ipy occasions his in- 
ventions were marked by what appals, 
and even what disgusts : — then he de- 
lighted to sport, as it were^ with human 
frailties ; and even to reflect, with shame- 
less glare, those degraded parts of our 
nature, on which his misanthn^ic eye 
■eemed gratified to gaae intentiy. 

It is probable that the extreme bitter- 
ness of his spirit was produced by early 
crosses, and eariy outrages on a morbid 
temper. Under other circumstances^ uo- 
der an earlier sunshine, it might have 
corrected : it could never have been 

r 2 



68 LETTERS ON THE 

entirely eradicated. He seems to have 
been radically intractable : he could not 
follow the ideas of other persons : what 
was therefore to be taught, he received 
with resistance. And yet he took with 
intense force and extraordinary retention 
of memory, whatever he chose to teach 
himself. All his compositions betray a 
most familiar acquaintance not only with 
the thoughts but with the very language 
of the English poets, both his predeces- 
sors and contemporaries. There are those 
who accuse him of systematic plagiarism : 
— this is not so : he produces no thou^ts 
or feelings which are not his own ; but 
his retentive memory recalls to him pas- 
sages of others, when they iagree with his 
own impressions; and then it is often 
impossible to avoid the recurrence to his 
own mind of similar language : — the 
prepared language rises with the thought ; 
and, confident in the power of his own 
resources, he does not reject it, nor fatigue 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 



69 



himself to invent a laboured variation^ 
merely to avoid the charge of being an 
imitator, and of want of originality^ 
which he considers to be too baseless to 
be worth guarding against. 

It is probable that he did nothing 
lightly ; and that his attention in readings 
as well as in composing, was intense. 
Retentive memory is undoubtedly the 
result of a laboured and continued atten- 
tion : a qukk memory is alwajrs as fuga- 
cious as it is quick. 



F S 



70 L£TT£RS ON THE 



LETTER IX. 

May sa 

N BiTHER the Edkibwrgh nor the Qtior* 
terbf Review makes the due distinction 
between fancjf and imagination ; which 
yet is so very important, that every thing 
in poetry turns on it. Lord Byron» in 
many of his poems, seems not to have 
exercised much imagination^ except so far 
as it was identified with himself. When 
Shakspeare imagined, he threw himself 
into the soul of Macbeth^ or Hamlet j or 
OthellOf or Lear. When Lord Byron 
imagined, he invested the imagined per- 
son with his own soul. It was thus when 
he imagined Man/red and Lara. If it 
was not so in The Lament of Tasso^ the 
reason was, that Tasso was not an ima- 
gined person. 



GENIUS OF LOEO BTEON. 7^ 

It is» always choten as a topic of great 
and perhaps exaggerated praise to Lord 
Byron, that be has the power of reflecting 
at once, with fidelity and brilliant force, 
pictures of images which actually exist 
But it is forgot that this is not the highest 
purpose of poetry. It is the business of 
the most splendid d^^ree of poetical im- 
agination, to represent something more 
grand or more beautiful than actually 
exists. I will not say that Lord Bynm 
never does this : but ihis is not the praise 
insisted on. 

It is said by the Edinburgh Review^ 
that, when Lord Byron's first two cantoa 
of CkiUe HaroU appeared, the public 
were prepared to demand what was for- 
cible, striking, and direct: that they 
were tired ci a polish, which had pro- 
duced feebleness and fiuntness ; and that 
they required prominent and distinct feiu 
tures, however rough, and even rude. 
Whate\'er, therefore, came fresh and full 

r i 



72 LETTERS ON THE 

from nature was received by them with 
applause and admiration. They were 
tired of what was trite ; and they liked 
things the worse because they had been 
admired and approved by th^ prede- 
cessors. 

They might have added, that imagine, 
ation had not much favour in the public 
eye, when it was in this humour ; — be- 
cause it had been the habit of imagination 
to make things appear better than they 
were ; whereas it was the present fashion 
to tear the disguise (or what was called 
disguise) from every thing. A strong, 
daring fancy, with powerful expresdcm, 
seeing all things in a dark and unfavour- 
able light from the reflection of a gloomy 
and discontented heart, keen at discover- 
ing wrong, and delighting to expose it, 
seemed to be made as if expressly to 
gratify the irritated and ferocious temper, 
under which the crisis was afflicting it- 



GENIUS OP LOED BYRON. 73 

sel^ and stiniog itself up to changes and 
outrages. 

The public, therefore, did not desire 
the grand and virtuous invention which 
should soothe the dissatisfied cravings of 
our nature, aspiring always at an higher 
and more perfect state of existence, by 
visions of ideal magnificence and exalted 
goodness. It was the grandeur of scorn, 
and indignation, and hatred, and bitter 
raillery, which it embraced with a phrei^ 
sied applause : — the magnanimity (as 
they called it) which dared to give things 
their proper names, and to tear down 
with undazzled strength and unswerving 
courage the idols whom the world bad 
hitherto set up to worship. 

This temper and disposition was direct- 
ly gratified by a genius which turned its 
piercing eye on reality, and, seizing on 
obfects in a single point of view, drew 
forth the nuu'ked features, as they thus 
appeared, witli intensity of force. Subtle- 



74 Z.ETTERS ON THS 

ties, and evasions, and imaginative colour- 
ings, they affected to despise. The business 
of the day was to strike home ! and this 
was their cry ! They had to deal with 
a coarse and practical multitude ; and 
poetry, with every other collateral aid, 
was to be made subservient to their pur- 
pose. What is imaginative is not so 
easily apprehended by the mob, ev^i 
when it is in sympathy with the prevail- 
ing humour. Of what the eye has seen, 
and the ear has heard, the duUJancy can 
be awakened with the impression. 

By accident, therefore. Lord Byrcm 
came forth at a period peculiarly fitted to 
obtain a &vourable reception for the dis* 
tinct cast of his genius. His &cultiea^ 
however, were versatile, and, at another 
period, might have taken a different turn. 

The tendency of these remarks is to 
show, not why Lord Byron indulged tliis 
turn, but why it was better received and 
more highly praised by the public than 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 7^ 

invaUion. Neitlier the Edinburgh Re-- 
view nor Quartcrfy Review pretend that 
there is invention in Childe Harold. 

Oi the Giaour^ I think a large propor* 
taon is not only not imaginaiion^ but not 
the sort ofjancjf of which I have been 
speaking, -» the fancy which stron^y rr* 
^fiecU realities. This is an assertion which 
the careless and superficial reader will not 
be at all inclined to admit or understand. 
I take this proportion so alluded to to be 
a sort of verbal brilliancy, partly produced 
by memory, and partly by labour and art. ^ 
The pleasure it gives, beyond that aflford^ 
ed to the ear, is a sort of indistinct asMm- 
blage, which it calb up of twinkling 
lights, and half^efined images ; so as to 
put the mind in a pleasurable ferment, as 
if It was looking at dim clouds touched 
and broken by occasional gleams of gold, 
which it can neither form into shapes of its 
own, nor let remain in unarranged masses 
accm'ding to its disposition and ability. 



76 LETTERS ON THE 

All of this kind, which is introduced 
by the great poet» is such as might have 
been done by genius very inferior to his ; 
and one knows not how to account for 
the applause with which the public re- 
ceived it» except from the prejudice al- 
ready raised in his favour, and confirmed, 
perhaps increased, by the really splendid 
passages which this poem here and there 
contains. 

If once the public notice is drawn to a 
poet, the talents he exhibits on a nearer 
view, the weight his mind carries with it 
in his every-day intercourse, somdiow or 
other, are reflected around on his compo- 
sitions, and co-operate in giving a collat-, 
eral force to their impression on the 
public. To this we must assign some part 
of the impression made by The Giaour. 
Lord Byron's personal character had every 
thing in it to create awe, and augment the 
idea of genius. 



OSNIU8 OP LORD BYRON. 77 

The ihhrttf^five lines in The Giaour^ be- 
ginning at line 67., 

" He who badi beot htm o*er the dead,** 

are 80 beautiful, 80 original, and so ut- 
teriy beyond the reach of any one, whose 
poetical genius was not very decided, 
and very rich, that thetf alone^ under the 
drcumstances already explained, were 
sufficient to secure celebrity to this poem, 
and throw a delusive halo of delight over 
all the more common parts. 

But if any part of the public yet hesi- 
tated, (and I believe many yet did,) the 
quick*following appearance of The Car- 
Mtir diflripated all doubt That poem 
was qilendid, rapid, harmonious, easy, 
throughout, while it had the new and 
more essential merit of rich poetical m- 
ventioiu 

When fitthion, or party, or faction, has 
taken up a fiivourite, it of course em- 
braces eagerly every new plea wtiich nuty 



78 LETTEES OK TH£ 

justify its choice. If, therefore, The 
Corsair's merit was distinct from that 
which had been chosen as the subject of 
applause, still it indirectly assisted to 
give weight to what the applauders w^e 
anxious to corroborate. They, there* 
fore, who did not care for the ifwentioe 
merits in right of itself, liked it for thii 
incidental advantage which it brought 
with it ; and they who are pleased, are 
not always inquisitive to analyse the 
cause of their pleasure. 

I think these remarks will account for 
the high poetical rank assigned to Lord 
B}rron before he had shown his poetical 
inoeniionj and for the praises still con- 
tinued to be lavished on him, in right of 
the qualities which he ^rst exhibited to 
the world ; and which do not form the 
legitimate pretensions for putting him in 
the high class to which they assign him, 
and to which, if he is entitled, he is en* 
titled on other grounds. 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 79 

When prmise is conferred on a poet 
who deserves it, but conferred on wrong 
grounds, it has the evil of giving a mis- 
chievous and deceitful colour to what is 
wrong. It is drawing away the public 
mind to encourage a false judgment of 
the nature of poetry, and, therefore, to 
nurture a different sort of flower and 
fruit; which, though they may have 
their charms, and their use, yet have 
such as are quite distinct from those of 
pure and essential poetry, and, therefore, 
tend to eclipse and crush the genuine. 
And this must be considered by pro- 
fimnd thinkers, of high endowment, and 
strong sensibility, as no light grievance ; 
because such persons know well that 
genuine poetry is the lamp of philosophy, 
and the animater of all the best eneigies 
of the human heart Poetical invention 
is that which truth, when she takes it 
under her controul, chooses as her v^ 



80 LETTERS ON THE 

hide, and employs as the lamp by which 
she shines in all her glory. 

The confusions produced by the as- 
signment of pre-eminence to the substi* 
tute must pervade all estimates of poetry : 
opposite pretensions must conflict ; and 
in the doubts thus created, both must 
suffer. 

It is desirable to place poets not only 
according to their class, but according 
to their degree of excellence in their 
class; and to determine in what cases 
greater excellence in an inferior class 
ought to take place of less excellence in 
a superior. Every separate essential 
quality has its subdivisions : — for in- 
stance, under invention^ must be consi- 
dered the quaUty of the invention, with 
regard to verishnilityf grandeur, pathos, 
beauty^ morality, instruction, novelty, 

&C. 

Of thoughts equally just, one is more 
poetical than another in various ways; 



OBNIU8 OP LORD BYRON. 81 

as where it addresses the fancy, the im- 
agination, and the heart, rather than the 
understanding. There is in Lord Byron 
too much vigour of observation and too 
deep a fund of sensibility ever to have re- 
course to factitious energy, or to give to 
incidents or scenery a false importance 
not belonging to them; and thus he 
always secures his' reader's attention and 
interest ;— for nothing fatigues the reader 
more, and lowers the admiration or 
esteem of the author more, or more ex- 
tinguishes the spell of poetry, than what 
is turgid, over-wrought, and full of va- 
poury sound. 

Lord Byron sometimes labours, but 
he labours because the idea is too great 
to manage : -» not to enable him to make 
it great* but to equal its greatness. They, 
therefore, who cannot approve him, can 
never raise themselves to despise or un- 
der-rate him, or treat him with indif- 

G 



82 LETTERS ON THE 

ference. They retire from him some- 
times with horror, but never with cool 
contempt 

He used poetry as the vehicle of his 
thoughts: — minor poets only elicit or 
collect thoughts as the matter which they 
can use to show off their poetical skill 
or art. But the pubUc was now tired of 
art : all that art could do had been done } 
they wanted soUd food, — the ore, and 
not the workmanship. Travels in prose 
had always been a favourite reading, be- 
cause they promised to gratify a common 
curiosity, and that love of novelty which 
is universal among the multitude. When 
aided by the ornament of poetical im- 
agery and the force of numbers, and 
coming from one who had already shown 
his energy, originality, and mental power, 
and one also known for his adventurous 
spirit and habits of enterprize, it cannot 
be wondered that Childe Harold was 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. 



8S 



perused with avidity, and in a state of 
mind prepared to receive the most fit- 
vourable and most animated impres- 
sions. 



G « 



84 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER X. 

Majrffl. 

In the fourth canto of Childe Harold^ a 
stupendous quantity of thinking and 
imagery is compressed ; but it is, on the 
whole, too abrupt, too involved, too 
obscure, too laboured, too full of point 
and antithesis, to give that sort of plea- 
sure which it is the purpose of pure 
poetry to give. The reader cannot un- 
derstand it unless he brings to it a familiar 
knowlege of the history of Rome and 
Italy i — and even then it is not always in- 
telligible, without the aid of the notes. 
It is the fruit of a mind which had stored 
itself with great care and toil, and had 
digested with profound reflection and 
intense vigour what it had learned : the 
sentiments are not such as lie on the sur- 
face, but could only be awakened by long 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 85 

mediution. They are a little too mono- 
tonous too angry, and too much dark- 
ened by uniform gloom. The lines very 
rarely flow : they have a sort of pah^fid 
force : they often rather ** extort praise" 
than ** give pleasure." We cannot re- 
fuse admiration at the power of intellect 
which produced them, while we are 
fatigued and dispirited, both by the at^ 
lention they require, and the pain and 
eflbrt with which they seem to have been 
produced. 

The stanzas interspersed, which de- 
scribe the love of solitude, the pleasures 
of the mind, and the power of imagin- 
ative happiness, are numerous ; but they 
form an almost identity with what the 
poet had said on these topics in his for- 
mer cantos, and, beautifiil as they are, 
I think, therefore, they are repeated 
almost too often. At the same time, 
there is in the topics and texture of the 
whole poem too little of a visionary na- 

G S 



I 



Ltrr«» 



,0 *'»>"' 
too 1*°'^ 
thesis, "> 

,ble, «>* 

,ted «* 
ose Vigo" 
tweo" « 
e butco<< 



86 LETTERS ON THE 

ture to produce that spell which poetry 
prides itself in exercising. It is the burst 
of a mind which has grappled with the 
worlds and has the power to grapple well 
with it ; which has known its wiles, and 
has had an eye fearless to look upon it ; 
of which the dreams of ideal felicity 
have interposed no veil before the wrongs, 
the rudenesses, and the barbarities ! One 
can see how this was fitted to the mind 
of the multitude ; and one can see how, 
when the intermixture of higher merits 
gave a sort of adscititious charm to this, 
to which it was not separately entitled, 
the common mind was glad to catch at 
so strong an apparent sanction for lliat 
which gratified its taste, and to ascribe 
the interest to a kind of strength, which 
was not that on which the best and 
most refined judgments placed it.. 

The imagination may in the precedii^ 
ages have wandered too far from the 
earth, and have lost itself too much 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 87 

among the clouds : it might be requisite 
to freshen it, and bring it back a little 
nearer reality in its primary materials, 
bv reconducting it to its starting place ; 
it might be well to recommence and re- 
gather the elemental materials from the 
groimd. But critics, in praising the 
due execution of such a task, ought to 
have exactly distinguished the nature of 
its merit, and not have ascribed to what 
was particular and temporary, a sort of 
praise which belongs only to what is uni- 
versal and permanent. Admitting those 
powers in Lord Byron, which produced 
this sort of effect, to have been very ex- 
traordinary, still they were such as did not 
partake of invention ; nor of some other 
primary qualities of the highest poetry. 

None but a being of robust and daring 
talent, of much reading, and intense 
reflection, could have written Childe 
Ilantld : but, bating a few stanzas, I 
think it might have been written by one 



88 



USTTKBS ON THE 



toteUjr deficient in the first quality of 
poetry, — imtemikm. I do not mean to insi- 
MBte that Lord Byron wanted that quality : 
ke has sbovn it uneqpvocally and most 
distinctly in other poeni& But the ten- 
dency of the extravagant and indiacri* 
■dnafte fvaises bestowed on CU&fe ZiTiiraU 
is to induce the reader to bdievethat 
lAieffe are hi^gjher merits in poetry than 
tfhose of mrartm, — and by confounding 
aEI testsv to make poetical mmt an cq[nnion 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 80 



LETTER XI. 

June 1. 

Whatever objections may be made to 
Lord Byron, none can be made which will 
take from him the title to fill an import* 
ant place in our national poetry. There 
are in him more of the certain and posi- 
tive qualities of a poet, than, with very 
few exceptions, are elsewhere to be found 
Others clothe themselves, as it were, 
with the external mantle of poetry, which 
they can put on and ofl^ and which do 
not form part of themselves. Poetry 
was part of Lord Byron's being ; and he 
occupied himself in it as a vocation, not 
as an amusement He took it as an in- 
tellectual art, which was applicable to 
whatever could engage the study of the 
passions or the reason of num : he con* 
sidered its range, therefore, as unlimited 



90 LETTERS ON THE 

as that ofprose, with the addition of many 
dominions peculiar to itself. 

We may disapprove the subjects, the 
incidents, the moral of Lord Byron's 
tales : still they are poetical, — at least so 
far as they do not offend verisinuUty ; and 
they are so far original as to add to the 
stores of our intellectual wealth: they 
form part of the substance and genuine 
ore of that wealth. 

The objections to them are, however, 
yet very strong : they most of theni turn 
on some revolting crime : the Giaour turns 
on female infidelity ; on punishment by 
death; and revenge by murder on the 
part of the seducer. The Corsair turns 
on piracy, fire, and devastation : murder 
committed by a female beauty on the 
chief who loved her ; and an abandon- 
ment of her person, yet reeking with the 
blood she had shed, to the Corsair^ whose 
liberation of her had excited her passion ; 
and, lastly, the death of the Corsair's 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. 91 



tkithful wife, and the disappearance of 
the husband in grief for the loss. 

Lara describes one haunted by his 
conscience for some unknown crime: 
moody, fierce, vindictive; soon affironted; 
eager to resent insult ; engaged in a duel 
with one who never afterwards appears, 
to whom be is suspected of foul play, 
and whose body there are signs of his 
having thrown into the river; then 
drami into rebellion, and falling in battle, 
accompanied by a faithful page, who is 
discovered to be a female, and, by the 
manner in which she weeps over him, his 
probable mistress. This is commonly 
supposed to be the second part of The 
Corioir^ who thus re-appears in the cha- 
racter €i Ijora. 

Parmna is one who, though attached 
to a son, marries his father ; tlien commits 
adulterv with the son ; and is with that 
•on put to death under a public judgment 
by the order of the father himseli*. 



92 LETTERS ON THE 

who is the sovereign of the country. Is 
not this a complication of frightful and 
revolting crimes ? 

The Bride qfAbydos is the attachment 
and marriage of one who had been 
brought up as a brother with his supposed 
sister in disobedience of the marriage re- 
commended to her by her father, against 
whom the supposed son, after this mar- 
riage, rebels, — and thus causes the most 
tragical deaths. 

Of The Siege of Corinth^ I forget the 
story. The crime for which Manfred 
afflicts himself seems to be incest with his 
own sister. 

Here, however, are at least six stories 
which hinge upon disgusting wickedness. 
The dramas of Marino Faliero and the 
Two Foscari turn upon state-crimes. 
Werner approaches nearer the character 
of the six first poems : for, if I recollect, 
its foundation is a murder. The Prisoners 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. 9S 

qf Chilton is a picture of craelly exercised 
power. 

Tkt Lament qf Tasso is, perhaps, the 
only poem of Lord Byron's which is free 
from objection. It is pathetic, vigorous, 
poeticalt pure, and in all respects beau- 
tiful 

Some wonder may be raised how, 
where the major part of these productions 
have some grand and radical defect, they 
can have taken altogether so strong a 
hold on the public admiration. It partly, 
perhaps, may be accounted for by tlie 
force and beauty with which the details 
are executed ; by the strength, brilliancy, 
and correctness of imagery ; by the power, 
directness, and sincerity of sentiment; 
by the life and genuineness of the ima^ 
ginative conception ; — so that, if the 
facts are conceded, all that results from 
them is drawn in the most brilliant 
colours of nature. 



94 LETTERS ON THE 

Poetical writers in general do no more 
than excite images and sentiments, as the 
basis of the verbal pictures they desire to 
create. Lord Byron's verbal pictures are 
quite subordinate to those which exist in 
idea^ and merely their vehicle. In them^ 
the words outrun the idea : in him^ the 
idea outruns the words^ 

It is clear that there is a sort of 
shadowy, bastard poetry, which is a mere 
poetry of language. It is like artificial 
flowers ; it has the same forms and co- 
lours as the real, — but no life. We 
read it, yet are not touched ; but wonder 
why ! Such writers have no fixed or un- 
borrowed feelings or thoughts ; no unbor- 
rowed inspirations : they have no eneigy 
of character; no peculiarities; nothing 
which distinguishes them from the mass 
of mankind; they therefore carry no 
weight with them : there is nothing in 
themselves which aids their writings. 

Two of the most common faults. 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 95 

among secondary poets, are to be sickfy 
or JhniMtic. Feebleness is destructive 
to the charms of poetry, because it implies 
a want of inspiration. To he fantastic 
implies exaggerated effort, and want of 
native vigour. By long research, the 
imagination gets into bye-paths, and in* 
%'olve8 itself in intricacies, which the 
reader's mind does not easUy follow. All 
addresses to the imagination, which do 
not strike at once, are faulty. 

In Lord Byron's earliest poetry, his 
thoughts and sentiments showed occa- 
sionally a character of his own ; but they 
were expressed in the conventional Ian* 
guage of his predecessors: — in his latter^ 
they were not only mainly his own» but 
expressed in his own language. His style 
was commonly excellent, because it was 
dear, vigorous, transparent, and unafl 
fi^cted ; disdainful of the petty flowers of 
poetry, and all its petty artifices, its stale 
tricks and formularies, which are among 



96 LETTERS ON THE 

the most disgusting antidotes to pleasure 
that secondary poetry imposes on us. 

It is probable that the generality of 
mankind are content to think without 
force or precision, and without much 
notice of their own feelings. If oth^s 
present a mirror to them of what com- 
monly passes in the human mind, and 
point out the forms, lines, and hues, 
they are pleased to gaze upon them, and 
acknowledge the likeness; but they could 
not have drawn it themselves,— nor are 
they the only ones who could not have 
drawn it. Even of such as aspire to 
teachj few think and feel with sufficient 
power to be able to produce a just and 
energetic picture. We cannot wonder, 
then, that when these powers are pos- 
sessed in so strong a degree as Lord 
Byron possessed them, that they should 
have attracted all the notice and applause 
which they did attract. We may suppose 
for ourselves the facility of the recur- 
rence of such powers; but their rarity is 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 97 

sufficiently proved by a reference to 
what the test of experience shows us 
has hitherto been produced. Has such 
a combination of faculties been often ex- 
hibited in the past ? If it has not, what 
right have we to suppose that it will soon 
recur again? 

If a poet could be made by the ac- 
cidental application of good abilities, 
then the place of him who dies may 
be supplied without difficulty ; but a ge- 
nuine poet is a being of a mould and en- 
dowments positively peculiar, and most 
rare,— one whom industry cannot make, 
and nei^ect cannot extinguish : a being, 
whose spells cannot be efiaced by fiuilts, 
and of whom the admiration cannot be 
overcome by eccentricities or perversities 
associated with his prodigal gifts of mind. 
A man of acquired powers of wealth not 
inherited but procured by his own in- 
dustr)', is one made by himself*; and, 
tiierefore, such as others may also make 

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98 LETTERS OK THE 

themselves, if they will. Such an one 
is never above common rivalry ; whereas 
if a rival arises to the other, it must be 
so rarely, that it need not be feared. 

In selecting such an one as an object of 
distinction, and worthy the public regard, 
we cannot err. Nothmg diminishes the 
value of fame more than the attempt to 
draw notice to insignificant persons,— be- 
cause it tends to confound the eminent 
with the obscure, and to induce the be- 
lief that pubHc notice is no test of merited 
superiority. 

Nothing is more satisfactory than to 
find in those on whom the public voice 
has fallen, qualities to justify the celebrity 
conferred. 



GENIUS OF LOKD BTRON. 99 



LETTER XII. 

iuoe 2. 

W^HEN we arrive at a certain age, we 
begin to doubt whether Jbme \% of suf- 
ficient value to be worth any sacrifice. 
Lord Byron had not arrived at that age. 
But it does not follow that when we are 
convinced cS the emptiness of Aune, we 
are to abandon the pursuit by which we 
liad hoped to have gained it That pur- 
suit nuiy give hUrifMC pleasures, which 
will recompense its labours. Such, I 
think, is poetry cultivated by him who 
has a true genius for it. The state of 
mind and habits of ifwentian^ observation, 
and reflection, which he nurses, all pro- 
duce, occasionally, intense gratification 
to him. In his walks, in his solitary 
musings, in his midnight meditations, 

H 2 






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100 LETTERS ON THE 

they occupy, elevate, and thrill both his 
intellect and his heart 

But if there were no good in these en- 
dowments, save the fame resulting from 
them, it would be a good to be enjoyed 
or withheld at the strange caprice of popu- 
lar breath, nay, at the caprice of indivi- 
dual opinion or taste. On the other hand, 
if it be, as it is, something positive and 
inherent, then it is at no one's mercy. 
During an author's life, fame is often b^ 
stowed on him, or denied him, in right 
of something connected with his personal 
character, and extraneous to the merit of 
his writings. But this effect ceases with 
his own personal existence : his literary 
productions will, after his death, be esti- 
mated correctly: favour will not exalt 
them, censure or prejudice will not be 
able to sink or depreciate them; they 
will be judged impartially by their in- 
trinsic qualities alone. 

The effect, however, of the vast variety 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 101 

ol* false pretensions, which fiishion may 
»ei up for their day, is to have so con- 
founded distinctions, and produced such 
uncertainty of taste and judgment, that 
the multitude have often been led to 
suppose that there is really nothing ^fired 
in what constitutes the test of genius 
and merit of poetry. If there be nothing 
^fijTdf if it be really only matter of opi- 
nion^ then Jitme is aU/ then appeal is 
ilisdess, and hope of future justice, in 
return for present neglect, is a shadow/ 
But if there be solid and unchangeable 
principles, — if there be precise and une- 
c|ui%'ocal requisites, if tliere be essentials 
without which true poetry cannot exist, 
and ot which the exhibition constitutes 
the character of true poetry, — then what 
can prejudice and malignity do, finaUy 
to depress the estimation which the work 
will obtain ? 

Yet so it is, that in the change from one 
sort of imlse admiration to another, the 

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multitude at last conclude, that there is 
no admiration which is just and positive, 
and not liable to change. 

Luckily for Lord Byron, he possessed 
so many strong essentials of high poetic 
genius, that, as not all his failings have 
hitherto suppressed his poetical reputa- 
tion, so they never will. He had some 
' faculties not likely to recur again, at least 
in the same brilliancy : but even if once 
in a century such an one should recur; 
can one rival in such a space diminish 
the attraction of Lord Byron's genius ? 
The intensity of his fancy and feelings on 
particular subjects will never be rivalled ; 
and as little will the native and beautiful 
force of his language on those occasions 
be approached. His eye for the scenery 
of nature, from which he " drank der 
^* light \** his rapturous and profound 
imaginings of female beauty; the dark 
creations of his gloomy spirit, when he 
indulged the bitterness of his discontent ; 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 103 

as all these were genuine, unforced emo* 
lions, unmingled with artifice, and unde- 
t>ased by exaggeration, stand beyond the 
reach of the assaults, the siq)pings, and 
the moulderings of time ; no industry nor 
skill will reach them, nor any absence of 
faults make amends for the loss of them. 

Genius itself scarcely ever feels so 
imicmeUf as Lord Byron felt : very infe- 
rior minds often feel more correctly and 
purely. But absence of fiuilts is not ex- 
cellence. The triumph of nature over 
art was seldom more apparent than in 
Lord Byron. Successors may attempt 
to catch his merits, and avoid his errors j 
they may succeed in the latter^ but their 
mimickry of the former will be ridiculous. 

Lord Byron stands aloof: the fearless 
use of his powers has secured him un- 
rivalled pre-eminence in his own walk : 
had he been checked, had he compro- 
mised, he would have appeared only 
like a common poet. It is in the very 

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104 LETTERS ON THE 

things in which he was first opposed 
that his strength lies. Yet it would be 
difficult for another man to carry off the 
same daring indulgences : a meeker spirit, 
one of less eccentric habits, could not do 
it : they could not face the world, and 
bear up against the raillery of society. 
Even Lord Byron himself had to en- 
counter contumely and ridicule. 

With regard to the objections to him 
in respect to morals^ and to want of verisi» 
mility in some of his stories, they do not 
affect the force of the poetical pictures 
in which he deals, taken in a detached 
point of view. In the point of sight 
which he has chosen, the images are cor- 
rect as well as powerful. There is in 
this respect a truth and reality in Lord 
Byron which is, perhaps, his prime attrac- 
tion. He is, in one sense, all life ; or, to 
make use of a vulgar expression, << all 
" flesh and blood.*' He deals with human 
beings ; and though he sometimes in. 






G£NIU8 OF LORD BYRON. 105 

dulges a wild and mysterious imagin- 
ation, it is the imagination which in ac« 
ttial life associates itself with our material 
nature ; which is really experienced by 
man, when he is gifted with particular 
quahties of mind, and cherishes particuhur 
habits, and is roused by particular pas- 
Hions and emotions. 

Lord Byron, therefore, never uses ialse 
attractions ; he never, in the attempt to 
please or strike the reader, resorts to 
sickly, artificial, or fantastic inventions ; 
he is always manly, direct, and unaffected^ 
his frankness, the apparent ihoughi which 
is at the bottom of his words, makes the 
reader surrender himself up to his sin- 
cerity. 

All secondary poetry is a sort oi* de- 
parture from life into a region of insipid 
fairy-land, in which the reader yields 
liimMelf voluntarily to a pretended illu- 
Mcm that he knows to be only an artifice, 
it never carries him away; it never 



106 , LETTERS ON THE 

overcomes his belief :' it is a sort of baby 
pleasure, of which in his more sober 
moments he is ashamed. 

Not so with Lord Byron : grave mii|4s 
may condemn him, they cannot think 
him trifling ; he has no community with 
baubles ; he scorns all the pretty orna- 
ments of minor poetry ; he is stem, se- 
vere, plain, and sometimes rough*; he 
only rises into ornament where the 
words become necessarily ornamental 
from the character of the ideas to be con- 
veyed. He never, therefore, is guilty of 
the emptiness of a poetry of mere Ian- 
guage. Lord Byron has added to the 
stock of poetical ideas and the force of 
poetical diction. He has imparted emo- 
tions, such as had not hitherto been ex- 
perienced ; his poetry therefore is such 
as no other in our language can alto- 
gether supply the place of. 

This is a sort of praise to which very 
few indeed of our poets can lay claim. 



GEMIUS OF LORD BYRON. 107 

In truth* the original poets, the poets 
not of language but of thought, are 
rare; and of those who have thought, 
the "majority have not gone out of the 
common track, and have thought but 
taintly. He who thinks for himself, and 
thinks diflerently from others, is long 
before he can be cmfideni of his (mn 
ideas : at first, he is apt to suspect that, 
in thinking differently, he thinks less 
perfectly than others, and he places his 
diffidence in what ought to be the ground 
of his pride. Even Lord Byron, bold as 
he was» seems at first to have laboiu^ 
under this disadvantage. 

Lord Byron drew from nature ; but he 
may sometimes have made tise of books, 
viz. of borrowed language to convey his 
own ideas. Probably, he could not 
easily reject the supplies of his memory, 
and he disdained to take the trouble to 
do HO. His mind ap|H*ars to have been 
M.*arcely e\er stagnant : it wa.H always at 



108 LETTERS ON THE 

woricy and alwajrs in strong motion. He 
delighted in agitation : the ocean and the 
storm was his element. He liked nothing 
which was gentle and calm: it gave 
erniui to tus restless and fiery spirit. He 
was, (to use an expression of Johnson,) 
<< a lamp that spent its oil in blazing.'' 

When nature has been prodigal to man 
in mental endowments, at least as much 
of his existence here passes in thou^t 
as in action. Lord Byron, therefore, in a 
life briefl in years lived longy by the 
estimate of the space over which he had 
gone ! He passed little time in idle com« 
pany, and in the empty ceremonies of 
society. 

Scarce an hour elapses, in which he 
who looks upon nature with a poetical 
eye may not find something to observe 
and to describe ; some emotion with which 
to associate it; some reflection with which 
to enrich it ; something not sought, but 
which involuntarily forces itself on sensi- 



0CNIU8 OP LOBD BYRON. 109 

bility and intellect If it be only such 
as tlie author takes at second hand from 
prescribed models ; if he only moves 
after some leader, and persuades himself 
that he feels or observes, because he has 
learned a lesson which teaches him that 
some other has done so, then he may 
abuse or improve himself; ^^^ he adds 
no wealth to the stores of intellect im- 
partible to others. 

There is no reason to suppose that 
Lx>rd Byron's feelings or ideas received 
dictation from any objects, except from 
those allied by him to have given 
occasion to them. He described the 
appearances of nature, the outward storm, 
the internal tumults of the heart, all, di- 
rectly from his own experiences and 
emotions : they have, therefore, a sort of 
certainty and truth ; a freedom from all 
taint of arti6ce and affectation ; which 
gives them the same value, when added 
to the poetical stock, as any pure spirit 



110 LETTERS ON THE ' 

or essence supplied to a diluted and cor- 
rupted liquid, which has been long separ- 
ated from its source. All the ornaments 
which weaken, and which have been long 
used, with a total forgetfulness of the 
purposes to which they were orginally 
applied, are rejected as worse than sur- 
fdusage, and the naked parts set off to 
double advantage those where oma« 
ment is really required and properly 
applied. They form a happy contrast 
to that uniform tawdriness, where glit- 
ter fatigues from its unvaried glare, 
where all is hollow, where there is 
splendour without heat, and swell with- 
out strength ! 

The knowlege of Lord Byron's cha- 
racter,— the knowlege that the impetuous 
and perturbed impressions to which he 
represents certain scenes and incidents to 
have given occasion, have really in him 
produced such effects, — confirms the 
confidence of the reader in his sincerity. 



OSNIUS OF LORD BTRON. Ill 

and pleases him by the coincidence of 
faci^ with the speculative tests assigned by 
sound criticisin. 

Ordinary poets have nothing marked 
in their personal characters. They are 
tame in their feelings, and common in 
their habits and manners. All vehemence 
and enthusiasm are, when these authors 
employ themselves in composition, put 
on for the occasion : they make a mere 
parade of words; and, therefore, they 
are almost sure to wander perpetually into 
that with which genuine sensibility has 
no ^mpathy. It is an igmsjaiuus which 
they follow : they embrace a cloudf and 
catch a shadow. 

Whatever is not capable of being really 
felt under particular situations, and by 
particular characters, (it is not necessary 
that it should be generaify felt, and by 
common characters,) is not true poetry. 
If it be whimsical, far-sought, over-re- 
finedt technical, ostentatious, or pretend- 



112 LETTERS ON THE 

ed, it cannot suit a simple and sound 
taste : it cannot please except those who 
study to be pleased, and delight in fake 
excitement 

When a stern, morose, plain-minded 
roan takes up Lord 'Byron's pages, he 
cannot deny that the author is in earnest ; 
he says to himself, << If I am sarcastic and 
'< censorious, he can be sarcastic too ; my 
<< ridicule will fall dead from the attack ; 
" my bitterness will, be repulsed ! here 
<< is no pretension ; nothing which the 
" touch of tlie spear will explode. I 
<< cannot but be awed, though I disap- 
<< prove and hate !" He acknowledges 
that what is described has been felt, 
though he wonders how it can have been 
felt! 

It will never happen, therefore, that 
Lord Byron's poems will be laid aside : 
they will be perused, and recurred to as 
developments of some of the strange 
secrets of the human character ; as pic- 



G£NIUS OP LORD BYRON. 



113 



tures of the tumults of a mightyt but 
firail* ^irit ; as an admission to the inner 
shrine of a magnificent, but gloomy, 
poetical soul! 



114 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XIII. 

June 3. 

It maybe remarked, that I have here 
dwelt on the merits of Lord Byron's 
fancy J rather than of his imaginathn ; — 
and that this is not the prime and most 
essential quality of a poet, if the doc- 
trine I had previously laid down be cor- 
rect. I answer, that in Lord Byron's 
case the merits assigned to his Jancy be- 
long also to his imagination. His com- 
binations of imagination are made from 
the materials of a fancy furnished with 
original and strong impressions ; and the 
pictures which he presents as those of 
imagination are made up of such as his 
mind's eye has actually seen, and tlie 
emotions attributed to them such as his 
bosom has actually experienced from 
them. There is, therefore, a truth in 



OBNIITS or LORD BTRON. 115 

hifl imaginatioii^ which constitutes one of 
the grand essentials of perfect poetry. 

He who hM^fimcy^ has not always im^ 
aginaium : but if he has hnaginaHon^ it 
almost necessarily follow the charac- 
of his fancjf. And we are content 
occasional exhibitions of mere fancy 
in Atm, whom we know capable at other 
times to put forth imaginaHon. 

The power of conveying a picture to 
othersp though it be no inoentUm^ is a 
minor exercise oi poetical power. The 
distinctness of impression necessary to 
give the faculty of reflecting it } the se* 
lection of circumstances } the command 
of adequate language ; are all poetical 
qoalitiasi and ingredients of poetical 
power. And he, who has these in a 
strong degree, almost always has imagin* 
ation also. In OuUc Harold^ the faculty 
exercised is principally fincy : in Miou 
frtd^ it is imagination ; in the Lameni qf 
Ta$m^ it is a mixture ; in Tke Conair, 

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116 LETTERS ON THE 

and almost all the Taks^ it is decided 
imagination ; and in all these the charac- 
teristic is that earnestness and that force 
which shows that the author himself was 
under the full impression of what he has 
described, and literally possessed, or in- 
spired, by the muse ! This sincerity and 
earnestness are among the marks of 
genuine poelry ; and when it is consider- 
ed whence they must necssarily result, 
they are so considered with good reason. 
When the image is not actually before 
the author's mind ; when it is not distinct, 
not forcible, not of a poetical nature, it 
is impossible that the emotions described 
should be of a genuine or striking sort : 
they must be affected, fantastic, fiu*- 
sought, and false. They may be con- 
veyed in language which has the appear- 
ance of elegance and beauty, but 
which is merely superficial, and will not 
convey any clear ideas. The author's 
reliance will probably be placed on the 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 117 

ctresii. Oil tlic charm of oraamented Ian- 
guage ; but if there should be any merit 
in this adventitious aid of illustration, it 
would rather weaken than forward the 
main purpose, because it would distract 
the attention from the emotions intended 
to be awakened, by engaging it in that 
which was only secondary, and thus fix 
tlie mind upon the chosen means^ rather 
than upon the end. 

iSo it, in fact, always is. Common 
poetry is almost always constructed in 
this cold and artificial way. The author 
measures its merii by the pains it has 
cost him ; by the ingenuity he has ex- 
erted in finding subsiiiuies for real emo- 
tion, and for the native and forcible 
eloquence which flows from it He es- 
tinuites by the quantity of ariffice put 
Ibrtli ; and this iells well, because ariffice 
can always be measured. 

Strong impressions, tlierefbre, strong 
ieelings to fumisli tlie fancy, and give 

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118 I^ETTKAS ON TH£ 

glow to the imagination which suj^iies 
itself from such stores^ and acts itself 
with similar force and sincerity, are the 
only sources from which true poetry can 
flow. No industry or skill can be a sub- 
titute for them ; for these only produce a 
provoking sort of illegitimate composi- 
tion, which disgusts in pn^iortion to its 
pretensions. 

It is vain to attempt to account for the 
possession of the genuine endowment by 
one man in so superior a degree tq an- 
other. Mirny have strong impressions, 
and feel strongly, who yet cannot be 
poets: something is required beyond 
these ; perhaps, in part, the early habit of 
watching thoughts and emotions; and 
the faculty of clearly observing, defining^ 
and expressing them ; all which must be 
greatly facilitated by the duration^ as 
well as the force, of the impression. The 
duration is of course prolonged by the 
voluntary continuance of attention. 



GENIUS or LORD BTEON. 119 



Many of* these hatuts are probably 
contracted in our childhood, before our 
reason and our will have much influence ; 
we must altribute them, therefore, at 
least in part, to a predisposition^ or pro- 
ptnsitjf ; Dn Johnson would say, ocirj- 
dtni^ — but I cannot think so. 

It seems strange, that U* Lord Byron 
had an impyre mind, he should so much 
delight in the scenery of nature. That he 
did intensely delight in it, all his poetry 
most unequivocally proves. Tlie grandeur 
and beauty of nature are apt to reproach 
a tbul conscience. The dictates of the 
heart are awakened in solitude ^ the 
siensibility becomes more keen ; and the 
memory acts with greater vividness. 
There is no tiUse applause ; no flattery 
from the interested or the servile; no 
distracting noise of conversation, or of 
music; no petty occupation oi cere- 
monies, or little social duties: the 
thoughts are leli to take their natural, un- 

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120 LETTERS ON THE 

broken sway; and truth appears un- 
shadowed, and in her full splendour* 
Would then he, who had much to re- 
proach himself with, choose the haunts 
of nature and solitude ? 

On the shores of Aberdeenshire^ Lord 
Byron seems from infancy to have accus- 
stomed himself to delight in the expansCf 
the roll, and the lonely roar of the 
Northern Ocean ! Perhaps the gloom of 
a mortified pride early impressed its 
dark shadows on his sensitive mind; 
perhaps, he early found his aspiring and 
indignant spirit insulted and outraged in 
society, and sought solitude to give 
loose to the daring activity of his medi« 
tations ; where his imagination could ac- 
commodate his actual circumstances to 
his desires, and his aggrieved temper 
might find peace and self-gratification ! 

The whole frame of his mind and 
body was irritable, and probably not (in 
the ordinary sense) of the melting mood. 



GENIUS or LORD BYRON. 121 

He was fierce, «— and roused rather than 
diacouraged by opposition. It may be 
presumed, that in early childhood some 
terror, disi^i^KHntment, or disgust, todc 
deep and ineflbcible hold of his sombre 
imagination. There are certain sorts of 
bo(i^ur which enchain our faculties; '^v 
which fix us on the spot ; and make us 
continue to gaze on that which we most 
dread. There seems to have been a spell 
of this sort on the fiurulties of Lord 
Byron* It is possible, that what an 
irresistible impulse led him to describe 
qirung rather from horror than pleasure. 
It eased his mind to give vent to the 
image that haunted it, and he thus threw 
ito£ 

Some fiurulties can only be kept from 
stagnation, or perhaps from preying on 
themselves, by a resort to strong impulses. 
An habit of this kind is sometimes con- 
tracted ; and then, by a species of fiutcin- 
ation, he who lias contracted it occupies 



/ 



1^ LETTERS ON THJB 

himself with ideal crimes of frightful 
magnitude, without being tainted with 
any of the foul stains which would attach 
to their reality. 

This is a dangerous theory, and is 
liable to lead to great abuses, but it has 
sometimes happened, and I cannot but 
suspect that it is at least partly true of 
Lord Byron : he did not derive his blood 
from a moral father, and his impressions 
of morality were not very nice : the habits 
of his life ; his alienation from society ; 
his foreign residences ; his impetuous pas- 
sions ; the inequality of his fortune to his 
rank ; his domestic disappointments ; his 
unkind reception by the world at his out- 
set ; his insulted pride ; — all confirmed 
him in a temper of defiance, raillery, 
and satire, and seemed as if they had 
irritated him to the eccentric resolution 
of representing himself worse, rather thsxi 
better, than he was; — as if he should ex- 
claim, ** Ye hypocrites ! I make no pre- 



GENIUS OF LOED BTRON. V23 

** teoce to the virtue which you accuse 
^* me of wanting. I will clothe myself 
^* in crimesfar darker than those of which 
M you accuse me, and yet hold my head 
** in proud defiance above you, and 
** laugh you to scorn !" 

This supposition may be deemed a 
Utile loo far-fetched, yet it is at least 
probable that some indistinct approach 
to it passed in Lord Byron's mind or 
heart. I am sometimes apt to think that 
the manner in which he takes delight to 
raise insinuations against himself, is a 
proof of his consciousness of unassailable 
innocence : where there is a sense of guilt, 
there is a jealousy of drawing public at- 
tention to it 

But, after all, we are bound to examine 
poetry by its hurinsic value, without re- 
ference to the character or conduct of its 
author. What is immoral in itself^ cannot 
be defended; and whatever interests us 
m favour of characters stained with great 



124> LETTERS ON THE 

crimes must be immoraL The Giaour^ 
The Corsair J Lara^ the hero in the 
Bride ofAbydos^ &c., are all immoral, yet 
they are clothed with brilliant qualities 
which raise our involuntary admiration, 
and are therefore dangerous to the pas- 
sions and native propensities of warm 
and daring spirits. In reality sudi an 
union of great qualities with viol^it 
crimes is seldom found, — and where it 
is found, it i^ commonly followed by con- 
trition and unhappiness, which are not 
brought into view by Lord Byron, and 
therefore make the example more dan- 
gerous; besides, rare instances ought not 
to be selected, where they are in them- 
selves objectionable. 

It is true, that there is a sort of ex- 
traordinary attraction, which the multi- 
tude sometimes find in characters of this 
cast, but this attraction is a vicious one : 
it is because it flatters their evil passions, 
and gives a colour to the indulgences 



GENfUS OF LORD BYRON. 195 

they wish to pursue : there is a general 
hatred to kjfpocrisy among mankind, — 
and whatever goes to the contrary ex- 
treme, pleases as a contrast to it 

But it is to be lamented that the ima* 
ginative fiunilties of the poet should not 
be exercised in producing adequate ex* 
citement, by bodying forth the grandeur, 
the pathos, or the beauty of what is 
virtuous ; for surely all these qualities are 
much more easily and naturally found in 
virtue than in crime : they may not excite 
quite so much surprise ; but surprise is a 
bastard sort of excitement, and as tran* 
sient as it is illegitimate. 

There had, no doubt, been some early 
defect arising from want of discipline, or 
some other accidental cause, in the first 
associations of Lord Byron's mind. It 
may, therefore, be questioned, whether it 
could have been ever entirely eradicated} 
and I have not much confidence that we 
in genonal grow better, though we may 



126 LETTERS on THE 

grow mwe plausible as we grow older : 
but Lord Byron's talents were extraor- 
dinarily various as well as powerful^ —and 
no one can be very sure what he might 
not have done, had he lived* 

It is not that Lord Byron's poems 
want conscience; it is the torment of con- 
science, which is one of the most striking 
and powerful subjects in which he deals; 
but the fault is the constant tendency of 
insinuation, that there is in man a bent 
to crime which he cannot resist, and that 
the Evil Spirits have a dominion over him, 
which at once make him conscious of the 
crime of submission, and yet impotent to 
escape it; — a supposition which would 
seem to throw on Providence the charge 
of having destined mankind to a hard 
and unjust fate. 

If it be answered, that Lord Byron did 
not foresee this tendency, — thathe merely 
indulged himself in characters and pic- 
tures which displayed the gloomy colours 



GENIUS Of LOED BTEON, 197 

and strong powers of his own mind in a 
manner likely to make striking impres- 
sions on his readers* not looking beyond^ 
nor concerning himself with such remote 
consequences, — the reply is, that he was 
bound to look beyond^ — that public cri* 
ticism perpetually called his attention to 
it«— and that it betrayed a hardihood not 
y^iy pardonable, still to go on in the 



I am at a loss what rejoinder to make 
to this reply: I would find one, if I 
could. 



128 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XIV. 

Jane 4. 

We have to examine, Jirstj what are the 
powers which Lord Byron actually did 
exhibit 

Secondly y To what place in the scale of 
poetical merit such powers, so admitted to 
have been exhibited by him, are entitled. 

It cannot be denied that his fancy was 
susceptible of very strong impressions; 
and that his sensibility of emotion from 
them was violent, if not tender. 

It cannot be denied that he had an 
understanding sufficiently acute, and a 
temper sufficiently curious, to observe and 
express in adequate language such im- 
pressions. 

It is equally certain, that the impres- 
sions made on him were those of images 
and objects such as poetry delights in. 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 129 

It is also certain that in such images, so 
expressed, he does deal 

Are these poetry, then ? Or are they 
not ? Andy if they are not, why are they 
not? 

Some may say, that they are described 
with more violence, and in stronger 
colours, than their archetypes justify. 
But are they described in stronger co- 
lours than those in which they were im- 
pressed on the poet's mind? If they are, 
tliey are exaggerated ; and exaggera- 
tion is always a great fault. 

But they are not so described. It is 
clear of Lord Byron that his words never 
outran his impressions. Is it not, then, 
sufficient that such was the d^^ree of 
warmth in which the objects appeared to 
Lord Byron? Did this outrage proba- 
biUty or veriaimility ? 

Still these powers, so exhibited, though 
entitled to a distinguished place in the 
poetical scale, are not entitled to the 

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ISO LETTERS ON THE 

highest, because they do not constitute 
mvenlion. 

We are glad to have the scenes which 
we have viewed, or nun^ view, in nature 
itself, drawn by a poefs hand, and asso- 
ciated with a poet's feelings : he aids our 
eye to select ; and he gives impulse to our 
hearts, and light to our understandings. 
But it is the business of the Ugkest 
poetry to go beyond this: it is its vo- 
cation to body forth what the eye had 
not yet seen, nor the heart felt, nor the 
understanding conceived ; but of. which 
the mind has persuaded itself, that it has 
already had faint glimpses which it could 
not define. This is invention of the 
highest kind. There is, however, a poet- 
ical invention short of this, — where the 
imagination creates from the materials 
furnished by the stores of the fancy, 
distinguished from the identical scenes 
reflected by the fancy directly from na- 
ture. This degree of invention at least 
is necessary to constitute pure poetry. 



GENIUS OF LORD BYUON. 131 

Has then Lord Byron exhibited it?— It 
must be admitted that he has : not in 
Childe Harold^ but in many of* the 
poems which followed. But he has ra- 
ther done it in character and in mental 
ornaments than in scenery. 

Inferior poets have not one or the 
other: they have neither invention nor 
even truth oi^fimcy. Their native im- 
pressions are not strong and distinct ; and 
they endeavour to supply the imperfec- 
timi, in the susceptibility of their fancy, 
by flowery, vague words, by great pre- 
tension, and a mysterious sort of fervour, 
which awakens a stir, but ends in vapour. 
If they attempt invention^ it is still more 
extravagant : all attempt at verishmlity is 
abandoned; and they even place their 
glory in setting it at defiance. 

It was in the reverse of all this that the 
spell of Lord Byron's power consisted. 
His earnestness, his directness, his self- 
emotioiit were so decisive, that ttiey im- 

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132 LETTERS OK THE 

parted themselves to the reader. He 
always understood himself, and, ' diere- 
fore, made the reader understand him* 

When poetical powers are so rare ; 
when native force of fctncy^ and still 
more, when native force of imagm^tiam 
are conferred on so few ; can we won- 
der, that where they are decisively dis- 
played, admiration follows them,— -^even 
if the application of them does not al- 
ways lead to the best ends ? 

In Lord Byron the possession of these 
powers is demonstrative :— if he has de- 
fects, it is only in the conduct of them; — 
and this, perhaps, seldom appears in <fe- 
tached parts, but only in the examina- 
tion of his poems as a tv/tofe,— which 
few will take the trouble, or have the ca- 
pacity, to do. 

In the utmost rigour of criticism, if 
we try his poetry by a demand of a// that 
the very strict principles of poetry have 
made requisite, he wiU oflen be wanting^ 



GEN1D8 OF LORD BTRON. 133 

becauw be will be wanting in moral 
hrmih mnd wisdom ; and» no doubt, tbis is 
m nudn defect, wbicb wiU always preclude 
him from occupying a seat in tbe higheU 
dasa. But as every tbing buman is im- 
perfect, so perbaps be may be entitled to 
a bigb place in tbe second class. 

I say tbis hesitatingly, because bis in- 
vention bas not been extended to any 
' kmg heroic poem^ — and bis drmnaiic in- 
vention is not great. It is true, tbat 
poetry must be tried by quaBiy rather 
than quantity ; but a certain d^ree of 
space is necessary to try invention, and 
give scope to its powers. 

Lord Byron, in confining himself to 
tbat with which his disposition and 
habits had made him conversant, was 
always firesh, vigorous, and full of tbe 
breath of life. In all invention, con- 
ducted as a task, and under tbe guidance 
of a cold judgment, there is always some- 
thyig fidnt, dull, vague, and even unoer* 

s 3 



134 LETTERS ON THE 

tain ; — and the poetry ceases to be ani- 
mated ; it dies ; it ceases to be poetry. 

One laments, however, that powers so 
great as those of Lord Byron should not 
have been made still greater, by a little 
more of that management, which would 
not have been difficult. 

Passion for soUtude, passion for images 
of terror, passion for female beauty, 
seem to have been the grand features 
of his intellectual and poetical genius. 
In these he had a glow and a force 
peculiar to himself; and for these his 
poetry will probably be always read, as 
long as the language lasts. But it will 
yet always excite the wonder of a saga^ 
cious mind, accustomed to meditate on 
the human character, that such in- 
tense sensibility could be united with so 
much fierceness, and so much bitter and 
resentful misanthropy. A man of great 
talents can put on the mockery or sem- 
blance of feeUngs : but Lord Byron's 



GEM1U8 OP LORD BTRON. 195 

were too animatedf and his words were 
too burning, to be suspected of beiiig 
feigned, even if the history of his life 
had not proved that he was in reality 
what his poetry represented him to be. 

How happens it, that so few of our 
poets have been content to rely on the 
expression of* their own feelings, as a 
charm to ci^rtivate the reader? Have 
their feelings been too faint? or have 
they thought art more attractive than 
nature? If we look into poetical bio- 
graphy, we shall have no reason to sup- 
pose that the generaUty of them were 
endowed with any extraordinary inten* 
sity of feeling. Gray and Cowper had 
both excessive feeUng; but then their 
timidity made them shrink from exposing 
it to the world ; and the feeling of both 
was rather tender and contempUtive, 
than impetuous : they had much sensi- 
bilitVt but Httle (lassion ; they neither 
muigled with the world, nor invigorated 

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136 LETTSBS ON THE 

their impressions by adventure : a same- 
ness of life, a lowness of spirits, and 
languor of action, made them familiar 
only with the tamer and more reflective 
sentiments, which impart a calm, rational, 
and philosophic pleasure, but give none 
of the intense emotion conveyed by the 
poetry of Lord Byron. 

Something of this exhibition of violent 
impulse must be attributed to the crisis 
at which Lord Byron appeared in the 
world. It is not clear that it would have 
suited the jhiblic taste at the sera of Gr€^ 
or of Cowper. No doubt, the French 
Revolution threw its own violent cha- 
racter on the literary world. The public 
feeling was accustomed to impressions of 
a much more energetic kind : the polish 
that weakened was now despised : free- 
dom of thought, freedom of language, 
scorn of disguise, and hatred of all dej^ 
cate fears, demanded impassioned views 
of things, and an indulgence of the re- 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. IS? 

suits of all first impressions. This was 
exactly what suited the structure and 
habits of Lord Byron's mind and temper. 
I do not think that to this cause is to 
be attributed the formation of such a 
structure and habits ; I think that in Aiffi 
they were intrhuic and original ; but it is 
not improbable that he might never have 
exhibited them to the world at another 
crisis ; or if he had^ that they would not 
have been so favourably received. 

The views of things taken by our pas- 
sions require for the most part the cor- 
rection of our reason : but those uncor- 
rected views are often desirable to be 
known, and beautiful to contemplate; 
and the habits of a cold reasoning age 
are apt to present impressions too arti- 
ficial and tame. Nothing is more com- 
mon, than in the attempt to refine to let 
out all the strength. 

If Lord Byron himself had led a con- 
fined, luxurious, fashionable life, all his 



1S8 LETTEIiS ON THE 

native impetuosity would have been 
damped, and the fire of his writings 
would have been much less ardent. But 
asi he loved solitude, so also he loved the 
open air, to sport upon the ocean, to 
breathe in the fresh gale of the waters, 
to bask in the sun, to climb stupendous 
mountains, to sit upon giddy precipices, 
and to explore savage countries, amid 
the energy of dangers, and the novelty 
of strange manners. 

A combination, therefore, of native ge- 
nius, accidental character, and extraor- 
dinary course of adventurous life, contri- 
buted to produce from Lord Byron 
poetical works such as centuries are not 
likely to see come forth again. 

It is probable that not one in tens of 
millions looks on nature with the same 
intense sensation of pleasure with which 
Lord Byron looked upon it : but if there 
are many, what avails it, unless they can 
convey the reflection of it to others with 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 189 

the same power and brilliancy with which 
Lord Byron conveyed it? That power, 
mainly native, was yet augmented by 
perpetual exertion and practice. Not 
only the powers of expression greatly 
increase by exercise, but the acuteness 
of observation also, and the consequent 
force of impression. In proportion to 
the nicety of our observation, we feel ; 
as we distinguish, we see new beauties ; 
as the \iew breaks itself into clearness, 
we see with more precision the harmony 
of all the parts. All tliis is apparent in 
the progressive compositions of LcH'd 
Byron. The energy of his spirit made 
him still persevere, amid distractions and 
disappointments, and the gloom of an 
embittered temper. 



140 LSTTBBS ON TUB 



LETTER XV. 

June 6. 

I DO not undertake to avoid repetitioiis 
in this enquiry into Lord Byron's genius : 
each day's discussion must be taken se- 
parate, and as a whole by itself; as 
representing the light in which the sub- 
ject appears to me the day in which it 
is written, 

I hear that the irritable passions which 
Lord Byron displayed in mixed society, 
at that period before his departure from 
England when he lived at all in the worId» 
made him very offensive, and sometimes 
very ridiculous. It is probable that the 
consciousness and shame of this was 
among the causes which made him seek 
and love soUtude. 

This irritability is an unfortunate thing 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 141 

for genius, but it is very comincHi : per- 
haps not in the same degree as Lord 
Byron had it, because Lord Byron's pas- 
sions were always more violent than 
those of other people. An early habit 
of mixing much in the world might have 
softened it; but then, probably, would 
have also had a strong effect in taming 
the energy of his genius. So it is, that 
good and evil is mixed in this world. 

** And what,'' says the heartless world- 
ling, ** should we have lost, if not one of 
^* Lord Byron^s poems had ever appeared? 
^ Poetry can never be more than an 
«« empty bauble of momentary amuse* 
*^ meat! It can at best do no good ; but 
^ if it is malignant or false, it may do 
^ much mischief.'' 

It is not necessary to answer in de- 
tail such mean and frivolous sarcasms. 
The solid use of poetry requires at this 
day no exposition ; and the value to the 
intellectual world, of such of Lord 



142 LETTERS ON THE 

Byron's poetry as is not overwhelmed 
by radical faults is so obvious, that to 
repeat the arguments on which it rests 
would be common-place. To encourage, 
by the force of brilliant fancy and power- 
ful language, a lively sense of the beau- 
ties of nature, and a habit of energetic 
and pure sentiment, is to add essential 
riches to the dignity and virtue of the 
best part of our being. 

But it may be answered, " Is it worth 
*^ the cost of insults and bitternesses com- 
" mitted by overbearing vanity and ofien- 
" sive pride ? What is there in Lord 
** Byron's poems which can repay this ?*' 

There are two replies to this : — ^rst^ 
the evils are confined to a few ; the good 
extended to many : — secondly ^ the evils, 
such as they are, may be avoided : it was 
not necessary for Lord Byron to go into 
general society ; and, latterly, he did not 

do it. 

Thus it is, then, in this life, that 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON, l^ 

lieeming evils* which we lamented as 
associating themselves with good, some- 
times become in fact aiiis to that very 
good. This very irritable temper so 
condemned, and so represented as a set- 
off^ probably very essentially contributed 
to drive Lord Byron into that solitude, 
where his great genius could be best 
nurtured and cultivated. 

I am firmly persuaded that whatever 
may be the moral benefits of a continual 
and wide mixture in society, that it very 
greatly and essentially damps tlie ima^- 
nation, and dilutes and enfeebles the ener- 
gies both of the heart and the mind. It 
may soften the temper, but it compromises 
our opinions and our principles. It is 
good for many ; but there are same to 
whom the evil of it outweighs tlie good ; 
and it is not improbable, that it might 
have been well for Lord Byron if he had 
never gone into society at alL 

There is a good passage in tlie Qfuir- 



144 LETTERS ON THE 

terly ReoieWj No. lix., Aprils 1824, p. 40«» 
(in the article on Rose's translation 
of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso^') in these 
words : — 

^< There are other indications of a just 

<< confidence in his own strength, which 

<* Ariosto discovers in common with the 

<^ early poets of most countries : for the 

<^ fact is, that such men write only be- 

<^ cause they feel the God struggling with- 

<< in them : Pfueln nondum patientes. 

<< It is for after ages to force those to be 

^< poets, by artificial excitements, whom 

" nature never endowed with the re- 

<< quisite gift;s. No one can read either 

" the OrlandOf or the Inferno^ without ad- 

<< miring the freshness, the vigour, the 

" originality of the pqptry. The only in- 

<< cense which such poets cast upon the 

<< altar are mascula thura. There may be a 

<< reckless disregard of propriety, grievous 

<< violations of what is now called taste (an 

^ idol that has unsinewed our style) ; but 






GENIUS OF LOftO BTRON. 145 

^ Domic mnd ArkMo were mmbitioas of 
^ conveying to the minds of others the 
impressions on their own, with force, 
penpicui^, mnd exactness; and to effect 
^ this, thejr cared not to stoc^ to the 
^ meanest images,'' &c. 

It is clear that Lord Byron also po^ 
seased these characteristics, in oomnum 
with the early poets, and with Dakte and 
Akjosto. I cannot feel certain that he 
would not have possessed them, if he had 
mixed more with society: but I think 
that he would not The invariable effect 
of* society is to destroy originality, to 
produce sameness, to obliterate distinc- 
tions* and to throw an air (rf* indiffisrence 
and languor over hearts naturally ardent 
and enthusiastic. Thus minds, like stones 
on the ses-shore rolled smooth by the 
perpetual working of the waves, lose all 
prominence of shape and form. 

It is by lonely musings, by feariess and 
unrecalled ezcursioDS in unbeaten paths, 



146 LETTERS OK THK 

that the vigour and novelty of greatness 
and individual undamped feeling is 
nursed and brought into day. 

It is dangerous for secondary minds 
to trust too much to solitude ;. their 
abstruse and undirected labours are apt to 
end in fantastic eccentricities; their ima^ 
gination, not strong enough to throw 
clear ami true lights on the objects of their 
thoughts, is apt to fall into obliquity, and 
bring forth baseless and discoloured in-* 
ventions. 

Such persons may do well by the aid 
of the perpetual infusion of the minds of 
others ; but they have not strength to go 
straight by their own power. 

Lord Byron had, probably, always a 
will of his own, because his feelings were 
always too decided to leave him a choice 
of following that of others. It is this 
which gives a directness, reality, and cer^ 
tainty, to all, or almost all, his poemis ; 
which rouses the attention, and gives 
him a mastery over his reader, so unlike 



G£MriUS OP LORD BTRON. 147 

the eflfect €f minor poetry, that always 
has more or less the character of afiect- 
atjon and emptiness, and always seems 
M>m€»thing merely plausible, flowery, and 
decorative. Lord Byron enters like a 
master-spirit, and always keeps his reader 
in awe, as if a being of a higher cast of 
endowment was dealing with him. The 
poet's impressions are actual impressions, 
and therefore operate as essences on those 
on whom they are reflected. 

I know not how it is that this intense 
susceptibility, either of outward images 
or inward sensations, is so very rare. It 
is true, that the susceptibili^ may exist, 
without the power of expressing its 
efllects ; but I do not think that it often 
doesy at least in this high degree. We do 
not see such violence, such irritation, 
audi active passion, as in Lord Byron. 

There seems to be implanted in human 
betngH, in a sort of mixed result of the 
bead and heart, an instinct of moral com- 

L « 



148 LETTERS ON THE 

science ; a something too rapid, too' sen- 
sitive, to be the result of reason, — of a 
mere operation of the understanding. B^t 
this varies in different persons, as much 
as any other qualities of the head, heart, 
temper, and form. I do not think that 
this was strong in Lord Byron : had it 
been stronger, it would have corrected 
the violence of many of his imprrasions ; 
and if it had softened and mellowed many 
features of his poetry, it would have 
damped and weakened others. Perhaps 
no other instance can be named, of one 
who, with such excessive susceptibility, 
had so little of this instinct, and yet was 
endowed with so much sense of grandeur 
and beauty, such a perception of all th^ 
excellences and all the niceties of poetry, 
such a fondness for meditation, such an 
acuteness of intellect, such a profound 
penetration into the recesses of the human 
mind and human bosom. 

Providence, for its own inscrutable 



G£N1US OF LORD BTRON. 149 

purposes, suflfers these strange contradic- 
tions in our fhul being ; but it has scarcely 
ever exhibited them in so striking a 
d^ree as in Lord Byron. The moral r^ 
suit of this extraordinary union would 
seem, to our bounded minds, calculated 
to produce prejudicial and pernicious ef^ 
fecto. It would seem to show, that the 
gifts we are taught to admire and venerate 
are not incompatible with an insensibility 
to moral principles, and a reckless in- 
dulgence of 6erce and destructive paa- 
aioDs ; a defiance of the happiness of 
others, and a gratification of s^ without 
any regard to the consequences to society. 
It is impossible that this appalling coun- 
teipoise should not lessen our respect for 
genius, and chill our emulation to follow 
in its steps. It gives a vast advantage of 
attack to the numerous part of mankind, 
who were already sufficiently disposed to 
decry the noble pursuits of intellectual 
ambition : it refreshes and gives impulse 

L 3 



150 LETTERS ON THE 

to those common-place railleries which 
had begun to lose their point and to be 
worn out ; and it turns the high-minded 
refinements of poetry into a jest for the 
hard, cold, cautious, laborious reasoner, 
who deems eloquence an empty sound, 
and imagination a deluding vapour ! At 
the same time it holds out a brilliant 
and attractive example for those who 
have nothing of genius but its extra- 
vagance, and nothing of sensibility but 
its vice. 

If poetry does not soften our manners, 
and dulcify our hearts ; if it aggravates 
misanthropy, and nurtures the poison of 
unrelenting revenge and venomous bit- 
terness at every injury, and offence, real 
or supposed ; how assailable does it make 
itself to its enemies, and how indefens- 
ible to its friends ! 

If I could not have the poetry of Lord 
Byron without the cost of his countervail- 
ing objections, I would still desire to have 



GENIUS OP LORD BTKON. 151 

it in spite of the price. But was this coun- 
terbalance inseparable ? I am afiraid, that 
it was intertwined so deeply, that the 
separation was scarcely possible. I do not 
think that more modified energies would 
have produced it Habits of modification 
tend to caution and to timidity. Tliere 
is a responsibility which enchains vigouTt 
and Hits heavy upon hope. No being loves 
liberty like the Muse : but it may be said, 
that she ought not to love licentiousness I 
She musty however, be left to exercise the 
one or the other at her peril. Unfortun« 
ately, in Lord Byron's case, she sometimes 
passed the bounds ; less often, however, 
than is supposed, except in Den Juan^ 
and the Vision qf Judgment. 

There is a fervour in some mindsi of 
which the fire cannot always be directed* 
but operates equally to good and to evil : 
but then in Lord Byron it was a native 
fire, not aided by the fanning of any 
factitious power. 

L 4 



15it LETTERS ON THE 

All combinations which the imi^uuu 
tion makes by rule and force j all wlucb 
do not rise of thenuelvesy and thus 
become actual eiqperiences ; are mme or 
less fantastic^ and partake of the cha- 
racter of pretension or simulation. And 
this always diminishes thdr weight or 
solidity, and the interest which it is re- 
quisite should attach to them. The reader 
seems to be trifled with, when that which 
is presented to him does not appear to 
have issued from the poet's own persua- 
sion, and a resistless dominion over his 
beliefl 

If there be any improbability in the 
stories of the Corsair ^ Lara^ the Giaour j 
&c., we still cannot doubt they are such 
as Lord Byron's mind believed probable ; 
and such as it delighted his imagina- 
tion to contemplate in actual existence. 
Tliey, therefore, breathe all animati<m 
and life, as if he was describii^ real- 



GENIUS or LORD BTRON. 15S 

ities. Whmt mn author feigns by arti- 
fice and eflfort cannot dther bum or 
breathe: it must be form and matter 
without souL 

But there may be life, —yet a skkfy 
sort of life,— in which there is a vast 
abundance of the falsetto ; a sort of fac- 
titious sentiment, in which the coarser 
practical passions affect to put on a 
flowery disguise of delicate sensibility ; 
in which what is grossly sensual hypocri- 
tically pretends to cover itself with the 
garb of refinement,- and, therefore, is 
infinitely more pernicious than if it used 
broad terms. 

I cannot think that Lord Byron's most 
licentious passages are half so dangerous 
to morals as these ! — The highly vision- 
ary state, to which a more intense and 
more vigorous imagination elevates the 
mind, bears it up above the reach of low 
and sensual contagion ; it carries it into 



154 



LETTERS ON THE 



regions of purer air, where it drinks 
the nectar of inspiration, and bathes itr 
self in that which will not so well mix 
with the impurities of earth. 



CtNIUS or LORD BYBON. 15^ 



LETTER XVI. 

June 7. 

I WILL here endeavour to make a sum- 
mary of the poetical character of Lord 
Bvron. 

I must take poetry to be that which 
Eihcard Phillips (the nephew of Milton) 
takes it to be ; viz. an illustraiion or em- 
bodimeni qf some important moral truths 
not drawn from individuaUty^ hut created 
hff the imagination^ Inf combining^ with 
taste and judgment^ ingredients selected 
from the stores qf the fancy. 

A strict fulfilment of the whole of this 
definition would constitute the highest 
sort of poetry. There is certainly very 
beautijiil poetry which in one or two 
points may fall short of this : such, for 
iuhtaocct as poetry which does not em- 



156 LETTERS ON THE 

body an important moral truth ; but then 
it must be a truth, if not in a comprehen- 
sive sense, yet in a partial view, — in 
outward appearance^ and in the view 
of the passions. 

We know that to execute such a task 
must require a large portion of all the 
faculties and energies of the mind ifancji 
to collect the materials; sensHdUty of 
heart to supply the requisite emotions 
which ought to be associated with them ; 
observation of life to show the course of 
human actions ; understanding and jtid^- 
tnent to trace things to tlieir conse- 
quences, and teach final results; wiagt- 
nation to combine, embody, animate, and 
put into action ; language to express ade- 
quately what the mind conceives; and 
industry and spirit to exert all these 
united powers. 

All these, except the judgment which 
penetrated to final consequences. Lord 
Byron seems to have possessed in an 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. 157 

eminent d^^ree : his defect is, that liis 
truths are partial and detached. . Minor 
poets do not represent truth at all, or 
the truths they represent are stale, flat, 
and insignificant 

When our imagination acts upon the 
impulse of our passions, it always paints 
things in stronger colours than reality. 
This is a property of our nature. It is 
wellt therefore, that our passions should 
be virtuous and pure : otherwise, imagi- 
nation under their influence will em- 
hMshJabehood rather than truih. 

Lord Byron represented things in 
those Rowing natural colours, in wiiich 
they always appear to a rich imagination 
placed in similar circumstances, operating 
on a similar sensibility. And these were 
inveniUms^ in which he dealt; not the 
mere reflections of his fancy. If they 
had been the latter^ they must have be- 
longed to an inferior class. 

In what be didt therefore, be ap- 



1.58 LETTERS OH THE 

proached to perfection as a poet» with 
the single exception I have made. His 
imaginations were genuine imaginations 
in spirit and essence : they were brilliant, 
beautiful, fiery, and sometimes grand; 
and they are expressed with a transpa* 
rency, an eloquence, a vigour, which show 
that he was carried forward by a true in- 
spiration. They were inventions illustra- 
tive of what his passions and opinions 
dictated to him to be most attractive and 
gratifying. They represent nature, there- 
fore, though under a particular but 
glowing face. 

I know not how it is, but the common 
mode in which poets invent is different. 
They do not invent to illustrate any truth 
or supposed truth, but they invent with- 
out reference to either * of these : they 
have nothing either of individual or 
general nature in their view ; but they 
select particulars which will not combine, 
according to the whim which induces 
them to prefer one to another separ- 



GENIUS OF LORD BYHON. 159 

ately, —and thus there is no unity, no life, 
no nature, in their combinations. They 
put together things which will not amalga- 
mate, but rather disgust by their apparent 
discordancy. They must be, because 
they either have no native imagination, 
or refuse to follow the lights of a native 
imagination. 

The human mind, I suspect, is never 
fiilly impressed with a general truth or 
maxim, without forming to itself some 
imagined example, in which it contem- 
plates its operation. A poet possesses 
this faculty and habit, both in its d^pree 
of animation, and in the dignified choice 
of* objects, more strongly than any other ; 
and it is by cultivating it in this manner, 
and for this purpose, that he can best 
perform his function in conveying both 
pleasure and knowledge, and in raising 
his art to the lofliest place amid the 
fruits of the human intellect. 

As this is the most simple, so it is the 



160 LETTERS OH THE 

most easy for those who have the genuine 
endowments; while they who have not 
the genuine endowments ought never t» 
touch the lyre. 

I cannot forget that one .of Lofd 
Byron's longest and most celetnitfied 
poems is a delineation of local and partis 
cular scenery: I mean Childe HarokL 
It is quite impossible, that, vith any re- 
gard to principles^ this poem can cimtend 
in rank with his poetical innentions. I 
am aware that the public does not seem 
inclined to make this distinction. It 
seems solely to consider the brilliancy i^ 
the image reflected, whether it be a 
created or inventive image, or one di- 
rectly derived from some actual external 
impression. 

I do not say that it is a difference of 
any import to the reader, provided the 
image be equally brilliant and equally 
beautiful ; but it imports much, as fiur as 
r^ards the power of the poet. It may. 



OENIUB OF LORD BTRON. l6l 

however, be observed, that tius praciso ib 
tcmrcely ever fulfilled. It can hardly 
happen that it is equally brilliant and 
equally beautifuL In that which is a 
copy, there is always more or less <^ ser- 
vility and constraint This is apparent 
in several of the local descriptions in 
the CUUe Harold of Lord Byron. They 
have not the freedom and fire of the de- 
scriptioos in the Corsair^ Moif/redf &c. 

It will be contended, that they have 
mare truih : but this is not the case ; 
they have not more general truth, nor 
even so much. What is accidentally and 
jmtiviAta^ true, is often the reverse of a 
general truth* 

In some respects, the same kind of 
poetical &culty is requisite to d e scribe 
both these qualities df objects : the sanoe 
skill in selection of circumstances is ne- 
cessary in painting what actually exists, 
as in painting what is imagined; the 
same niosty of lights and shades ; the 



I6i LETTERS ON THE 

first, according to the qiudtty of tbdr 
matter ; and, secondly, accordingto their 
execution. 

The imagery is often of the most ex* 
quisite cast of poetry ; conceived with 
intensity of force, and expressed with 
intensity of feeling ; created with that 
magical strength which bespeaks even 
ie^iUusion at the moment of describing 
it Standing thus detached and separ- 
ated from the incidents with which it is 
elsewhere involved, and which tend to 
lead the mind into a dangerous acquv* 
escence in the union of imcompatible 
qualities, this imagery is beautifidly or 
magnificently perfect ; for thus partialbf 
viewed, it has truth, in addition to all its 
other poetical excellences. To doubt the 
poetical genius of sucli^a man, is to doubt 
the heat of the sun, or the beauty of na- 
ture, or the fragrance of flowers ! Faults 
without end, absurdities and follies, and 



G£NIU8 OF LORD BYRON. 165 

impurities and crimes^ could not effikre 
these breathing and inspired beautiest 

Lord Byron's imaginaHon was more 
noble, more beautiful, more pur^ than 
the observations of his tmderstoiuUng 
were generous, kind, and correct, or 
his passions towards society amiable 
or virtuous. In the visions of imagine* 
tion he beheld and felt what was grand, 
benevolent, fiur, and tender : when he 
looked upon life he saw with a jaundiced 
eye ; he saw and felt bitterness, injustice^ 
and wrong, and yielded to the dominioo 
of \ice^ rather than of goodness. This 
may account for the opposition which 
there is between the beauties and the 
faults of his poetry : a struggle between 
his pyre imagination, and his oiker im- 
agination, which drew its ingredients 
from the stores of his observation and 
experience among mankind. 

If there be a disposition to be vision- 
ary, the same disposition very commonly 

M S 



166 LETTERS ON THE 

leads to a disregard, and perhaps disgust 
of reality, as flat, coarse, and dissatisfac- 
tory. This incident is the usual bane of 
the poef s happiness ; it makes him me- 
lancholy, indignant, and often misan- 
thropic ; it not only puts him out of hu- 
mour with the world, but it puts the 
world out of humour with him ; it in- 
duces the world to vilify his art, and 
calumniate his character and person ; and 
gives it the pretence to all^e that 
poetry is but the irritator of the passiom^ 
and the handmaid of those delusions 
which it is the business of wisdom to tear 
away. 



(iENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 167 



LETTER XVII. 

'^I HKRE has prevailed in poetry, at various 
periods, a fiuhion, which commenced 
many centuries ago, of illustrating or em- 
bodying moral truths by an allegorical 
persom/icaiian qf abstract ideas. Tliis^ 
when carried to any length, is always 
tedious and dry ; and often perplexed, or 
mixed up with absurdities. Even the 
genius of Spenser could not preserve it 
from these defects. 

In later times Collins and Gray brought 
it into fashion, in short lyrical pieces; 
but their imitators surfeited the public 
with it, and drove the next generation to 
resort again to simpler narrative, and the 
more natural and more lively interest 
springing from the representation of hu- 
man beings in action. In the Ode to 

u 4 



168 JLETTER8 ON TI1£ 

Fear^ to Pity^ to the Passions^ to Adver- 
sity ^ &c., we admire the nicety and spirit- 
uality of the conception, the genius in 
the choice of attributes, and the ha{^ 
ness, the force, and the harmony of the 
language ; but still we want a little more 
of the purple stream of material li£^ the 
glow of veins, the breath of human exist- 
ence, the grace of visible Ibrm, and the 
energy of passion operating on substan^ 
tial imagery. 

I think these are requisites which may 
fairly be demanded by the most higfaly- 
gifled and highly-polished taste ; but it 
cannot be wonderful that they should be 
demanded by the multitude : — r- it if won- 
derful that the multitude could ever have 
relished these allegorical descriptions^ for 
which a preparation of speculative and 
almost metaphysical thought, not at all 
Adapted to common capacities and com- 
mon pursuits, would seem necessary. In 
£ict, I do not believe that the multitude 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 1(>9 

e%*er did relish them: it echoed what 
it was the fi^hion of its superiors to 
praise ; but it echoed it heartlessly and 
without sympathy. At that time, the 
mind of every dull and ignorant person 
was not set free, and encouraged to 
thinkt judge, and taste for itself. 

It is to the change operated on the hu- 
man mind by the French Revolution, that 
we must attribute much of the very op- 
posite fitthion in poetry that soon follow- 
ed. Some of the chains that were then 
unloosed were well unloosed ; but in set> 
ting free those who ought no/ to be bounc^ 
it also set free great numbers mhorequired 
bonds. Liberty soon grew into licen- 
tiousness ; and all sorts of absurdities 
were oommittedby those who had not the 
qualities to be trusted to their own wiUs» 
To go from one eictreme to another, its 
opposite, seeflbs to be a frailty to which 
the imperfection of humanity is invaiv 
ably destiDttl From thot. theffefera> 



170 LETTERS ON THE 

which was too abstract^ over-refined, and 
spiritual, the writers and readers of poetry 
now plunged into the very thick of coarse 
and rude society, and drank at the cup of 
inspiration furnished by tlie energy of the 
uncultivated mob. 

It seems to me that this arose, on the 
part of the men of genius who encouraged 
it, from a misapprehension of the nature 
of the defects in the discarded school <^ 
poetry, which required to be amended* 
The want of deep energy and interest did 
not arise from the over-polish of the ma- 
terials hitherto used ; but from their m- 
trinsic quality ; from their mere spirituality 
and abstractedness. 

If man were all he is by nature, and 
nothing by culture, then I can conceive 
that in Xhe energies of savage life we 
might find the best subjects of poetry. 
But Providence has ordained that we 
should do much for ourselves ; and diat 
as man is to get his bread by the sweat of 



GENIUS or LORD BYRON. 171 

his brow, so he is to bring forth the fruits 
of the mind by equal labour. 

There is, however, in the uniformity of 
a state of manners very highly polished 
a sort of faintness and tameness, which is 
very inimical to the force of colours and 
of feelings requisite to glowing poetry. 

I know not whether Lord Byron had 
clearly conceived in his mind these con- 
flicting difficulties, and taken his choice 
on the deliberate dictate of his judgment 
thus exercised. It is more probable that 
an intuitive impulse directed hinu But he 
seems to have chosen well a line fitted to 
escape from these contending obstacles. 
In the subjects he adoptedy taken from 
countries remote from our own ; of man- 
ners wikl and fi'ee, yet associated with all 
our ideas of early refinement and das* 
sical taste ; he was at liberty to unite the 
most splendid energies with the most ex- 
quisite imaginings of cultivated literature. 
And he has often succeeded to a degree 



173 LETTERS ON THE 

which, the more we reflect upon it, wi& 
the more excite om* surprise and admira* 
tion. In him are to be Ibund the highest 
flights of poetical invention combined 
with all the intensity of human passions^ 
and all the palpitating interests of our 
frail earthly composition : in him are to 
be found the far-piercing visionary oon- 
ceptions, reached only by the profundity 
of thought, led on by the light of tht 
most polished literature, in union with 
those unchastised and unchilled energies^ 
which it has been supposed could only 
exist among the artless and the rude. 

I know not that Lord Byron deals any 
where in rude and uncultivated nature ; 
nor does he any where omit to exerdae 
the understanding as well as the imagimb* 
tion. In truth, I have never yet found 
a poet of deep interest, whose imagina- 
tion was not enriched, directed, and conr 
trouled, by a powerful understandingf 
and where the understanding did not 



GENIUS or LORD BYRON. 17$ 



fbnn an important ingredient in the qua* 
Itty of his mventians. I do not much 
value a poem which solely exercises the 
imagination, without touching the heart 
or informing the understanding. 

It is not improbable that, at another 
aera of society, Lord Byron would not 
Imve ventured to have treated the same 
topics, or, at least, to have treated them 
in the same manner ; for we do not find 
the greatest genius entirely above the in- 
fluence of his age. Lord Byron was one 
who could not go well in trammels : while 
kept down by forms, he would have ap- 
peared but a common writer. 

Thus it was that men set him the ex- 
ample of emancipation, who could not 
use it as he used it ; men whom it con- 
ducted only into absurdities, while it led 
km into a dispUy of the most extraordi- 
nary genius. It led him sometimes, per- 
haps, to trust his own understanding too 
much on subjects on which he had had 



174 LETTERS ON THE 

no opportunity to enquire and to medi- 
tate, and tempted him to the views 
taken rather by his passions than his rea< 
son : but still the lights he reflected were 
those in which things actually appeared to 
him ; and in this narrow sense, therefore, 
were true representations. When erro^ 
neouSf they still had many of the tints <^ 
truth, and all its earnestness and free- 
dom from affectation. No fidse ingre- 
dient ever enters into them ; though some 
true ones may be wanting to produce the 
just result. 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 1J5 



LETTER XVIII. 



June 9. 



Man is bom with a capacity which en- 
ables him and impels him to form out of 
the materials presented to his senses 
something more beautiful than reality. 
This capacity is imagination : — it is the 
food of hope, and the inspirer of all noble 
and . refined sentiments ; and it is the 
poet's function to embody these visionary 
pictures; to convey them to weaker minds 
in more palpable shapes, and more glow- 
ing colours ; and to assist tliem in the 
birth of tliose sentiments and reflections 
to which tliey are fitted to give rise. 

The productions of the genuine poet 
are the fruit and flowers of nature cul- 
tivated by his labour and skill : those of 
tlie talse poet are artificial ; they are die 
fabrics of his own hand, made to imiiaie 



17^ IXTTUS OS THE 

the growth of nature^ but without life 
or ftagrance. 

Lofd Bttoq was nerer known to pro- 
duce artificial flowers instead of real 
ones : he sometinies produced weeds, and 
DOW and then flowers and firuits wfaidi 
were /iofsoiioatt» but always the vigorous 
growth of nature. 

There is something very grand in that 
fiunilty, which can thus form to itself a rich 
creation of its own ; yet still preserving 
verisimUijf to nature, — and therefore 
calling forth the sympathy of all highly 
endowed minds. 

Lord Byron enjoyed with an inexpres- 
sible fervour the magnificent and ev^* 
varying shapes which the scenery of the 
earth displays to those who will explore 
it, and he found his imagination con- 
stantly refreshed and exerted to new 
movements by it ; and the fertility of his 
understanding, and the activity and 
strength of his feelings, always enriched 



OBMIU8 OF LORD BYRON. 177 

Qitterial appearances with powerful in- 
tellectual aasociations. 

Such a perpetual tumult of violent 
emotions as that in which Lord Byron 
ii%'ed perhaps contributed to shorten his 
existence: it was a fever which had 
a direct tendency to wear him out; 
and weakened him for the attack of 
any accidental illness, which thus be- 
came irresistible. If there be any one 
who is not affected and awed by so sud- 
den a dissolution of so many extraor- 
dinary endowments ; of gifts of nature 
so %'ery brilliant ; of acquisitions so un- 
likely to recur ; of such a fund of images 
and sentiments; and observations, and 
reflections, and opinions, so matured, 
so polished, and so habituated to be 
ready to pour themselves forth to the 
world on every occasion ; he must be 
a creature totally insensible and stupidly 
indifferent to all those instinctive sym- 
pathies which make us regard with af- 

N 




178 I.ETTEE8 ON THE 

fection and pride the intellectiial and 
more dignified part of our being. He 
who is himself feeble in intellect is yet 
^T:ommonly €X)nscious of its value ; he li* 
mires and viev^ with awe the high ia 
talent ; he envies, and would desire te 
possess what is thus denied to him ; he 
may not adequately admire the brilliancy 
of the prospect, when the sun lights it 
up ; but be feels a deep chill and loos of 
pleasure when the sun retires, and leaves 
all before him an indistinct mass of 
darkness. Lord Byron was often, in truth, 
a sun that lighted up the landscapes of 
the earth, and penetrated into the hu- 
man heart, and surrounded its altar with 
beams of brightness. 

His death is an awful dispensaticm of 
Providence, and humbles the pride of 
man's ambition, and of his self-estim»> 
tion. In the eye of Providence those 
powers we estimate so loftily must be as 
nothing, or we cannot persuade ourselves 



G£NIU8 OP LORD BYRON. 179 

they would be thus suddenly cut off be* 
fiire their time. 

But to owr narrow ken, the splendid 
genius of Lord Byron must still be con- 
adered of mighty import Yet it is the 
iiite|MurabIe lot of man ** not to know 
M the full value of a treasure till it is 
*^ taken firom us." Highly as we admired 
Lord Byroo in his life, we shall admire 
him, if posable, infinitely more, now that 
he \a gone. Variety will not make 
aoMods for intenseness in particular 
paths: but Lord Byron had both un- 
equalled variety and intenseness in alL 
He had not only the supremacy of a sub- 
lime, sombre, melancholy, mysterious 
imagination; but he had an inexhaustible 
fund of wit and humour, and a most pre- 
dae and minute knowledge (^ all the 
details of common life ; a familiarity with 
all its habits and expressions; a lively 
and perfect insight into all its absurdi- 
ties ; and a talent of exposing them, so 

s i 




180 LETTERS ON THE 

practised, so easy, and so happy, that it 
miglit be supposed he had never wan- 
dered into the visionary, and never oc- 
cupied himself with any thing but die 
study of the follies of man in fiimiliir 
society. The alternate and opposite 
ability of throwing off the incumbrance 
of all d^rading circumstances fitxn 
imagery, which is the characteristic of 
the higher poetry, and thai of brihgkig 
Jbrih those very set-ofis for the purposes 
of degradation, seems to require such 
contrary habits of attention, as well as of 
temper and feeling, that they have been 
scarcely ever united in the same person. 
Nor is it much less extraordinary, that in 
this, as in his graver imagination, all is 
faithful to nature : there is no exagger- 
ation ; the points selected for his wit and 
humour are sketched with admirable ex- 
actness ; nay, the surprising likeness is 
one of the great attractions of this comic 
painting. 



GENIUS or LOEO BT&ON. 181 

This exquisite keenness in the survey 
of* the hiMMUi character must have con* 
Iributedt as wdl as Lord Bgrron^a fiercer 
fssions, to make mixed sodelgr crflen 
uneasy to him. He must have seen too 
much of what was veiled to common 
eyes ; he must have seen too plainly the 
WMrkiags of* envy, jeaiousy» hate, mean- 
ness, and foUy ; he must have pierced dis- 
guises in a moment* and lost all interest 
in what appeared aUracihe to others^ but 
kolhwto him. 

He who can thus have things at his 
command, and can in solitude wield them 
at his will, may well prefer the mode of 
life in which his genius may work most 
freelv. Such tiurulties must have been 
impeded in company ; and the time thus 
spent must have been lost Perhaps it 
was good for the vigour of his mind, and 
the poetical fruits he gave to the world, 
that he passed so much of his time, after 
arriving at manhood, in foreign coun- 
tries. It is not so easy for a man of u 



182 LETTERS ON THE 

certain rank to live in sc^tiide in his 
own country : be cannot do so without 
being liable to mortificaticHis and miscon* 
ceptions which tend to chill his spirit, 
and diminish his self-complacence: — 
there is, besides, the hope of novelty and 
animation of adventure in locomotion 
and change of countries. The ckoice of 
countries and climates also is a great 
advantage; as it may involve the supe- 
riority of striking scenery, and of a genial 
sun. 

It did do so in Lord Byron's case, 
when he chose Spain, Portugal, Switzcsr- 
land, Italy, and Greece. I cannot doubt 
that a genial sun and sublime scenery 
contribute to the wannth and vigour 
of genius. The poetry of every country 
has always partaken of the character of 
the climate. A thousand causes go to 
set the imagination in motion: it will 
not act when damped and clouded by 
dulness : it requires an energy of spirit, 



GKNlUfi OP LORD BYKON. 183 

a thrsliiietts of impulse, a beam of hope, 
aiid a sense of enjoyment, or, at least, of 
high susceptibility, and tremulous move- 
ment« 

It is singular that the very great de- 
gree of excitement, both of intellect and 
passion,- in which Lord Byron lived, 
should never have proceeded to mental 
derangement. I think that his mind was 
kept sound by the variety of his Acui- 
ties, and by the strength of his intellect, 
which operated as a counterpoise to the 
violence of his imagination. His elasti- 
city of talent was more striking than can 
be instanced in any other genius. 

Lord Byron may have talked as much 
as he would of his defiance of fame and 
crlebrity: he would not have written 
with the daring and hi^py energy with 
which he has written, except under the 
nurturing and creative warmth of public 
admiration : all that ease and boldness 
of conception, by which he seems in 

N 4 



184 LETTERS ON THE 

m 

very carelessness to attain his highest 
beauties, would never otherwise have 
been ventured to be indulged in. Dis- 
couragement and fear would never have 
reached such freedom and vigour of 
power. Labour, care, art, diffidence 
never yet reached it The attraction is 
in the mastery, — in the dominion over 
his subject, and over his readers. 

This sort of intellectual empire is the 
most gratifying of all others to the spirit 
of man, — at least to the spirit of a 
noble-hearted man ! It is sufficient to 
create that impulse which is in itself al- 
most powerful enough to generate genius. 

Did then Lord Byron abuse his endow- 
ments ? As there were other causes to 
embitter his heart and his temper, it must 
be admitted that he did sometimes re- 
venge them by a licentious use of his 
genius. 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 185 



LETTER XIX. 

June la 

I HAVE made an allusion to Don Juatip 
in pp. 289, 240. of Coningsby (1819); 
and I still retain identically the same 
opinion of that strange but most elo- 
quent, as well as most humorous, poem. 
It is» no doubt, very licentious in parts, 
which renders it dangerous to praise it 
very much ; and makes it improper for 
those who have not a cool and correct 
judgment, and cannot separate the ob- 
jectioQable parts from the numerous 
beautiful passages intermixed. But no 
where is the poet's mind more elastic, 
free, and vigorous, and his knowlege of 
human nature more surprising. 

I cannot help recurring to the charac- 
teristic in which the superiority of I^rd 
Byron is always uninterruptedly display- 



186 LETTEBlS ON THE 

ing itself': — this is, the genuineness of his 
imaginatiou, which is always a picture of 
existences, either material or visionary; 
whereas almost all other poets, — at least 
all not of the very highest class, — deal 
principally iq the imagination, or poetry, 
of mere words. 

It is in vain that the cold-hearted, the 
cold-headed, and the stupid, would 
decry, as empty and useless, this mighty 
faculty, this imagination which creates 
existences whether spiritual or repre- 
sentative of matter. These existences 
form as much a part of the mortal being 
of those on whom nature has conferred 
active and warm intellects, as the earth 
and its produce, whether animate or in- 
animate. The properties of matter are 
not the only properties fitted to give 
pleasure or satisfaction to man. Every 
thing is more or less what the mind makes 
it. It is, therefore, in the power of the 
brilliant poet to create all the best enjoy* 



GBNIU9 OP LOUD OYRON. 187 

meiilH of our terrestrial abode ; to mul- 
tiply, to refine, and to change the very 
nature of our pleasures here. To what- 
e%'er occasional excess this may be carried, 
however it may sometimes disease the 
mind, and, by awakening too much sen- 
sibility, disqualify it for some of the 
coarser, yet not less necessary, duties of 
life, still these occasional abuses can by 
no means counterbalance its uses. There 
may be mwie to whom it may be dan- 
leerous or pernicious food ; some who, 
destined to perfomi mean functions and 
low coqx>real labours, would be ren- 
clered unhappy by more sensibility of 
ftocy or expanse of intellect But it 
night as well be contended that all ranks 
of society should have the hard hand and 
mmteular arm of a day*labourer, as that 
they should have his coarse thoughts, and 
kis material understanding. 

To hejimiasiic is as mischievous a.s it 
IS tbolish; but true imagination can 



188 LETTEUS ON THE 

always be infallibly distinguished by the 
test of the sympathy it excitfiB. We 
wonder at what is fantastic ; we embfaoe 
as an intinuUe what is just ; we persuade 
ourselves that we have perceived and felt 
the same ; and we are elevated in our 
own estimation at these kindred impres- 
sions with genius. Aflfectation always 
relies on its singularUgf: genuiiie power 
on its sympathy. 

To describe what others have described, 
— not to consult the movements of the 
heart, or the observations of the mind, 
but the memory^ — is so much easier for 
artificial faculties, that we cannot be sur- 
prised that it is generally practised. Thus 
the same ground is tilled over and over 
again, till its strength and essence are 
exhausted ; while richer soils are lefl 
totally uncultivated and untouched. 

Lord Byron brings his vigorous powers 
into the field ; and wherever he throws his 
magic hand, rich flowers and fruits oi 



OBNIUft OP LORD BTRON. 189 

fresh flavour spring up in inexhaustible 

abuiuiaiice. The reader wonders tliat 

fields of Mich fertility have never been 

pierced bafore ; and begins to think it is 

the magician's spell, that can turn every 

thing it handles into gold. In trutli, 

what cannot genius, thus energetic and 

tiroag, and thus practised, perform? 

Knowlei^lieb deep thought, and glowing 

sentiment, hang on every trifle, and 

iwarm round the leaves of every tree, 

dirubt and flower. 

Wherever Lord Byron has given any 
images, sentiments, or thoughts as his 
own, thore is no reason to suqiect that 
he has imputed to them more ibrce than 
his own mind and bosom bore witness to. 
H therefore, there are to be found in 
his numerous poems frequent passages of 
noble thoughts and generous and affect- 
ing feelings, they are such as on those 
occasions must have been tlie inmates of* 
his own soul and hearL They show 



190 LETTERS ON THE 

themselves by their freshness and nature 
never to be put on, — never worn as a 
dress. 

Lord Byron was himself the beine of 
imagination, whose character breaks out 
in all his writings : his life was that of 
the wild magical spirit, of which the 
feelings, the adventures, and the eccen- 
tricities, astonish and enchant us ia his 
inventions. The public notoriety of this 
makes us receive much from himy which 
in others might be deemed exaggerated 
and over- wrought. A character and life 
so singular will always add interest to 
the writings of the poet. Another mode 
of life might possibly have produced 
poetry not less fiill of power, but it 
would not have been the same sort of 
power : — it might have had more so- 
briety and regularity ; it would not have 
had the same raciness, and, probably, not 
the same originality and force : it would 
have left all the ground untouched where 



GEKIUt OF LORD BTRON. 191 

Lord ByixMi has shown most genius and 

■MMrt Dovehjr* and upon which no one is 

likely to follow him. If he has done 

wrong; if the evil parts overiMilance the 

goodt so much the worse for the value 

of hb genius. But do they overbalance 

the good ? It is not evil to detect and 

eipoae hypocrisy ; it is not evil to pierce 

the disguise of meretricious love; and 

the picture which renders it ridiadous 

will avail beyond a thousand thundering 

leriDons! 

But they who are angry with the fbul- 
aeas of the prurient curiosity that detects, 
would not scruple to be guilty of the 
crime detected ! Such pictures are, in- 
deed, a compound of good and ill : they 
amy corrupt some innocent minds, while 
they may check in their course of vice 
others already corrupted. But this is a 
great set<rtf to the objections even of 
some of the least defensible parts of* Lord 
Byron's works. 



192 



LETTERS ON THE 



There is a very doubtful good in be- 
lieving the mass of mankind much more 
virtuous than they are, and thus in- 
creasing the success of hypocrisy and in- 
sincerity. If they are represented worse, 
the falsehood of the representation will 
recoil upon the autlior. 



OKNIU8 OF LORD BYRON. 193 



LETTER XX. 

June II. 

Ir I could ' believe that the sentiments 
which a poet had expressed in his writings, 
and which formed their principal attrac- 
tion, were such as he disclaimed in 
private, or turned into ridicule, whether 
from the heart, or from affectation, I 
should cease to have any admiration 
either of the man or of the writings, 
however strongly I might have felt 
admiration before I knew of this insin- 
cerity. But though I hate affectation, I 
would prefer that the ridicule should be 
aflected, rather than the sentiments afl 
fccted 

There are men who would be good, if 
they had the timmess to withstand the 
infection of tlie example of otliers; — men 

who caoDot resist, when in society, to do 

o 



194 LETTERS ON THE 

as Others do, and to affect to think as 
others think ; and who, by a strange in- 
fatuation, pretend to the vices which 
they abhor; who are afhdd of being 
thought more pure and scrupulous than 
others, and, therefor^ put on the air of 
selfish worldlings. 

In the closet their spirits and senti- 
ments recover the right tone, and there 
they are themselves again. But, unfor- 
tunately, the reverse of this is also often 
true; for in some the character which 
shows itself in society is the true, and 
that which displays itself in the closet is 
the afiected. And when the affectation 
is once known, one is apt to lay the affect- 
ation to the side of purity and virtue. 
A nice distinguisher, who sees them both 
in operation, may decide rightly ; but in 
common cases doubt must intervene, and 
destroy all confidence. 

I never could understand by what obli- 
quity of mind a man could reconcile to 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 19<5 

liiiinelf to be in the constant habit of 
holding out to the public that which in 
private he laughed at and despised. If 
true, why laugh at it ? if false, why hold 
it out to the public, as a noble course of 
nentiment and thought, and as a subject 
of admiration ? Does he justify himself 
by such arguments as the following : — **l 
** know that things are not in fact so, and, 
** therefore, among my intimate and en- 
** lightened friends I will not pretend to 
** think them so; but the silly public may 
^ be gulled ; and as the cheat may be be- 
^ nefictal to public morals, I will do what 
•* I can to help it on/* 

There are some depraved minds which 
glory in nothing so much as in the inge- 
nuity with which they can delude the 
public. Surely this is but a higher 
species 6[ Mvindling! The heart must be 
in a similar state of corruption with that 
of the nfhuUer f The face must always 

o « 



196 LETTERS ON THE 

wear an equal disguise, and falsehood 
must equally dwell upon the lips. 

I can hardly imagine to myself a baser- 
minded person, than one who places all 
the charm of his public productions upon 
delicacy and tenderness of sentiment, 
and who in private feels and shows ex- 
treme contempt for those who have what 
he deems the folly to indulge and act 
upon such delicacy and tenderness in real 
life. Yet I know that such characters 
are very common j but I persuade myself 
that there are always marks of the de- 
ception in their ven/ rvriiings. I have 
never yet seen reason to doubt about the 
tests of sincerity : false pretension and 
affected goodness are always laboured, 
over-ornamented, over-refined, over-po- 
lished, and far-sought : they meet the ear, 
and look glittering to the eye, but never 
touch the heart. 

There is an earnestness, a freshness, a 
carelessness, a rapidity, even a violence. 



G£N1US OF LORD BYRON. 197 

in what is sincere: the sentiment and) 
thought completely predominate over the 
language, — and words break out which 
identity themselves with the peculiar cha* 
ncter of the writer. 

'riiere are mechanical artists and false 
conjurers in poetry, as in every thing 
eke, who operate their wonders on the 
public mind by mere ingenious trick : but 
the trickery and the reputation of such 
permns explode with time y they catch a 
»hort-lived attention, and then grow flat 
and wearisome : — the colours of nature 
oniv never fade nor lose their charm. 

I consider these artists to do more in- 
jur)- to tlie cause of true poetry than all 
its otlier numerous and vehement enemies. 
They bring it into suspicion, and give 
colour to the charges of delusion, exag- 
geration, false colouring, false excitement, 
wordiness, and emptiness : they make 
good the censure of conveying erroneous 

o S 



198 LETTEBS ON TH£ 

views of life, and assuming feelings which 
ai*e merely factitious and deceitfuL 

This is, however, a sort of poetry more 
often to the taste of the multitude than 
the true* Truth is often less striking, 
less glaring, less prominent, than what is 
artificial and exaggerated by human con* 
trivance. 

It does not seem to me that a poefs 
occasional coincidence with another great 
poet, or an occasional imitation of such 
other, or even use of his words, is a 
decisive proof of the insincerity of the 
former. It may originate in coincidence, 
not in imitation ) and then the coinci- 
dence itself would revive in a strong 
memory the very words of his predeces* 
sor, which, while they are present to his 
mind, he may be unable, unwilling, or 
careless to reject It is the manner of 
using them, the novelty of combination, 
the adaptation to what precedes and fol- 
lows, which must justify the imitation. 



GENIUS or LORD BYRON. 199 

and take nothing from the character of 
Am* whose strength ought to He in in- 
vention. 

A ductile mind of great genius some- 
times catches a flame, which was not 
inherent in it, from another; and this 
flame, when that from which it was re- 
flected is withdrawn, may cease. If its 
brilliancy and warmth never appeared 
except where there was a coincidence^ 
then its power must be decisively taken 
to be merely secondary and derivative. 

In numerouswalksof poetry Lord Byron 
seems to have been excited, by an internal 
consciousness of power, to try his strength 
against the most celebrated of his pre* 
decesBors and contemporaries. It was this, 
perhaps, that sometimes gave him the ap* 
pearanct of imitation, and tempted him 
actiudly to imitate ; for his memory and 
vast force of mind gave him a great talent 
at imitation, when he chose. He has 
been accused not only of* being a great 

o 4 



JiOO LETTERS ON THE 

imitator, but sl plagiarist. I think that he 
b^an as an imitator before he felt Im 
own strength ; and that, for the reason I 
have given, it was always easy to him to 
imitate; and that he was sometimes in-^ 
dined to indulge in it, even to the last. 
Perhaps he is almost the only writer of 
whom the occasional habit of imitatkni 
does not raise in my mind the slightest 
suspicion of his own barrenness, want of 
originality, or insincerity. 

It is quite impossible for any person 
of sagacity and sound discrimination to 
doubt the original powers of his mind. 
There is no poet, except SJmkspeare^ in 
whom passages of more unquestionable 
or more intense originality are to be 
found ; — passages not of perverse and 
unnatural novelty, but which are at once 
new and just* 

No poet has given stronger proofs of 
having viewed nature with his own eyes, 
rather than " through the spectacle of 



GENIUS OV LORD BYRON. 201 

** books," and having felt from the un- 
borrowed impulses of his own bosom, 
and described from what was wuthin him. 
He was in the habit of exercising on all 
occasions his own understanding; and 
the very irritability and uneasiness of his 
temper often added force to the keenness 
of his obsen'ation. He had no necessity 
to seek for stimulants in factitious and 
feigned ardours ; he wanted no provoca- 
tives in the array of gorgeous lafiguage, 
or exaggerated images ; his conceptions 
were always still more active and more 
energetic than his wards, and his mind 
was in a state of fervid emotion which 
required no aid from mihout. 



aOit LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XXI. 

June 18. 

He who spends much time in society at 
that early period of life when manners 
are best formed^ and polish is easiest 
gained, is likely to break in upon those 
habits of study and reflection by whidi 
alone genius is cherished, and abilities 
are rendered useful. Such society, espe- 
cially fashionable society, at that im- 
portant period of existence, when fimcy 
ought to be laying in her stores, is almost 
sure to chill and eradicate the enthusiasm 
necessary for high poetry. 

I cannot think that if Lord Byron, 
instead of adopting the eccentric course 
which he embraced, had passed much of 
his time in the high circles of London, 
from the age of eighteen to thirty^ that 
he would have written or attempted one 



GENIUS OF LOKD BYRON. idi)3 

(rfhts loftier or more brilliant poems : he 
vouldy perhaps, have been a sarcastic and 
viity satnisi^ and would have written 
fpiprams and sprightly songs : — caustic 
poison, which sinks the enei^ and era- 
dicates the spirit of the human mind ! 

I take nothing to be more injurious to 
ihe necessary stimulants by which the 
movements of society are carried on, than 
that base artifice of heartless sneer^ by 
which people of the world, of moderate 
abilities and acquirements, affect airs of 
superiority over the activity and vigour 
of those whom they are incapable of iU- 
lowing. The ml admirari is one of the 
most scoundrel tricks of mediocrity^ if 
not of absolute poverty^ of head and 
heart, which can be resorted to, and which 
b so very generally resorted to, by the 
\mm minded of the higher ranks. The 
iotention is to raise the belief that they 
have not excelled in what is set up as the 
obyect of admiration solely because they 



204 LETTERS ON THE 

have considered it not worth atlaining ! 
and that the admiration conferred is the 
effect of an ignorance which they despise 
and pity ! 

But these contemptible contemners are 
not aware how little a way such n^ative 
superiority, or rather pretence to supe* 
riority.goes. They may wrap themselves 
up in their own consequence, and dream 
of their own greatness ; but it is known 
to none except themselves. The " could- 
if-they-wotdiT^ people are a very equivocal 
sort of gentry, whose powers, if brought 
to the test, would commonly be found 
very deficient Men, plausible in words, 
and quick in conversation, and who have 
given their minds to this sort of excel- 
lence, are seldom any thing beyond. What 
appears ingenious and just in the rapid 
passage of conversation, where there is 
not time to examine, proves itself to be 
absurd, or superficial, or nonsensical, on: 
trite, when put upon paper. If it pretend 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 2UJ 

to navelijf^ it is merely new as regards 
the person addressed ; and so little ori- 
ginates fironi the addresser, that it may be 
found better said in a thousand books, 
and trom a thousand mouths. Its whole 
value, therefore, depends on the occasion, 
and from the opportunity seized, of its 
being the readiest and best supply to be 
had at the moment 

Men are always full of conceit who 
thus deal in ready-made ideas : tliey ad- 
mire themselves for the facility and 
fluency with which they utter them, and 
forget that in uiierifig they do not create; 
that all the trouble and all the merit 
belongs to those who preceded them in 
the work ; that they add nothing, im- 
prove nothing, correct nottiing ; that they 
only go with the stream, and are as likely 
to aid error an spread iruih. 

It is the lot of very few to think ori- 
gifUiUif^ and to think with truth and 
force ;— the generalit), therefore, are not 



206 LETTERS ON THE 

blamable for not doing that which nature 
has denied them the power to do ; but 
they are deeply blamable for endeavour* 
ing, by mean artifices, to gain the credit 
of superiority over that of which they 
are but the mere mechanical echoes ; and 
without which, therefore, they could not 
move a step in theu* own claims to 
notice. 

I cannot for a moment believe, that 
Lord Byron, great as his memory was, 
and versatile as were his talents, could, 
if he had been checked in the due course 
of his genius, have acted this sort of 
secondary part I do not think that he 
would have been ready in repeating the 
common-place ideas of others : he would 
have often been confused ; the interven- 
tion of the supplies and sallies of his own 
mind would have disturbed the flow; 
and the very efforts that proved the strug- 
gles of a native power would have been 
interpreted as weakness and occasional 
incapacity. 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. ^7 

But these people, who talk with such 
of superiority, wish it to be believed, 
that if they are not nriters as well as 
t&ikers^ it is because they disclaim to 
nake their powers in this way known. To 
tbeie may be applied what Edward Phil- 
B/m says, when speaking of poetry : — 

** For those who pretending, and per* 
*« haps not without reason, to poetical 
^ fancy or judgment equal to many that 
^ have written with applause, yet never- 
^theless have contented themselves to 
** be wise, ingenuous, or judicious only 
** to themselves, not caring to transmit 
^ any memorials to posterity ; certainly 
** those men, though able to contend with 
^ Apollo himself, cannot in reason chal- 
^ lenge to themselves a place among the 
^ poetical writers, except upon the testi* 
•• mony of some very authentic author.** 

How often do we recollect men who 
ha\-e continued to raise a high opinion 



208 LETTERS ON THE 

of themselves by management and mys- 
tery ; and who at length coming befive 
the world in propria persona^ by soiQe 
published work, have put an end to the 
charm, and shown that their pretensicHia 
were all vapour. 

We meet with thousands of men who 
can talk well, for one who can write 
well: the scrutiny which the fi/^fl ^CTf/rfa 
affords is more severe than any but a few 
gifted persons can abide ; for it remains 
before every one, to be put in all lights, 
and sifted in every direction: — it has no 
aid of voice, tone, look, gesture; it cannot 
humour the temper or prejudices of each 
individual hearer ; it cannot soften or 
enforce ; it cannot compress or expand ; 
it aspires to be always the same ; to be a 
general truth, uncompromising, unqua- 
lifying, unbending, eternal : — it may be 
compared and contrasted, and the day for 
detection, if bon'owed, never expires, — 



GENIUS OP LORD BTHON. 



909 



<o tint there is no Umitaiion^ which gives 
i titie by lapse of time. 

The ticulty» which is thus subject to 
tots lo much more severe than others are 
exposed to^ must be necessarily of a far 
Ugher order. 



210 LETTERS ON TBE 



LETTER XXIL 

JueU. 

Having said so much . about Latd 
Byron's gloom, and the bittemeae of soul 
which attended the course of his lifef 
the question may still be raised, whether, 
on a balance of his pleasures and his painSy 
he was less happy than others. It cannot 
be doubted that he often experienced 
intense delights, to which common minds 
must be strangers, and which even minds 
of genius, if less powerful than his own, 
must feel with comparative faintness. 
And if his pangs were more acute, it is 
the contrast of woe which most heightras 
our joys ! 

The fervor of Lord Bjrron's impres- 
sions, the fertility, and brilliancy, and ex- 
panse of his imaginings, could not but 
bring with them enjoyment which mayac- 



OEMIII0 or LORD BYRON. 1211 

^^^Udy be called inej^premble. Labour, 
^^ eflbrt» and art, are painful and ex- 
'^itirting; but the freedom with which 
Uvd Bjrron wrote must have enabled 
hm to derive great pleasure from com- 

That tort of life which there is in Lord 
Syrroo's images and sentiments could 
oolj have emanated firom his own expe- 
rience ; and we can estimate the intense- 
of that life by the sympathetic 
which describes it When once 
can come to describe woe itself^ part 
of tea iling has lost its poison. 

Let ua recollect how large a portion 
^ Lofd Byron's days must have passed 
in thia sort of composition ; and if this 
portion was happy, then^ could sorrow 
and suflering be justly said to predominate 
wtefa himf 

1 suspect efmuit languor, and indifier- 
ence, to be the condition least easy to 
endure. Activity and energy of mind 

F 2 



212 LETTERS ON THE 

always furnish resources and gleams of 
hope in the midst of difficulties, dangen^ 
vexations, and even torments. The ex- 
haustion which follows energy makes 
repose luxury. Liord Byron's passions 
were often dark and fierce, as well as 
impetuous ; but then the return of gen- 
tleness, affection, and admiration, must 
have thrilled with double ecstasy through 
all his veins. 

It seems to me, that it is imagination 
which gives light, beauty, and interest to 
all the appearances and incidents of life ; 
and that without imagination they are 
coarse and dull. 

This compound of imagination and 
feeling passes unheeded by common 
eyes : all the creations which flit before 
the poet's . sight, and all the emotions 
which hurry through his bosom, are in- 
visible and insensible to the ordinarily 
constituted being. If, then, the poet 
leaves them untold, no one will guess 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 213 

tbt they liad ever been ! Perhaps even 
Ar kmseff is not fully conscious of them 
ui the rapidity of their actual iq>pear- 
<iioe: it is in the ingredients which they 
fiinitsh to the fiuicy ; it is in the visionary 
sod spiritual revival, when all that is 
material is removed, that their fullest 
force and qplendour is felt 

We must not, therefore, always judge 
of a poet by the moodiness with which 
he seems to receive pleasures at the mo- 
ment they are offered to him. It is in 
the hope and in the reflection that the 
fiilQCM and qplendour of his delight Ues. 
It is in solitude, when imagination is his 
only companion, and when he is veiled 
firom all mankind, that his true enjoy- 
oscnts are experienced. 

The world sees the poet in his scorns, 
his hatreds, his quarrels, his confusions, 
and his absurdities ; chilled by neglect, 
irritated into wrong by supposed afironts, 
putting his breast against the sword of 

p 3 



S14 LETTERS OK THE 

his enemy by his incautious impetuosityi 
and dragged at the heels of an insulting 
and cruel conqueror, who has prostrated 
him by perfidy and guile. His hours of 
glory and. intense delight are passed in 
retreats which it cannot penetrate, in 
scenery which it has no visual capacity 
to discern, in sensations too nice for the 
hardness of its heart 

It judges, therefore, only by that which 
comes within its own powers of observ* 
ation ; and it deems the poet the least 
enviable and the most unhappy of beings. 
It cries, " What are all these tinkling 
" rhymes, these idle plays of words 
<< worth, to be set against so much suf- 
** fering, so much absurdity, and so 
<* much offensiveness, as we see in the 
" poet ?'* 

But these tinkling rhymeSy these idle 
plays of wordSf are the spells that not 
only turn the poet's own existence into 
pleasure, but elevate the quaUties and 



GENIUS OF LOBO BTRON. 



215 



<^*picities of the doubtful and change- 
^ being of human nature ; that light 
up the flame of a higher state of enjoy- 
OMt infused into us, which, if we n^lect 
^ will expire in darkness, and be as if it 
^ never been imparted. 



P 4 



216 LETTERS t>N THR 



LETTER XXUI, 

Juoeli. 

In different humours or different days, 
we do not always see things in exactfy^ 
the same aspect. Objects viewed cm 
contrary sides have often a very dissi- 
milar appearance. Liord Byron has had 
violent censurers as well as enthusiastic 
admirers; and they who have taken 
part against him are not without their 
strong positions and strong* arguments. 

There is no doubt that the hnaginatum 
and the passions act and re-act on each 
other, in heightening colours and feel- 
ings ; and that there is a natural course 
pursued by the bad passions as well as 
by the good. 

. We must ascertain, therefore, the moral 
character of the passion on which ima- 



GENIUS OF LOBD BTRON. 91? 

gination operates, or which operates on 
imagination, before wc can determine 
whether the operation is beneficial or 
mischievous. All the passions to which 
we have a natural propensity are not 
therefore to be indulged; but we are 
placed between desire and our duty, that 
we may give a proof of resistance to 
temptation. 

It is not, therefore, the brilliancy of 
imagination which is sufficient, without 
a due consideration of the use made of 
that brilliancy. If it be used to heighten 
what ought to be controuled and lowered, 
it cannot be defended. No impression 
of the fancy, no emotion of the heart, is 
admissible in its first impulse, unqualified 
by the influence of the understanding 
and the reason. That the representation 
of such impressions and emotions is 
highly gratifying to the popular taste, is 
no proof of its merit ; because the mass 
of mankind will always feel delight in 



218 UBTTBRS OM THE 



the gratification of their passions, whether 
evil or good. 

Splendid imagination, therefore, is a 
fearful gift, which may be a blessing or 
a curse, according to the manner in 
which it is exercised, disciplined, and 
applied. 

I think that these must be taken to be 
true, as general positions. How far thej 
apply to iJord Byron's poetry, is another 
question. If he represents worldly plea*> 
sures in those detached points of view^ 
in which all their attractions, and none 
of their attendant evils, are displayed, he 
abuses the vast faculties of genius oon- 
ferred on him by nature. The end of all 
literature is xadsdom and truth; and 
dierefore these must especially be the 
end of poetry, if poetiy be the highest 
species of literature, •— and pleasure can 
only be the means. If, therefore, plea- 
sure be the sole end effected, the poetry 
cannot be legitimate, because it will not 






GEiriOS or LORD BTRON. 910 

^^^^ produced m legitimate end. The 
V^\ then* that it gives lively and even 
'"^^Qte pleamire to a fine imagination 
*^ a conclusive proof that it is perfect 
Portiy. 

But we must not lightly assume that 
lord Byron's compositions have crffended 
^gainst these principles,— at least in their 
lemeral character, and upon a baUmce 
of what constitutes their strength. It 
can scarcely be denied that they some- 
tiflBMs incur thu charge. If the detached 
virtues which the poet sometimes ascribes 
to his heroes are painted naturally, as 
well as forcibly, he does not always 
bring forward duly the revolting horrors 
aod frightful consequences of the crimes 
which he chooses to unite to these vir- 
tocsL On the other hand, he is a little 
too much inclined to bring into broad 
di^ilay the counteracting errors, deiectSt 
and crimes, by which illustrious cha- 
racters, oa whom the world has con- 



%tO LEmms OS the 

tared admintioii, famve 
debasecL 

These are extremes into wkich ke 
been somedmes led bj a ooune of 
ment and thought, and a fine of 
which, on de^ oonsidenitkiii, will 
found to have the tendencjTi 
the chaiacter that superficial 
critics have aaagned to them. Ome id 
the grand faults of mankind, which Land 
Byron's temper, the impulses of his heart, 
and the vigour of his faculties, piompfted 
him to combat and expose, was igpocri^ 
and Jalse pretension. He saw with in- 
dignation the unjust estimatei>f cJiarader 
the world was accustomed to make, and 
the flagrant wrong with which it was 
accustomed to distribute admiratioD, 
honours, and rewards. He bent, there- 
fore, the whole force of his mighty facul- 
ties to expose these absurdities in striking 
coioui-s ; to throw a broader light on 
their real features ; and to draw the veil 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. 9H 

m 

from the cloven foot, and the saianic 
ffumlities which had hitherto been con- 
cealed. 

He would plead, that, in detecting vice 
under the robe of virtue, he was not 
warring with virtue*s cause, but support- 
ing it ; and that the cry of alarm was but 
the interested and corrupt cry of those, 
who could not bear that their own doak 
of disguise should be torn from them ! 

But has he not, in the effort to pull down 
hypocrisy, set up naked and audacious 
crime? This is the charge against him ; and 
it is, indeed, a chaige which has some- 
dines a strong appearance of being well 
(bunded. All powers of great energy 
wiU occasionally overshoot the mark : the 
decision must be made according to the 
prf domimo Mce of good or evil. We must 
ftimate by the comparative mischief of 
the character elevated^ and the character 
dfepretan/, by these exhibitions. Now 
daring and open crime always brings 



fl8e LETTBRS OK TH£ 

with it its own antidote ; but ctmceahd 
rottenness works under ground, covwed 
with flowers, and spreads diseases and 
pestilence, without a suspicion whence 
the sufferings and the destructions corner 
-^ and, therefore, continues to prostrate 
its victims, unchecked by its success^ and 
uncorrected by time. 

It has been said that Liord Byron's 
censures were not the accents of satire^ 
but of grief. He employed, however, 
the most poignant irony and ridicule for 
the same purposes as those for whidi he 
employed the tones of indignant sorrow. 
And here again, perhaps, he may be en- 
titled to a similar defence against the 
itftacks which have been made upon him, 
to that which has been already suggested* 

He has been accused of jesting a^t.aU 
female virtue, of painting women in the 
most dissolute colours, — and yet of* 
employing the whole force of his brilliant 
imagination to make licentious pleasures 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. 889 

attractive aad seducing. On a superficial 
r, at least, this charge has a plausible 
But many ingenious things may 

be said on the other side; and I am 
aoC sure that they are not as solid as 
iofieniousi though some may think them 
loo iar->Setched« 

Against those vices which fashion sanc- 
tioiis» grave and vehement indignation 
goes for nothing. Happy and poignant 
ridicule alone can touch them. But the 
vomen who give themselves up to open 
iadulgences» and open disregard of cha- 
iicter, are not those whose example is 
iiischievousi and who corrupt society. 
The poison is spread by those who wear 
the veil of delicacy, propriety, tenderness, 
■ftctioD, beauty, and all the charms of 
female loveliness. It is thus that the 
■KMt dangerous corruption works under 
the mask of the most affecting virtue. 
Nothing less than tlie touch of the magical 
of ridicule can pierce this spell. 



284 LETTERS OK THE 

Ridicule is like the light of the moniii^ 
on that which appeared beautiful under 
the shadowing beams of the moon, brt 
which cannot bear the stronger rays of 
the sun. The delusive charm vaniahei!^ 
and the spots come forth in their ug^inesti 
the hope of deception expires, — and tbe 
consciousness that the artifices are known, 
takes away the ability to continue them^ 

The charge of immorality in the poet's 
ridicule must be founded on an assump- 
tion contrary to this : — an assumption 
that the vice ridiculed is rendered attrac- 
tive, or not an object of shame, by de- 
scriptions connected with so much love- 
liness : but irony, if very acute, is a 
resistless weapon, *which dissolves the 
intenseness of grave and enthusiastic 
passion, and disarms the fury which 
grows stronger by direct and equal re- 
sistance. 

Poems might be named, which have 
all the mischief attributed to these de- 



GENIUS or LORD BTRON. 225 

^oiptiom of Lord Byron, but cannot 

pntend to any of these merits ; which 

iCniggle to render more attractive those 

teotimental flowers under which vice is 

vciledy instead of exposing them ; which 

have the poison in full force, but pro- 

dooe nothing of the antidote ; in which 

aU the artifices of poetical ornament are 

expended to give to sensual enjoyments 

the outward character of amiable tender* 

oeM, — instead of calling forth ridicule 

to aeC before them the guard of shame. 



3iG LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XXIV. 

June I^ 

Xhet who have not paid attentkHi to 
the effects of perseverance and practke 
on native ability, in any branch of ior 
tellectual pursuits, can have no conc^ 
tion of the increased power which, in the 
lapse of a short time ,i$ attained by gradual 
and imperceptible advances. What was 
at first dark clears up ; confusion settles 
into order; perplexities untie themselves; 
and the lines which could not be traced 
become distinct, decided, and prominent 
Confidence of strength, skill, experience^ 
render untrod paths as easy as those 
which are beaten ; and what is new is 
managed with as much ease as what is 
already formed and trite. 

I have limited these effects to native 
ability i because the perseverance in study, 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. StiTl 

by those who are bom without talent, 
often only overioads the mind ; and by 
thosewhoaresuperficial, makes a memory, 
already too officious, still more delusive to 
themselves, and wearisome to others. 

Native ability, and still more, native 
g^mius, has always an impulse to think 
for itself^ and to judge by its own 
observation and feelings. But when it 
oommences to develope its internal move- 
Stents, and to reduce into shape and 
^mn the ideas which yet only show 
tliemselves by glimpses, the task is found 
difficult, and the weak and unsuccessful 
^ffint produces discouragement A sen- 
sitive and timid mind sometimes quits the 
Cdd in despair, after the first attempt ; 
^"•«— others are afraid to leave the shore ; 
will not surrender the guiding-rope by 
which they can be directed, — and aban- 
don their own ideas for those already pre- 
pared for them. 
Even vigorous and bold genius has 



938 LBTTER8 ON THE 

somettmes begun in this diffident manner. 
When there is a capacity of deq> and 
intense thought, the intellect is not 
tlwBys as ready as it is deefi, but requires 
a longer time to perform its iunctionB. 
That which is only fit to skim the surfiK^ 
soon arrives at the extent of its str^igth. 

These positions seem to me to have 
been strikingly illustrated by the pro* 
gress of Lord Byron's genius. His 
earliest productions had clearly very 
little originality, nor were they charac- 
terised by Jbrce^ — not even borrowed 
force. What is singular, the merit which 
the best of his juvenile poems approached 
was ease, elegance, and gentleness. 

Here, then, was an assumed character 
of poetry, by one whose practical character 
at the very moment, and whose iutjure 
compositions, evinced a most extraordi- 
nary force of native genius. This could 
only have arisen from want of confid^ioe 
in his own resources ; from fear to trust 



G£NID8 OP LORD BTION. ISO 

^onielf* in the management of his own 
vieK ; or from actual inability, at this 
euiv stage, to digest and express them. 

In the JbrU and 9econd cantos of his 
OiUe Harold^ he b^^ to deal very 
liberally with those images and seoti- 
sMots which were more congenial with 
his own ; but still he used much of the 
tone and very words of others. 

As aoon as he had gained the applause 
of the public, and thus confirmed himself 
m a due estimate of his own strei^^ he 
ooounenced to deal with his own ideas 
in his own words ; but even then he did 
not do it at once. He brdce out in 
p u wc ifu i, q>lendid, and original pas- 
ages^ in which the very extraordinary 
fhspes and colours of his imagination 
were clothed in congenial and equally 
obonmred language. Yet it required 
kng practice and perseverance before 
these efibrts could be sustained through 
s oooapositioo of any length. Even 

Q 9 



SSO LETTERS ON THE 

Lord B3nron's genius was not equal to 
master and express at once so many new 
and powerful expressions add reflection 
as now crowded on his very fertile and 
splendid brain. 

Had he haunted more beaten patiu^ 
and dwelt more on prospects with winch 
the common eye is conversant, his task 
would have been much easier; all the ports 
of his descriptions would have been pre- 
pared for him, the lines drawn, the de- 
tails traced, the tints disposed. But the 
subjects he chose were new in all their 
parts; dark, massy, unbroken, unpierced! 
The vigour of his penetrating eye grew 
every day more energetic and expansive ; 
—the masses retired before him, -—the 
clouds dispersed, and the sun of his 
genius at length dispelled the thickest 
vapours at once, and threw broad li^t 
into whatever quarter he chose to direct 
its rays. 

Perhaps there is not much genius or 



OEMUIM or LOED BTRON. SSI 

in that iingularity and novelty 
of invention which cannot carry along 
with it the reader ; who, instead of ac- 
companying, gazes after its devious ex- 
curnons with distant wonder. 

Lord ByitHi, on the contrary, bears 
with him the yielding^ overwhelmed, and 



aitonished reader into the thickest of the 
gloomy and tremendous forests of dir^ 
fill enchantment into which human foot- 
Mepshad never yet entered : — theqpellis 
pronounced, the witch-song is sung;-^the 
reader li tt ffiff, trembles, admires, dreads, 
condemns;— in vain he would be exor- 
ctaed:^-he purifies himself with holy 
water; — the spell is repeated ;^- again he 
enters, and listens, and trembles, and 
prays for liberation, ^-yet admires again ! 
A mighty genius, thus, by perseverance 
and confidence, in possession of its full 
powers, opens with every new day new 
worlds of enchantment, that embody 
themselves as easily as those on which 

Q 4 



9SS^ 



LSTTER8 ON. THE 



art has for ages been at work, and wh 
have lost their freshness and their chai 
in proportion to the increase of tl 
polish. 



OBNIU* or LOftO BTRON. S3S 



LETTER XXV. 

June 16. 

1 CANNOT but be reminded in society of 
the opinions of a large mass of mankind 
who deem poetry a mere trifling amuse- 
mentt fit only for women and boys, 
and think the merits of one who has 
done no more than write what they call 
cmpijf irrses not worth the trouble of 
much consideration or many words. 

We are at too late a period of litera- 
ture to render the defence of poetry ne- 
rcMiry, not merely as a source of re- 
fined pleasure, but as an important and 
most elevated branch of moral know- 
ledge ;«-the only question is, what are 
Lord Byron's claims to excellence in 
Uusart? 

Notwithstanding all which has been 
«aid as his advocate in these letters, much 



SSi LETTERS OK THE 

rational doubt will still remain with a 
large portion of sound minds, whether 
the charge of immoral tendency in his 
poems is not too well founded. The de- 
fence made for him will be deemed by 
many too subtle ; and the supposed e£> 
fects by which his descriptions and his 
poignant ridicule have been attempted to 
be justified will be deemed too uncertain, 
too remote, and too dependent on reflec- 
tion and reasoning, to be looked for from 
the hasty and superficial minds of the 
mass of the public. 

I admit it to be a question ; but I am 
not convinced by this answer to the de- 
fence. I do not like to rely on far- 
fetched and abstruse defences ; but still I 
think that theU which is here suggested has 
a firm root. This is not the^rst impres- 
sion which Lord Byron's poems convey, 
even to the most profound reader : but 
first impressions are not always the true. 

I will not here trouble myself to go re- 



OEVIUi or LORD BYRON. 235 

gulmrly through such of the grand doc- 
trines of religion and morals as Lord 
Bjrron's poems are supposed to have a 
constant tendency to outrage; all of them 
have been urged over and over again by 
his adversaries ; and some of them by 
candid and friendly criticisnu On the 
§nft sub|ect it would be idle not to aban- 
don his defence. His attacks on our re- 
ligious fiuth are too positive and too re- 
volting to be palliated. 

There are parts of his writings which 
must be equally given up on moral 
grounds. Some of his personal attacks 
are malignant, low, and mean, and could 
only have q>rung from base and ungene- 
rous passions ; while some of his praises 
are as fulsome and unfounded as bis cen- 
sores ! It could be easily shown that he 
has bitterly, fbuUy, and unprovokedly at> 
tacked some whom he in his heart ad* 
mired, whom he studied intently, whose 
spirit he endeavoured to catch, and to 



236 LETTERS ON THE 

whom he was indebted for many noble 
thoughts, and some powerful fanguage ! It 
is useless, — and worse than useless, -— it 
is injurious, •*— to attempt to defend what is 
utterly indefensible. It is better to aban- 
don it ; to surrender it to its &te ; to 
cover it with its proper opprobrium ; and 
to lament the mingled blots and cormp- 
tions of a noble nature ! 

There are other blots of a sinular cast 
for which I can find no excuse. Is it not 
unmanly to insult the ashes of the dead, 
who have fallen victims to the greatest 
misfortune, the most lamentable disease, 
f to which poor humanity is subject ? And 
' all this from political, not personal, anti- 
pathy ! Are political antipathies to breed 
personal hatred, which shall insult the 
grave ? — ^The grave, too, of themostgentle- 
manly, the mildest^mannered, the boldest- 
hearted man in Europe. These are traitB^ 
which, whenever I would feel admiration 
for the genius and the poetry of Loiti 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 237 

BjrroQt I am necessitated to efl&ce from 
Qy recoUectioiu To me no words of re* 
probatioQ appear too strong for such an 
exhibition of horrible blackness of feel- 
ing! 

The heart for a moment sinks in de- 
spondency to behold in frail human na- 
twe the union of such frightful darkness 
with so much gigantic q>lendour ! 

I must escape from this painful discus- 
sion to more congenial enquiries. It is a 
grmx charge, if it be true, that Lord 
Byron has employed his brilliant imagina- 
tion to render vice attractive in the shape 
of female beauty. If it be true, it is 
more true in his serious than in his comic 
poems } to which last this censure has 
been more especially directed. There is 
exquisite intensity of force, and grace, and 
brilliancy, in both. So much subtle and 
pointed irony, so much arch humour, so 
much surprising knowledge of tlie most 
secret and evanescent movements of the 



238 



LETTERS ON THE 



human heart, were never before united 
with such a grave, dreaming, sombre, 
visionary, enthusiastic imagination! Never 
before were smiles and tears, and conoic 
wit and rapturous passion, so blended! 
In the same cup of inspiration there is, 
as I contend, all the joy of delirious ine- 
briety, and all the rational safety of 
comic self-possession ! 



0ENIU8 OP LOID BYRON. 239 



LETTER XXVI. 

JnoTWiTHtTANDiNO the conBolatioDS to be 
derived firom poetry and the unaginative 
hcuityf there are some anxieties and sor* 
rows of life over which it has little power. 
I am aware that the exception will appear 
affected and ridiculous to many ; but, in 
defiance of their scepticism, I avow it to 
be true. The delusions of poetical inven- 
tion may soften our own personal and 
ffjlCsA pains either of mind or body ; but 
they cannot have any control over our 
^wtpathf for the actual sufierings of 
others, for whom we are interested, when 
we see them in posiikt operation. We 
know our own power of selfescape from 
CNir own pains, because the beams of im- 
agination which encircle us are visible to 
CNir own eyes; but we know not that 



^40 LETTERS ON THE 

those whom we see under the rod of af- 
fliction, and whose sufferings agitate us, 
are gifted with the same bakn. To them 
the woes and pangs of life may appear in 
all their unqualified nakedness and force. 
They may have no escape from poverty, 
and dereliction, and insult, and bodily 
disease, in the resources of the mind. 

In the course of a stormy, perilous, 
and disappointed life, I have been accus- 
tomed to forget myself, or to exhilarate 
my spirits, by the aid of the transforming 
magic of imagination. But whenever I 
have been inclined to call it in io enable 
me to liberate myself from the suffering 
for the sorrows of others, I have felt a 
sting and warning of conscience that I 
was abusing its power. 

Here, then, the charms of poetry must 
lose their eflBcacy : they may even be- 
come a delusion, of which the indulgence 
may border upon immorality; because 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 941 

tliey may tend to weaken thoflc sympa- 
thetic feelings which are a primary virtue. 
My heart aches, and my spirits fail, 
when my reason and my duty impose upon 
me any check to the indulgence, any 
limits to the utility and ddight, of those 
high endowments out. of which poetry 
springs. It is a grave charge to be listen- 
ing to the music and the eloquence of 
imaginative joy, while our fellow-beings 
are groaning around us under the inflic- 
tion of positive and actual misery. 

We must not harden our hearts ; 
yet we must not cultivate this anxiety too 
far* In this frail state of existence we 
cannot have unmingled good : in much 
encouragement of the sorrow for which 
there is too frequent cause in the daily 
occurrences of life we enfeeble our ener- 
gies of heart and intellect, till we can no 
longer do the qualified good which would 
^erwise be in our power. 
Qr(Nf, in his Progress qf Poesy^ has 

R 






242 LETTERS ON THE 

assigned to the Muse the task of soothing 
the intensity of human sorrows. He says^ 
in a note to the first stanza of his seoHid 
ternary, ** To compensate the real or ima* 
ginary ills of life, the Muse was given 
to mankind by the same Providence that 
sends the day by its cheerful presence 
to dispel the gloom and terrors of the 
night.'' Gray, therefore, seems to jus- 
tify the use of the cup of Helicon as a 
charm which may give us oblivion of our 
woes. 

The principle of voluntary anxiety or 
pain, that we may be kept wakeful to the 
miseries of humanity, seems a very super- 
stitious, or at least doubtfid, creed. In 
this clouded and tempestuous world we 
are more likely to be hardened by melan- 
choly and despair .than by the luxury of 
enjoyment. 

Whatever soflens and refines the 
heart increases the nicety and purity of 
its sensitiveness : it teaches us to notice 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 1^43 

and appreciate those delicate sources of 
iatemal pleasure or pain in the bosoms 
of others^ which the rude understanding, 
conversant only with outwanl and mate- 
rial experiences, insults, outrages, and 
tortures. To proscribe poetry, as an 
indulgence which extinguishes or dimi- 
niahes our moral sympatliy, is rigid, harsh, 
and, for the most part, even unreasonable 
and unjust 

It may be abused What may noi be 
abused ? But the abuse will be so rare, 
and so improbable, — wliile the use is so 
exquisite, so dignified, and so general, — 
thai it would argue but little wisdom to 
let an objection so subtle, and of such rare 
occurrence, prevail 

There is an inclination in mankind to 
exact of poets a Uttle more than frail 
humanity can perform. They are called 
upon to imagine all that is tender, mag- 
nificent, and beautiful; to lose tliem- 
iclvea in visions of a purer existence ; to 

R 4 



244 LETTERS ON THE 

let nothing vulgar, nothing of the harsh* 
ness of real life, touch them, or cross 
their thoughts, lest it should intermingle 
a stain in their inventions; yet when 
practical life chooses to make a demand 
upon them, their nature is in an instant 
to be changed ; the ethereid mantle is to 
be thrown off; the feelings are to be 
hardened to a rougher atmosphere ; the 
frames and nerves to be robust and wea- 
ther-cased ; and the limbs strengthened 
to contend in labour with those who have 
been accustomed from infancy to hew 
wood and dig the soil ! 

He who is urged to lift himself into 
the air, and ride upon the wings of the 
winds, cannot, at the very moment when 
caprice or even reason demands, stop his 
career, descend to earth, and re-assume the 
grovelling vocations of common beings. 

Genips is sometimes whimsical, and 
sometimes gives immoderate indulgence 
to its eccentricities. An attention to the 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. £4(5 

butory of mankind, and the lessons of bio- 
graphy, ought to impress on it a warning 
against these excesses. Tlie world will 
not spare them ; nor will the severity and 
malignity of criticism spare them. The 
fondness of pan^^yric, the blindness of 
praise, is transient : ingenuity soon begins 
to delight itself in distinguishing spots, 
and bringing faults into prominence. 

There is, then, but little encouragement 
to genius to abuse its power. Too much 
is expected of it, — rather than licence, 
-»in return for its merits. All opposite 
virtues are required ; and the caution and 
prudence of cold calculation are expected 
to be united with the warmth of generous 
enterprise. It would be as reasonable to 
demand the creative imagination of ^fil^ 
ium or Shakspeare to be joined to the dry 
scientific genius of Newion. 

I do not say that all Lord Byron's ec- 
centricities were venial : some were na- 
turally connected with the character of* 

a 8 



946 



LETTERS ON THE 



his genius ; others were too much the 
humours of a violent and unrestrained 
temper. Where we cannot excuse^ we 
must pitj/ and Jbrgive; and never forget 
those splendid beauties by which they 
were in some degree redeemed. 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 947 



LETTER XXVII. 

June 18. 

The Pleasurts qf Imagination have 
iKtffi explained and justified by Addison 
in prcMe, and by Akenside in verse : but 
Uiere are moments of real life when its 
miseries and its necessities seem to over- 
power and destroy them. The history 
ol* mankind, however, furnishes proofs 
thai no bodily suffering, no adverse cir- 
cumstances, operating on our material 
nature, will extinguish the spirit of ima- 
gination. 

Perhaps there is no instance of this so 
very affecting and so very sublime as 
the case of Ta»Mo. They who have seen 
the dark, horror-striking dungeon-hole at 
Fcrrara^ in which he was confined seven 
%-eani under the imputation of madness, 
will lia%x* had this truth impressed upon 

R ^ 



248 



LETTERS ON THE 



their hearts in a manner never to be 
erased. In this vault, of which the sight 
makes the hardest heart shudder, the 
poet employed himself in finishing and 
OHrrecting his immortal epic poem. 

Lord Byron's Lament cm this subject is 
as sublime and profound a lesson in mo- 
rality, and in the pictures of the recesses 
of the human soul, as it is a production 
most eloquent, most pathetic, most vi- 
gorous, and most elevating, among the 
gifts of the Muse ! The bosom which is 
not touched with it, the fancy which is 
not warmed, the understanding which is 
not enlightened and exalted by it, is not 
fit for human intercourse. If Lord Bynm 
had written nothing but this, to deny 
him the praise of a grand poet would 
have been flagrant injustice or gross 
stupidity. 

There are instances of the cruelty oS 
mankind to each other, which are so 
inexpressibly frightful as to surpass belief) 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 949 

were not the historical evidence of them 
indisputable. There was, I think, a 
Prince q/* MUan^ some centuries ago, 
who, in those contentious times, having 
been taken prisoner by the opposite 
party, was suspended in the air from 
some high building in a cage, like a wild 
beasl, and left to perish in that state. 
Coukl imagination visit and cheer this 
victim ? Yet if Tasso could be cheered 
in his forlorn condition, even this was 
pottibie. 

Imagination is as much a part of our 
nature as the limbs with which we are 
formed and the breath we draw. The 
degree and quality of it is partly a gift, 
and partly tlie effect of culture. Man is 
answerable morally for tlie manner in 
which he uses this endowment It is 
die mediator between our fallen condi- 
lion and that higher state of existence 
to which all great and gcnul minds are 
drilinad to aspire. It is oidy in inu^pn. 



250 LETTERS ON THE 

ation that our nobler hopes and 
can yet be gratified 

But because it is only imaginative, the 
stupid and the foolish call it empty ; as if 
the visions of the mind had not pleasures 
and virtues as positive and intense as 
those of the senses. 

There are so many unhappy situationil 
in this chequered life, so many beings 
involved in adverse circumstances, that 
the riches of the mind alone are thei# 
only prop and solace ; and I always read 
with an extreme glow of delight laOve- 
lace*s most exquisite song from his pri- 
son, in which he says, 

'* My mind to me a kingdom is !'* 

It is true that the imagination is a good 
or an evil power, according to the man- 
ner in which we worship her, and the 
dispensations which we ask of her: — 
she gives fire to light the altar of gloi^, 
or the pile of shame and destruction. 



GENIUS OP LOED BYRON. 251 

^i^ve were moments, unluckily, when 
M)rd Byron invoked her flames to the 
poiaoDous fuel which, among nobler stores, 
he had admitted into his heart. 

The dangers of imagination lie in a 
total departure from the control of rea^ 
ton, and the tests of actual life. For the 
sobriety of wisdom, for that preservation 
dfvermmiSty which is absolutely essential 
to a sound imagination, a perpetual re- 
ference to manas he i$^ and to the scenery 
and existences of the material world, is 
indispensable. Mere undisciplined ima- 
ginaticMi, which pays no attention to 
probability, and creates without any re- 
gard to the laws and principles of nature^ 
b insanity. If it be applied to com* 
pontioQt it teaches us nothing ; it only 
raises silly and ignorant wonder, and 
ends in emptiness and disgust. 

But true, sound imagination teaches us 
more knowledge of our being, com|K>und- 
fd as it is of mind and matter, more deep 




252 LETTERS ON THE 

moral wisdom, than mere unassisted 
reason, or poring observation, can do; 
because it carries its piercing light into 
the penetralia of the bosom, into whidi 
the outward eye cannot enter ; and 
furnishes data which the reason may use, 
but cannot discover. 

Why is a well-written tale of ^fiction oi 
more profound and passionate interest 
than a biographical or historical narrative? 
Because it penetrates where the relater 
of mere facts cannot penetrate ; because 
it tells all the feelings and secret thoughts 
of the characters represented; because it 
does not confine itself to actions or ex- 
pressed opinions, but discovers hopes^ 
fears, motives, ends, secret affections and 
dislikes, passing' passions, not only un- 
realised, but which end in air as quick as 
they came, and momentary views un- 
recorded, unremembered, unnoticed, in 
actual life. If these are told of an in- 
dividual who has really existed, our in- 



OBNIU8 or LOED BTRON. 253 

credulity destroys our pleasure in the 
relation : we ask ourselves how they 
could be known to the relater ; and if we 
suspect that he invents when he ought 
merely to record, we are disgusted with 
hb want of veracity. 

It is far otherwise when an author 
comes forward as the relater of his own 
inventions. Then we try his tale by its 
probabilities; by its nature; by its in- 
trinsic interest ; by its eloquence, its 
pathos^ its knowledge of the general 
dtturacter of mankind ; by its moral 
wtsdom* the beauty of its scenery, and 
liie force of its conceptions, and the ani- 
mation of its portraits. Such an author 
deab with his proper subjects when he 
paints the internal movements of the 
human heart, because his sources lie in 
the imagination ; and it is the imagination 
only to which these are known. T)ie 
test of the power and \irtue of that ima- 



254 



LETTERS ON THE 



gination lies in the degree of sympathy 
which it awakens ; while that sympathy 
much depends on the faculty of verid- 
miUty. 



GENIUS OF LOBD BYBON. i55 



LETTER XXVIII. 

June 19. 

It may be difficult to assign a satisfac- 
tory reason, but it is surely a fact, that 
WIT almost always appears heartless. I 
take Johnson's definition of wit *, that it is 
" a kind of discordia concors ; a combin- 
** ation of dissimilar images, or discover^' 
" of occult resemblances, in things ap- 
" parently unlike." It is this discordia 
which is, probably, the cause that it is 
heartless. The heart has no sympathy 
but with what is natural. We admire 
mV, but. we do not love and trust it : we 
have no confidence in it, because there is 
nothing in. our own bosoms which is in- 
tinuUe with it, and because, therefore, 
we have no guide to enable us to guess 
what will be its next movement A man 
of wit will sacrifice any thing to his jest. 

* Life of Cowley. 



256 LETTERS ON THE 

For this reason a man of wit has scarce 
ever appeared to tie an enthusiast. Burke 
was, I think, an exception : Burke was» 
perhaps, the only person of this class of 
genius, whose wit was always grave and 
serious ; no one's wit, therefore, was al- 
ways so truly poetical as Burke's. Thcr 
purpose of Burke's wit was iUustratiant 
not ridicule. 

Ridicule produces a feeling not con- 
genial with those feelings which it is the 
end of the best poetry to awaken. Ridi- 
cule begets contempt for the object on 
which it is thrown, whereas it is the 
noblest and highest purpose of poetry to 
make us admire or love what is repre- 
sented. Contempt is a chilling, unge-' 
nerous passion, and less poetical even 
than hatred, because hatred is at least 
energetic. 

Humour does not deal so much in 
ridicule : there is oftener much gravity in 
humour. 



GEKIUS OF LORD BTRON. 357 

Wd Bynm had both wit and humour ; 
^ h seems to me, notwithstanding a 
^ iiiitances may be found which may 
^^^ to contradict me, that these quali- 
^ had in him more of gravity and ear- 
''C'toess than of ridicule and laughter; 
^ I think that, notwithstanding all his 
^'^cted gaiety, we can discover that the 
^^lAe sombre and deep emotions as belong 
^ his oKKe serious poetry, give rise to 
^ colours of scorn or absurdity in which 
"^ paints his comic subjects. To me this 
^ an attraction, not a fault ; it rouses 
\vmpathy, not fear and distrust It is 
Grange that tliere are some who con- 
found mdkeie m ith wit ; it is, of course, 
the ven- opposite. A great deal of* Lord 
II%'ron*s comic poetry pleases from its 
mmh %(f ; from the frank and fearless sin- 
cicrity and artlessness with which it 
<ieacribes some of the follies of temporary 
manners, and records the phraseology of 
the ally fiMhions of the day. It is a 

s 



S58 



LETTERS ON THE 



laugh ; but the poet '< laughs the heart's 
<< laugh :'' still, not as if the comic wtf 
his original and predominant talent. Lord 
Byron, in these poems of humour, hai a 
great deal which would not have beeo 
borne but firom one of established repatr 
ation, and woidd not have been att^npted 
by any other. 

The ridicule which arises from JideUhf 
qf description is quite different from tiiat 
which arises from ttvV, and it is diflferent 
not only in its causes but in its effects. 
It does not equally freeze and dry up 
the spring of action in the mind of the 
reader, for the ill consequences are left 
with those whose absurdities are thus re- 
presented. I mean, that it produces more 
pity than scorn in the reader. 

Satire has always been a legitimate 
function of poetry : but this function lias 
always been considered a subordinate 
department of it, because it is less dig- 
nified and less generous to awaken dis- 



GBSUIt Of LOUD BTRON. 259 

like than >dmintfkin. But satire need 
•ot necessarily use the weapon of 
ridictile. I have said in a former letter 
that ridicule is the most irresistible of all 
the weapons of attack } I do not mean to 
recede firom that assertion : but, because 
k is irresistible, I do not think it should 
be used ; at least the ridicule of wit should 
not be usedt where milder instruments 
will effect a cure : it is a cruel and veno- 
■sous remedy ; and the disease ought to 
be very intense and very malignant to 
which it should be applied. 

These are, indeed, very nice and subtle 
AsrinrtionBt and I do not expect to find 
a geoeial concurrence in them : it will be 
well, if I obtain the concurrence even of* 
a few readers. It may be said that Lord 
Bjrrofi's ridicule depends as much on the 
dunrdia ctmcors as that of any other witty 
ooniposition ; and it would require a very 
ninute scnitiny of his comic poems to 
this point with perfectly weighed 

s « 



SOO LETTERS ON THE 

accuracy. An analysis of an adequate 
variety of his striking passages would be 
requisite, and this I have not at the 
present moment either leisure or inclin- 
ation to do. 

Lord Byron is vehement, copious, rich, 
and expansive, rather than self-^coUected, 
dry, caustic, and heartlessly witty. His 
images are never a mere effort of the 
head : there is always something of sen* 
sibility or emotion in them, whether it be 
kind or unamiable, moral or immoral. I 
do not doubt that the view in which he 
represents things is a view in which he 
himself saw them at the moment. But 
wit is commonly artifice : it is a Petitions 
combination for the sake of exciting 
wonder or contempt ; except it be, as I 
have already said, for the pure purpose 
of iUttstratioriy which, when the concord^ 
once of the discord is not only apt, but 
when each part is beautiful in itself is 
not mere wit, but most exquisite poetry : 



GBNlUt or LORD BTROH. 26l 

Mich as when Burke, speaking of Crqfi^s 
initation of JoAwon's style, said, << It had 
** all the ooDtortions of the sybil without 
** the inspiration !'* 

The comic effect which is produced 
by the fidelity of natural description de- 
pends upon a very di£ferent talent from 
mii: it depends upon the selection of 
oomic features; not upon novelty of 
combination, but upon happiness of 
minute notice ; upon an eye accustomed 
to detect improprieties and absurdities, 
and a feeling more awake to censure 
than to praise. To afford a subject for 
tltti talent, the impropriety or absurdity 
must actually exist : but it is not so witli 
mk ; wit can make any thing ridiculous, 
which b not intrinsically so» because it 
mmtef the coml|tfialion to which the 
ffidiculc attaches. Wit, therefore, com- 
aMmly wants principle and integrity, as 
well aa heart ; even if* these wants are not 

included in /leartkssne:^^. 
s 3 




262 LETTERS ON THE 

After all^ Dan Jtum^ the principal 
comic production of Lord Byron, is a 
very strange medley. It has all sorts of* 
faults, many of which cannot be de- 
fended, and some of which are disgusts 
ing ; but it has, also, almost every sort of 
poetical merit : there are in it some of 
the finest passages which Lord B3rron 
ever wrote ; there is amazing knowledge 
of human nature in it ; there is exquisite 
humour ; there is freedom, and bound, 
and vigour of narrative, imagery, senti- 
ment, and style, which are admirable ; 
there is a vast fertility of deep, extensive, 
and original thought ; and, at the same 
time, there is the profusion of a prompt 
and most richly-stored memory. The 
invention is lively and poetical ; the 
descriptions are briUiant and glowing, 
yet not over-wrought, but fresh firom 
nature, and faithful to her colours } and 
the prevalent character of the whde, 
(bating too many dark spots,) not dispi- 



0£Nli;S OF LORD BYRON. 



26S 



ng, though gloomy ; not misanthropic^ 
ugh bitter ; and not repulsive to the 
ons of poetical enthusiasm* though 
ignant and resentful. 



s 4 



864 I.BTTEBS "ON THE 



LETTER XXIX. 

June so. 

I HAVE not noticed the dramas of Lord 
Byron. They are admitted to be unfit 
for the stage ; but they contain numerous 
poetical passages of great force and 
beauty! There is another extraordinary 
poem of which I have not spoken hither- 
to ; because, I vdll confess, that I know 
not how to speak of it properly, yet 
something must be said of it. — Cain is a 
poem much too striking to be passed in 
silence. But its impiety is so fiightful 
that it is impossible to praise it, while its 
genius and beauty of composition would 
demand all the notice which mere li- 
terary merit can claim. It is scarcely 
necessary to repeat the answer to the 
very futile defence which has been made 
for it, against the charge of its attack on 



GENIUS of' lord BYRON. 965 

the goodness ot* Providence. It must be 
ob\ioiis to every intelligent reader that 
the example oFMUtam does not ttpply to 
the HEianner in which Lord Byron has 
executed his poem of Cahu Milton puts 
rebellious and Uaqihemous speeches into 
the mouth of Satan ; but Milton never 
leaves those speeches unanswered: on 
the contrary, he always brings forward 
m good angel to controvert triumphantly 
all the daring assertions and arguments 
oi' the EVIL SPIRIT. Lord Byron leaves 
all which he ascribes to Cain and Luci/er 
in their full force on the reader's mind» 
without even an attempt to repel them. 

It seems to me, that of all Lord By- 
roll's poems this is that of which the ill 
tendency is most unequivocal, and for 
which DO plausible excuse can be made} — 
and it n the more dangerous, because it 
m one of the best written. 

And now I am come to a summary of 
Loffd Byron's character as a poet } — and 
how is it possible for me to pronounce 



S66 LETTER8 ON THE 

but one judgment ? I take the definitioo 
iji poetry to be but one ; to be 8im{de 
and indisputable ; and by that must the 
decision be pronounced. 

That Lord Byron has hnaginatioe in^ 
ventum is proved by his Manfredy his 
CarsasTf Lara, Sardanapabis^ &c«, and 
even by his Dan Juan ; and that these 
fictions possess another primary essential, 
may, I think, be fairly asserted : —this b 
verisimilih/9 — if the meaning of that word 
be taken in its enlarged and Uberal sense. 
Only two requisites remain : — the quaUty 
of these inventions must be sublime^ or 
paihelic^ or beautiful ; and the quaUty of 
the language must be congenial to that 
of the design and feigned circumstances 
in imagery, force, tenderness, el^ance, 
and harmony. Has Lord Byron fulfilled 
these demands, or has he not? I cannot 
suppose that this question is open except 
to one answer; and I assert that that 
answer must be in the cjffirmative. 

Lord Byron, then, must be admitted to 



GKNlUt OP LORD BYRON. 96? 

ke R f^raRt poett becRuae he hRs tiilfilled 
all the requiatet of high poetry. We 
Rre bound to try hinit rs we Rie bound 
to try every num of genius, by whRt he 
has done weB^ not by whRt he hRS done 
itt. Mighty powers do not exist the less, 
becRUse they Rre not RlwRys exerted, or 
Rre sometimes Rbused. 

No genius hRS tRken r greRter VRriety 
of chRTRcters tluui tliRt of Lord Byron. 
Sometimes it is rII splendour ; sometimes 
it ts rII storm, Rud dRrkness, Rnd diseRsed 
vRpour; sometimes it is r surprising 
minglement of rsdiRUce Rud cloudiness, 
whete the brilliRncy Rt one moment 
emerges in broRd unveiled effulgence, 
the next b utterly hidden, Rnd then 
RgRin just pierces Rnd breRks in fRint 
struggles Rnd light golden spots through 
the billowy numtle. Such wrs this fiery 
Rnd portentous meiear ; or will he not 
rather be ^LjLted siar^ which will shine 
for ever in the heaven of poetry ? The 



268 LETTERS ON THE 

flame of his imagination was fed by iudl 
that will make its light enduring, and 
that will cast forth an incense, of which 
the fragrance will not die ! 

His best poetry is composed of mate- 
rials which have their sources in die 
heart and intellectual nature of mau; 
I may add, in the moral nature of man, 
though the epithet may, at first, startle the 
reader when applied to Lord Byron. 
There are no poems, except Shakspeare\ 
which have more life, more of human 
passions and interests, in them. They 
are too manly and vigorous to be ever 
fantastic ; they are never once degraded 
by any of the petty artifices of poetry ; 
they never ofiend the understanding, 
though they may sometimes outrage the 
conscience : they often flash some mighty 
truth upon us in the midst of tempes- 
tuous darkness ; as in a stormy night, 
when all is massy and black, and the 
rolling thunder aggravates the horror, 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. S69 

beams of lightning open to us for a 
flMNnent a glimpse of the mantled scenery 
around us. 

Lord Byron, indeed, is the poet, not of 
imagination only, but especially of intel^ 
Itcif — I dare not say of reason. No per* 
son of common judgment will venture to 
deny, that his poems almost always aflford 
food for thought, even for the severest 
■umL There are few poets (I scarcely 
imow^fimr) whose writings are not some- 
times a little too delicate, too tender, too 
refined, to face the rude air of the worid 
at large, and the coarse, common mem« 
bers of practical society ; yet there is so 
much hardiness, and such a shield of 
strong defying sense in those of Lord 
Byron, that they can protect their own 
dignity in the midst of so rough and de- 
grading a trial. 

Vulgar and silly amateurs of poetry, 
or rather of what goes improperly under 
that name* are always talking of the 



^0 LBTTER8 OJS THE 

Jkmers ^poetry. Lord Byron unifomily 
rgected and disdained these flowos. 
They are what make the great mass of 
poetical compositions disgusting to all 
men of soUd sense and manly feeling; 
they are the false ornaments which turn 
it into a baby art We do not want the 
load and disguise of gaudy language: 
we want the image, the sentiment, the 
thought itself. These frivolous searchers 
after dress care not for that which the 
dress covers. 

It is the genuine poet's business Jirst 
to discover abstract truths, and then to 
embody them by the faculty of imaginar 
tive invention. These word-mongers 
neither search for truths nor attempt " to 
** turn them into shape,** and give life to 
them; but only direct their efforts to 
invest, in the clothing of new language, 
what is already invented, or what actually 
exists in palpable form before the senses; 
or, if they invent, it is something so 



OENIIIS or LOED BYRON. S?! 

indisliiictt 8o inconceivable^ and 8o mon* 
atrDii% that it may be suspected to be 
little else than a pretence for a set of 
nvBterious and turgid words, which have 
more sound than meaning. 

I can no where trace in Lord Byron 
the smallest appearance of factitious in- 
spiration. He always wrote because his 
nind was full ; or, at least, when he 
fixed on a subject, the fertility of his 
genius, intellect, and memory, supplied 
him instantly with unforced and unla- 
boured fulness. To whatever point his 
attention was directed, the rich and vivid 
stores of his fancy set all his mighty 
faculties and strong feelings into fervid 
operation. His sensibility, (not limiting 
that word to tenderness^) his constant 
temperament of strong emotion, alwa^'s 
gave a strength and nature to all his intel- 
lectual acta. Nothing was weak, cquivo- 
caU affected, or the result of accidental 
or ynintelligible associations. Many of his 



272 LETTERS ON THE 

feelings and notions were peculiar ; but 
they were the peculiarity of nature, not 
of habit and artifice. They had too 
much life, and freshness, and force, to be 
assumed. 

All can understand in painting the dif- 
ference between a picture copied frcwn 
individual and particular nature, and that 
which is a design created by the artist, 
and represents nature by an imagined 
composition. All know, that if it be the 
work of a just invention and true genius, 
the latter conveys the most true and 
lively representation of general nature. 
This is distinctly conceived in painting, 
because it is addressed to the senses, — 
oculis subjecta Jidelibus : — but in poetry, 
to which it is still more strictly and forci- 
bly applicable, it is comprehended much 
less clearly and less universally. 

This sort of fiction is the soul of 
poetry ; but it is a talent, of which aU 
the requisites united are so extraordinarily 



ORNIUS OF LORD RTRON. ^3 

rari% that in all Europe, in six centuries, 
the number of those who have exhibited 
it in a legitimate manner, and in any 
vcr\' powerful degree, is so small, that I 
dare not specify it without seeming in- 
vidious. Life, force, nature, truth, 
sublimity, pathos, beauty, interest of 
fable, happy and probable combination 
of incidents, expression, harmony, —all 
these must be joined ! And who can 
dare to aspire to such an assemblage? 
When it does occur, what is there that 
can e<|ual its fruits, either in delight or 
in utility ? In no other way can the most 
precious of mere human wisdom, tlie 
wUdom which lies in tlie knowledge of 
man's moral and intellectual nature, be 
conveyed with so much brilliancy and 
strength of impression. 

I must not presume to say, that Lord 
Rvron has entirely fulfilled all these high 
eMentials of mighty genius duly exerted. 
1 tear, or rather ho|>e, that he has S4)me- 

T 



274 LETTERS ON THE 

times failed in the grandest essential, — 
truth itself: for to believe that aU hia 
representations, and the conclusions r^ 
suiting from all his fictions, are true; 
and diat he has never embodied false- 
hood instead of truth, would be to ad« 
mit what would corrupt our hearts, by 
filling them with discontent and de- 
spondency. 

But whatever he has embodied he 
has embodied with every other essential 
faculty of a poet, whether it be truth 
or falsehood ! And surely he has some- 
times embodied truth herself in radiant 
and enchanting colours ; while falsehood 
has, by the spell of his genius, taken so 
much of the shape and features of truth, 
that, though it is on that very account 
the more dangerous, it does not diminish 
the brilliancy of his power, though it 
stains the purity of his conscience. 

In thus having dwelt for nine-and- 
twenty days on the same subject, I am 



GEHIUS OF LORD BTRON. 



9rfs 



L sure that I have not worked myself 
o a temperament^ on which the heat 
ny imagination may have overcome 
* sobriety of my judgment 



T « 



S76 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XXX. 

Julys. 

I HAVE allowed an interval of thirteen 
days to pass since my last letter, that if 
my judgment had become heated, it might 
have time to calm. The result is that 
I see no reason to change my opinions. 
I have since conversed intimately with a 
gentleman who, at a late period of Lord 
Byron's life, spent many of his days with 
him : I have hitherto learned nothing to 
contradict my ideas, and much to con- 
firm them ; nay, my ideas of the great 
poet have been even raised ; and some 
conjectural apologies I have made for 
him have been proved to be well-founded. 
To presume to speak of the characters 
of persons whom we have not known 
personally seems to many minds too 
baseless an attempt But sometimes we 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 877 

^^ more perfectly at a distance, than 
^hen we are very near. There are in- 
^rinsic marks, communicable by writing 
or conversation, which scarcely ever de- 
ceive ; while they who have actual and 
repeated interviews, may behold only the 
surface of another's character, his petty 
manners, his little inconsiderate flashes 
of temper or of thought, the trivial 
ebullitions of his passing vanity, or hear 
those imperfect expressions of indigested 
idea or sentiment, which the irritation of 
society is too apt to produce in sensitive 
and uncalm spirits. I have known men 
who have always shown the worst of 
themselves in company, and have been 
only good and wise in the closet, where 
their irritability subsided, and all was 
calmness, benevolence, deep considera- 
tion for others, and sound unerring judg- 
ment. Whatever value, therefore, we may 
put on anecdotes, and what is called per- 
sonal knowledge, as the only intelligence 

T 3 





T/B UCTTEMM €fm 

to ht idicd cBy udnie corrector of fia- 
cffiil ipecidilioDs and enxfty gucMca^ 
sofid ddiiken fed aaBmed that they nnot 
dhnnps bo received widi cmlioii, and tint 
amch ilqigiidi od the sort of capacity 
for ofaoervatioQ widi wliidi die idater is 
cndoned. Ihavehadtheadvaiitageoftijf^* 
isg loj^ wncculali¥eo|iinioos oDLordBjmo 
kj the tfiit crf^the pcfacNul iotiiiiacyof 004 

I toobservewidr Mund- 
Dsion have iq>peared 
to me quite induBputable. I have always 
tboii^t, that Horace Wa^k (^Lard 
Or/ard), witty and ingenious as he was, 
relied too mudi on Uitle anecdotes to 
pourtray and pull down great characters. 
And long-memoried but li^t-minded 
Anifumy Waodj in his silly attempt to 
disparage Lord Clarendon, is to me an 
wgt illustration of my theory. 

An author may have as much simu- 
lation in his writings as in his manners ; 
but a sagacious reader can always detect 



GENIUS OF LOBJO BYRON. 279 

the falsity, especially if the author writes 
much, and at different times. — Common 
observers, common readers, and com- 
mon critics, cannot distinguish between 
those changes and contradictions to 
which every rich mind is subject, and 
those which are the indexes of deceit and 
hollow pretension. There is no insin* 
cerity in being sometimes gay, jocose, 
fond of actual life, and of << the paths 
** of observance,'' and sometimes sec- 
tary, contemplative, visionary, and pro- 
foundly melancholy. Of all the admirable 
qualities possessed by Lord Byron, this 
alternation of powers and humours, this 
change 

** From grave to gay, from lively to levere,'* 

is among the most attractive. It follows 
the character of our nature, — and each 
successively delights doubly by the con- 
trast. But how he got such an intimate 
knowledge of" many-coloured'* life j how 

T 4 




he cmM we dl its petty details aUits 
taS&Mig JtmaatdUes, widi such a micra- 
copic cje; hmr lie could treasure up ia 
Ui grand flBeaMii]r» — in a memoiy filled 
widi sach sahfime and gigantic inngeii 
% cajfioaaaeaB of humorous raUr 
(and I am afraid I mu8tidd» 
of very damg^ is to me among Ae nu- 
meroos inconcehraUe incidents of lus 
"*»wMtaMi> gifts of genius. It would not, 
indeed, be ao wonderiu], if we did not 
compare it with the history of his life. 
But how small were his opportunities in 
ihese walks of observance! After leaving 
college^ he spent scarcely more than thre 
years in £ngland, and of that how little 
could have been spent in mijped society ! 
When my friend's Anecdotes and Be^ 
cords qf the Conversation of this extra- 
ordinary man shall appear, (as I trust 
they soon will,) it will be seen how mudi 
he shunned mixed society abroad, and how 
little it could ever have been to his taster 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 281 

III KiiKlaniL As to his occasional seve- 
rity ami bitterness; his anger and indig- 
nation at the common characters which 
are cherished, and cockered, and be- 
praised by the world ; he had good reason 
for his discontents and his resentments. 
He had seen enough of their treacheries, 
their artifices, their hypocrisies, and their 
outrages of integrity. << Do and think 
^ what you will,— but wear a mask !" is 
the nuxim of the world Lord Byron's 
was the direct reverse: <* Wear not a 
** nia>k, whatever you may do or think ! 
** 1 liate a mask : it turns a venial offence 
^ into an odious and irredeemable xrrime." 
Such, at least, appears to me to have been 
a ruling impression of his mental and 
moral character, —* the united result of 
sentiment and intellect! I will not say 
that it may not be abused; but it is surely 
much lev% mischievous, and much more 
noble, than the coiitrarv. 



S8S LETTERS ON THE 

The various ways in which a preference 
of what is plausible to what is true 
operates to corrupt, and finally to destroy, 
society, it would take a volume to de- 
scribe. Perhaps every thing which is 
thought and done ought not to be told ; 
but nothing ought to be told which is 
not thought or done. Many persons can 
reason speciously in favour of opinions 
which they do not hold. — We do^want 
reasonings only; we want an author's 
convictions. There are often ingredients 
that form part of the materials on which 
conviction is built ; but which yet are so 
subtle as to elude the power of expres- 
sion. And on this account, I contend 
that we want more than reasonings, and 
desire to have the results to which he, 
who undertakes to instruct us, has him- 
self come. To free men of ordinary 
talents from timidity and restraint in 
laying open their mental movements, 
feelings, and opinions, may produce no 



GEinUS or LORD BTRON. 983 

good : but minds of strong and fertile 
genius thus emancipated are fountains 
of knowledge, sympathy, and delight. 
Splendid as were Lord Byron's faculties, 
it is this which forms one of their 
greatest charms. He wanted no veiling ; 
( I speak generally ; — every thing is 
liable to exceptions ;) — * he wanted no 
veiling; the more clearly and less dis- 
guuedly he was seen, the more rich and 
magnificent he appeared. 

Win powers grew to the last: — the 
two last cantos of Don Juan (xv, xvi.) 
Here perhaps the best written of any of 
(hat poem, — though his incidents might 
have been supposed to have been ex- 
hausted, and his subject worn out! I 
am astonished at his ease, his point, his 
humour, his freshness, the admirable 
sagacity of his understanding, his inti- 
mate insight into the diversities of the 
human character, the keenness with which 
he dissects, the brilliancy with which he 



284 LBTTERS OK THE 

discovers, the smiles and good humour 
with which he delineates and exposes, 
and the irresistible fidelity and truth with 
which he marks out the features of his 
innumerable persoruB dramatis. Here 
all is comic without extravagance ; and 
ridiculous without anger or scorn. Nor 
is there a single hereditary subject of sa^ 
tire ; no transmitted images ; no hackneyed 
formularies of contempt or indignation ; 
no borrowed portraits; no obsolete ab- 
surdities } — all comes new and direct 
from life ; and this poem, perhaps, afibrds 
a greater novelty, as well as freedom, in 
the combination of words, than can else- 
where be found : with such an extraor- 
dinary lucidness; such a prevalence of 
the thought over the language ; and such 
an utter rejection of all artifice and com- 
mon-place ornament, as to hold the at- 
tention, and carry forward the reader by 
an inexhaustible charm. 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON\ 285 

There is a sort of genius so abstract 
^Qd remote, that though we admire its 
spirituality, we have not an entire and in- 
timate sympathy ¥rith it, because it seems 
Out of our reach : — too good for us, or 
too lofty for us ! We never for a mo- 
ment forget that Lord Byron is a fellow- 
being, — even in the midst of his most 
sublime and romantic flights of poetry. 
Frail humanity attends him ; and if his 
faults do not make us love him, at least 
his weaknesses and sorrows engage our 
affections. 

There is something so manly in his 
most tender and most exquisite feelings, 
of so vigorous and healthy a hue, so 
consistent with a noble daring, so pre- 
pared for perils, so strung for action, so 
adventurous, rather than subject to that 
shrinking imbecility of action which is 
the disease that too commonly besets 
genius, that he seems our protector 




rather thu a Koatire hdag (» fiMl 
genenlly are) demanding 

Were not LordBjnm's i 
of Uie intniMic merit whidb bdoogi tt 
dienv yt tfaor extreme rui^, at lemt, 
in nnkHi, mi^ dme to •ecore not 
OHty onr ■laiii i but chb c rt Dcm . He 
Btinds alone in our poetical \Aoffafiky, 
iialilK an otiieT poets in his aidow m ent ^ 
his Biei ar y boldness and ease^ his per- 
sonal hatnts, the extraOTdinary inddento 
of his adventurous life, the novelty oi 
his poetical career, and the sploidour 
of his original imaginatiwi. I have 
sfud our poetical bit^raphy, — I ought 
to have said the poetical biogr^hy of 
Europe. 

He had his glories while alive ; but he 
had also his de^ mortificatiotts and 
insults, even in his poetical character. 
He was sometimes criticised in the most 
foul and treacherous manner; and it 
will hereafter be proved that smne of 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. 287 

the cluu']ges of bitterness anit gross abuse 
which have been heaped most heavily on 
his name were justly provoked by otU- 
rafitous aggression. 




288 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XXXI. 

Since it has been finally resolved to print 
these Letters^ a little retrospect and more 
precise guard of some of the <^inioo8 ex- 
pressed in them becomes prudent. Lord 
ByroUy when alive^ kept his numerous 
enemies intimidated and checked by die 
powerful ascendancy of his genius ; now 
that he is gone, many of them will come 
forth again in their venom, with their 
cowardly aggressions on his memory; 
and there will be an endeavour to sacri* 
fice to their malignity and resentment 
those who tajce his part . 

It is well known that the points of 
attack on Lord Byron have been for some 
years directed, not against his genius, 
but against his morals and personal 
character. An apologist on this head 



GENIUS OP LORD RYRON. ^289 

ought to be very explicit, both for Lord 
Byron's sake and for his ovm. Were the 
rcprobatkm and obloquy with which Lord 
BjnoD was puituedt finom his entrance at 
Cambridge till his death, just or unjust? 
Had he not reason for compUint of the 
world^s treatment ? Had he cause for dis* 
content and bitterness, or had he not? 
The common cry is, that he had not ! — 
that he threw away genius, rank, station, 
the world's favour, — nay, the world's 
dewe to receive him with open arms, in 
wpHe of errors and faults, — by defiance, 
outrage of all decorum, avoidance of 
sodeQr, foul satire, misanthropy, and the 
indulgence of* all violent passions. 

Such, at least, if not the general cry, 
has been the unqualified clamour of more 
than half his countrymen! If such 
charges were true it would be an odious 
task to be his apologist, even aided by all 
lua dasiiiqg genius. To me this view of 

u 




890 LETTERS ON THE 

him seems not merely a gross caricature, 
but a most vdcked falsehood. It is not 
necessary for me to rest my defimce od 
the principle that we vOQght to limit our 
consideration to the merits or demerits of 
an author's writmgs, and have no oon^ 
cem ¥dth his private and personal charac- 
ter, except so far as it affects his writings; 
though a great deal mi^t be urged for 
this principle, especially after an author's 
death. It seems to me that Lord Byron's 
personal character has been fiightfully 
misrepresented and misunderstood. 

There is in the world, very generally 
prevalent, a strange perversion of mind 
and heart, which forgives to young mes 
who have no redeeming virtues or talents 
that, as the venial folly of early life, which 
is branded with infamy in him who has 
genius and a thousand brilliant qualities 
of heart, and a thousand brilliant actionSi 
which ought to efface even great irr^jfu- 
larities and faults. It would be wellf 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 991 

r gernos could always bring with it all 
«tiie» wisdom, pradence, complacency, 
■d self-eommand,-— if high sensibility, or 
tepribility, was aho€af$ impressible by 
and never hjevil; — but sudi is not 
nature; such is not the state in 
I¥ovidence has sent us into the 
■orld ! Lord Byron has been tried by 
not applied to others; not appli« 
to the qualities of our frail being ; 
what is worse still, very often upon 
and incented facts ! 
I will run rapidly over such of the ge- 
■Msllji miiilinni il incidents of his life as 
I hnve every reason to believe cannot be 
nomdictedt or, at least, not disproved. 
I prdend to no personal knowledge, nor 
to iDtdligence peculiar to myself 

It it said that at Cambridge Lord 
BjroQ endeavoured to distinguish himself 
bf acce ntri dties unworthy a man endowed 
villi talents which might command ho- 

I admit the choice of* a 
i; 2 



392 LETTERS ON THE 

bear as his companion, with all its attend- 
ant history, to have been a boyish act, 
which showed both bad taste and want of 
judgment. I do not doubt that Lord 
Byron had inherent in him, not only afi 
excess of pride, but a good deal (rf* 
vanity, which is not always united with it 
The truth is, that there was implanted 
in him that strong Iwe qf distifwtionf 
which is given us for the wisest purposes, 
as a spur to noble exertions and a 
career of useful glory ! But this fire does 
not always find vent in its proper direc- 
tion ; accidents sometimes impede it ; 
blights, chills, obstructions, turn it aside ; 
it is then almost sure, if it be strong, to 
break out in excrescences, funguses, dis- 
eases ! Lord Byron had been oppressed * 
and disappointed at school : he came to 
college with a wounded pride, and his 
manners, and (as- 1 believe) the mortifica- 
tion of a fortune inadequate to his rank, 
exposed him to a reception there which 



GESWB OF LORD BYUON. ^93 

dwelt upon bis haughty and meditative 
^rit* soured a temper naturally fierce, 
aod dro\'e his active feelings into extra- 
nuances in mere deq>air. This might 
be rq^retled ; but there was nothing un- 
natural in it, nothing radically bad* no- 
thing irredeemable, nothing unlike what 
has happened to thousands who have 
turned out virtuous and excellent mem- 
bers of societv. 

But mark how much of the noble 
flame of a cultivated, amiable, and 
ifilendid mind was working in him, in his 
better and more congenial hours, even 
mtnr. At thb crisis he wrote those poems 
which were published under the title of 
Hours qf Idleness! And mark, too, 
how this effort of a grand spirit emerging 
ftom a cloud was met ! — It was turned 
into the roost oflensive mockery and in- 
gult ! ! -— The author of that mischievous 
article has been named to me, but I am 
not at liberty to repeat it. I do not think 

u d 



394 LETTERS ON THE 

it exaggeration to say, that much of the 
colour of the eccentric part of Lord 
Byron's future life is to be attributed to 
that article. Lord Byron, also, is said in 
his latter life to have known the author. 
Lord Byron now went abroad ; but not 
till he had taken vengeance of his critic8» 
and gained an advantage which must in 
some degree have consoled him ; but the 
wound still rankled : 

— htrret lateri tethaUt arundo / 

The first two cantos of Childe HaroU 
show that neither his understanding, his 
feelings, nor his genius, were allowed to 
sleep on his travels* Eccentricities, as 
strong as those exhibited at Cambridge! 
and produced by the same causes, mayi 
perhaps, have been indulged during these 
wanderings ; but it is clear, that they 
were never suffered to overlay his genius^ 
or break down the energies of his nund 
or heart. I know not whether, if* he did 



GK.V1U8 OF LORD BYRON. ^9^ 

not resist to join in the youthiul iollies 
by whidi the more common beings of' 
bis i^e» and nmk« and sphere of life en- 
deavour to render themselves remark- 
able^ the flame which could still bum so 
brightly in the midst of such an enfeeb- 
ling and extinguishing atmosphere, did 
not thus prove its \-igour and its virtue 
more decidedly, than if carefully culti- 
%*ated, and kept from all perils and coun- 
teractions. — It is a sickly flame which 
never makes the cauldron boil over, 
and cannot live amid winds and tempests, 
even at the eicpence of sometimes taking 
a wrong and dangerous direction. 

At the age of twenty-four, after three 
yean of absence. Lord Byron returned 
finon his first travels. The publication 
of tbe first part of CkiUe Harold 
(1818) brought him into immediate 
fashion^ But this sort of fashion, this 
quick pass from one extreme to another, 
ii alosost as dangerous and oversetting in 

IT 4 



396 LETTERS ON THE 

youth to a sensitive, fiery, and turbid 
spirit, as neglect and obloquy. It is like 
one used only to the bracing drink of 
cold waters suddenly overtaken by 
strong and inebriating wine ! It must be 
recollected^ that though in the demo- 
cratic temper which prevails in England, 
Lord Byron's rank would not by itself 
procure him proper notice ; yet when 
the whim of fashion fixed its eye on him 
on other accounts, it was a great aid, 
and increased fivefold the silly distinction 
which it confers with such blind adul- 
ation on its idols. I will not degrade 
my pen by attempting to give a picture 
of the manner in which it acts, or an 
examination of the little despicable 
cabals, artifices, intrigues, passions, and 
insanities, on these puny narrow stages 
of life, where the actors and actresses 
have the folly and blindness to call them' 
selves tlie world, as if these few hun- 
dreds of silly people formed the exclu- 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. <97 

nvely-iroportant part of mankind ! — * nay, 
as if they monopolized title, birth, rank, 
wealth, polish, talent, and knowledge; 
and this at a crisis, when the ancient and 
great nobility keep themselves for the 
moat part aloof; and when these ex- 
chukmalisis are principally new titles. 
East Indians, adventurers, noisy politi- 
cians, impudent wits of low origin, vul- 
gar emergers from the city suddenly got 
rich, contractors, Jews, rhyming orators, 
and scheming parsons, who have pushed 
themselves into notice by dint of open 
purse or brazen face; and who get a 
little bad gilding, like the ginger-bread of 
a rustic fair, by a few cast duchesses^ 
countesses, &c., who having come to the 
end of their own pockets, credits, and 
characters, are willing to come wherever 
the doors of large houses can be opened 
to them, and tlie costs of expensive en* 
Certainments paid ! 



298 LKTTEftS ON THE 

Into this new world, besetting to the 
young, the vain, and the inexperienced. 
Lord Byron was now plunged. It is 
true that his family was ancient, and 
had been highly allied, and might fidrly 
be said to belong to the old nobility ; -— 
but I trust it will not be deemed in- 
vidious to say frankly, that they were 
now in their wane:— -his father had 
lived in high life ; but he died when the 
son was an infant, leaving the wreck of a 
spent fortune, and a widow to whose 
affairs retirement from the world became 
necessary, and who brought up her son 
among her own relations in Scotland, till 
the time when he was sent to Harrow. 

There is nothing more illiberal than a 
great school on the subject of fortune, 
manners, and connections. When these 
operate to furnish mortification to a 
proud, sullen spirit, the chances are that 
it never recovers from its effects. Every 
one knows that the great passion of boys 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 299 

ambled in large numbers is to mortify 
each other. I learned many years ago, 
ftom good intelligence, that Lord Byron 
was especially subjected to these elSects. 
I think, therefore, that candour ought to 
make some allowance, i^ under these 
circumstances, the sudden blaze of fashion 
that fell on Lord Byron had a sort of un- 
due temporary influence over his strong 
mind, which it would not otherwise liave 
had. 

I say icn^rarif ; — I shall presently 
•bow that he emancipated himself from it 
to a degree and in a manner which has 
been made an ofiensive chaige against 
him, but which appears to mf a proof of 
his radical magnanimity and rectitude. 

But in the midst of this burst of 
fiMhionable idolatry his enemies and his 
traducers never left him. Not only were 
every error and indiscretion of his past 
life brought forward and made the theme 
of every tongue, but all were exaggerated ; 



300 LETTERS ON THE 

and there were added to them a thousand 
utter inventions of diabolical malignity. 
I had forgot to mention the old monk's 
skull, found at Newstead^ which he had 
formed into a drinking cup, when he 
first quitted Cambridge for the old man- 
sion of his ancestors, and the orgies of 
which among his young companions be 
made it a part. It must be confessed 
that it was an unfeeling frolic which it 
would be vain to excuse, and which, I 
must frankly own, fills me with a painful 
shudder that I cannot overcome. I am 
willing to surrender it to the opprobrium 
which it deserves. But his calumniators 
were not content with this ; they founded 
the most revolting perversions on it, 
which have found their way into the Ger- 
man and other foreign biographies of onr 
poet. It cannot, however, but strike us, 
that many a youth of rank has been guilty 
of a hundred jokes equally objectionable, 
yet against whom such acts, if he hap-* 



OEKIUS OP LORD BYRON. 301 

pened to be stupidt and never to have 
done a good thing to counterbalance 
them, were never brought forward as 
olgections to his amiableness or respect* 
ability. 

Four eventful years (1812 to 1815) 
paated in this manner in England. It was 
on the 2d of January, 1815, that Lord By- 
ron's marriage took place ; — a subject on 
which it is not necessary to my purpose 
to enter into any details, and which I wilU 
ingly avoid. All the world knows that it 
was not happy, and that, wherever the 
fiuih by, it embittered the remainder of 
htt days. 

The charge against Lord Byron is, — 
not that he fell a victim to excessive 
temptations, and a combination of dr- 
cumstaoces which it required a very rare 
and extraordinary d^^ree of virtde, wis- 
dom, prudence, and steadiness to sur- 
moirot, — but that he abandoned a situa- 
tion of uncommon advantages, and fell 



302 LETTERS ON THE 

weakly, pusillanimously, and selfishly, 
when victory would have been easy, and 
when defeat was ignominious. I have 
anticipated much of the answer to tins 
charge : I will dwell a little more on it 
I do not deny that Lord Byron inherited 
some very desirable and even enviable 
privileges in the lot of life which fell to 
his share. I should falsify my known 
sentiments if I treated lightly the gift of 
an ancient English peerage, and a name 
of honour and venerable antiquity : but 
without a fortune competent to that rank, 
it is not ** a bed of roses ;*' — nay, it is 
attended with many and extreme diffi* 
culties, and the difficulties are exactly 
such as a genius and temper like Lord 
Byron's were least calculated to meet ; — 
at any rate, least calculated to meet 
under the peculiar coUateral circum- 
stances in which he was placed. His in- 
come was very narrow : his Newstead 
property left him a very small disposable 



GENIUS or LORD BTRON. SOS 

• 

furplus : his Lancashire property was, in 
its condition, &c. unproductive. A pro- 
fieMoo,*-*such as the army, — might have 
leaaened, or almost annihilated, the dif- 
ficulties of his peculiar position, — • but 
probably his lameness rendered this iro- 
posnble. He seems to have had a love 
of independence, which was noble, and, 
probaUy, even an intractability ; but this 
temper added to his indisposition to 
bend and adapt himself to his lot A 
dull, or supple, or intriguing man, with- 
out a single good quality of head or 
heart, might have managed it much 
better. He might have made himself 
sidiiervient to government, and wormed 
himaelf into some lucrative place ; or he 
might have lived meanly, conformed liinK 
•elf stupidly or cringingly to aU humours, 
and been borne onward on the wings of 
society with little personal expence. 

Lord Byron was of another quality and 
tempe r ament : if the world would not 



304 LETTERS ON THE 

conform to him, still less would he OHi- 
form to them. He had all the manly 
baronial pride of his ancestors, though he 
had not all their wealth, and their means, 
of generosity, hospitality, and patroor 
age : he had the will, alas ! without the 
power. 

With this temper, these feelings, this 
genius, exposed to a combination of such 
untoward and trying circumstances, it 
would indeed have been inimitably praise- 
worthy if Lord Byron could have been 
always wise, prudent, calm, correct, pure, 
virtuous, and unassailable : -~ if he could 
have shown all the force and splendor of 
his mighty poetical energies, without any. 
mixture of their clouds, their baneful light- 
nings, or their storms : — if he . could 
have preserved all his sensibility to every 
kind and noble passion, yet have re-: 
mained placid and unaffected by the at- 
tack of any blamable emotion ; — that is. 



GENroS or LOED BTttON. 905 

t would have been admirable if he had 
leen an angel, and not a man ! 

Unhappily, the' outrages he received, 
the gro08 calumnies which were heaped 
iqxm him, even in the time of his highest 
bvour with the public, turned the de- 
lights of his very days of triumph to 
poison, and gave him a sort of moody, 
fierce, and violent despair, which led to 
humours, acts, and words, that mutu- 
ally aggravated the ill wiU and the of- 
fiences between him ttid his assailants. 
There was a daring spirit in his temper 
and his talents which was always inflamed 
rather than corrected by exposition. 

In this most unpropitious state of 
things, every thing that went wrong was 
attributed to Lord Byron; and, when 
once attrU)uted, was assumed and argued 
upon as an undeniable^^/. Yet to my 
mind it is quite clear, — quite unattended 
by a particle of doubt, — that in many 
things in which he has been the most 

X 



306 LETTERS OK THE 

blamed he was the absolute victim of 
mis/brtune; that unpropitious trains of 
events (for I do not wish to shift the 
blame on others) led to explosions and 
consequent derangements^ which no cold 
prudent pretender to extreme propriety 
and correctness could have averted or 
met in a manner less blamable than that 
in which Lord Byron met it. 

It is not easy to conceive a character 
less fitted to ' conciliate general socie^ 
by his manners and habits than that of 
Lord Byron. It is probable that he 
could make his address and conversation 
pleasing to ladies when he chose to please; 
but to the young dandies of fashion, 
noble and ignoble, he must have been 
very repulsive : as long as he continued 
tohe the ton^ — the Cow, — they may have 
endured him without opening their 
mouths, because he had a frown and a 
lash which they were not willing to en* 
counter ; but when his back was turmd. 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. 907 

ifid they tliought it safe, I do not doubt 
that they burst out into full cry ! I have 
beard complaints of his vanity, his 
peevishness, his desire to monopolise 
distinction, his dislike of all hobbies but 
his ovn. It is not improbable that there 
may have been some foundation for these 
complaints: I am sorry for it if there 
was. I regret such littlenesses. And 
then another part of the story is probably 
left untold : we hear nothing of tlie pro- 
vocations given him ;^-sly hints, curve of 
the lip, side looks, treacherous smiles, 
iings at poetry, shrugs at noble authors^ 
•lang jokes, ideotic bets» enigmatical 
appointments, and boasts of being sense- 
leas brutes ! We do not hear repeated 
thejestof the glory of the Jew, that buys 
tlie ruined peer's falling castle ; the d— d 
good fellow, that keeps the finest stud 
and the best hounds in the country out 
of the snippings and odds and ends of 
his ooDtract ; and the famous good match 



308 XETTEES ON THE 

that the Duke^a daughter is going to 
make with Dick Wigley, the son of the 
rich slave-merchant at Liverpool! We 
do not hear the clever dry jests whispered 
round the table by Mr. , eldest son 

of the new and rich Lord , by young 
Mn — — , only son of Lord — — , the ex- 
lords A«, B., and C, sons of three Irish 
Union earls, great borough-holders, and 
the very grave and sarcastic Lord — -> 
who believes that he has the monopoly 
of all the talents and all the political ^id 
legislative knowledge of the kingdom, 
and that a poet and a bellman are only 
fit to be yoked together ! 

Thus, then, was this illustrious and 
mighty poet driven into exile I Yes, 
driven! Who would live in a country 
in which he had been so used, even 
though it was the land of his nativity, 
the land of a thousand noble ancestors, 
the land of freedom, the land where his 
head had been crowned with laurels, -^ 



OBVim OP LOED BTHON. 



ao9 



i where his heart had been torturedt 
ere all his most generous and most 
lie thoughts had beoi distorted and 
idered ugly, and where his slightest 
on and indiscretions had been mag- 
ed into hideous crimes ? 



X ti 




310 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XXXII. 

July&r 

A LARGE part of mankind think that it 
is a prime virtue to be content with the 
world as it is, and to take every thing 
placidly as it comes. I am not of their 
opinion. Others contend that no one 
has a right to find fault who is not him* 
self perfect. I as little agree with these. 
Perhaps no complaint, no exposure, will 
entirely change the vices, the injusticet 
the hard-heartedness of society ; but it 
may check and modify them. And as 
to the second position, it may be an- 
swered, that there are classes and quali- 
ties, as well as degrees, of wickedness, 
and among Milton's fallen angels some 
were more noble than others who were 
less guilty, and might therefore be 



GENIUS or LORD BYRON. Sll 

entitled to soorn, ind endeRvonr to elevate 
the Uttleneai of their inferiors. 

Yet if the tongue of obloquy and foul 
accusation was ever busy with Lord By- 
root at every rooment and in every direc- 
tioii» the general voice was and will be, 
that he brought it on himself and that 
it was DO more than he deserved. The 
■lore one thinks on this strange mixture 
of excessive admiration and excessive 
hatred that followed him, the more one 
is astonished and puzzled. The common 
eflect of great admiration, ^-at^ least in 
the pubUc, — IB to render the admirers 
Uind to fiiults. It is especially the halnt 
of those foolish triflers called tke world 
qf fuhkm. But in Lord Byron's case 
the hate and calumny uniformly aug* 
nsented with the praise and the adulation. 
Had aU^ or 4Umo$i aU^ the scandalous 
stories told o( him been true, (instead 
of a twentieth part of them, which is the 
mimoiif) the same candour, the same 

X 4 



312 LETTEES OV 

measure of justice, would not have dealt 
to him as to other offenders. We see 
libertines, debauchees, free-thinkers, men 
of the most unaccountable eccentricities 
of daily action and manners, received 
every day in the world with open arms^ 
kind looks, and smiling words, if they 
are what the ideotism of society dubs by 
the name of persons of fashion. But^ 
then, to be sure they have a distinction 
from Lord Byron which I have not yet 
mentioned, and of which I will give 
them all the benefit j — they have no genius 
or talent to raise envy, they have no 
feeling, no heart, and their eccentrici- 
ties are all mere qffectatioth and, what is 
more, the affectation springing irom ig* 
norance, stupidity, and babyisnu 

I know not what harm man^ of the 
singularities attributed to Lord Byron, 
and accompanied by so imich odious 
censure, would have done if true. If* 
he turned night into day, it was hb 



GENIUS X>P LORD BTRON. 813 

MTU affiur: if he was irr^ular in his 
nieals» and peculiar in his diet, it was his 
own affiur: if he did not love mixed 
society, if he would not talk but to the 
companions of his choice, had he not a 
right to exercise this humour? If his 
temper was irritable, and his judgment 
avcastic, is this imputed to others as a 

cnmr r 

If Lord Byron had been the monster 
which detestable rumour re p r e se n ted 
him, then there was nothing which his 
Hetiius had at that time put forth at all 
adequate to the redemption of his name^ 
and to render the charm of his writings 
paraoKNint to the disgust which ought to 
have been raised by his character. The 
fiict is, that his writings were mainly the 
r^kctkm$ of his character { and consists* 
«Bcy required that they who admired 
one should admire the other. I suspect, 
then, that the haired was sincere; the 
fioH hollow, feigned* and the 



31% LETTERS ON THE 

mere uaexaminecLeGho^cif a few leading 
spirits, who gave the tone in fashionable 
literature. This cause, no doubt, was 
mingled up with other whimsical ingre- 
dients, of which the fume of fashion is 
engendered ; — such as novelty, wonder, 
applied both to the author and his com- 
positions; and in these latter, a great 
sprinkling of strange, daring, licentious 
faults, which the taste for pungency, in- 
dulged by imbecile fashion, mistook for 
beauties. 

Lord Byron had too manly, penetrat- 
ing, and noble a mind, to be satisfied 
with a fame, which, however extended, 
was so hollow, and accompanied by so 
many frightful and heart-revolting draw- 
backs. He saw that even in his writings 
there was a constant disposition to divert 
the attention from the points where his 
strength and his merit lay, to throw it 
where the praise could not be supported, 
and invidiously to select features that 



GENIUS or LOBO BVBON. 



313 



were the ebuUitimis of those humoun, 
which, though he could not control, he in 
hi* hours of more sober thou^it regretted ; 
and this, too, for the double purpose of 
CDiuiecting them with all his personal er- 
ran» and giving exaggerated strength to 
hi* indiscretions or his peculiarities. He 
perhaps knew well, as Johnson said of 
Milton, " what nature had bestowed 
** upon him more bountifully than upon 
** other men :" he knew, in spite of the 
occasional frailties of his beio^ what 
virtue, what superiority to vulgar good- 
BCMt there was in those happier fits of 
exertion, when the more sublime or more 
pathetic inspirations ol' his Muse broke 
into utterance, and were unbodied in his 
■KKt eloquent and enchanting language ! 
Yet these* he tbund, were taken as vain 
words which availed his moral character 
■othing in the estimation of mankind ; 
while all hli ribaldry, all of his lower or 
flsore e\'il tutiirt-, wcfc 




316 LETTERS ON THE 

part of himself! " But what," cries the 
arch-censurer, ** are all the fine senti* 
^< ments in the world, if they are not 
" proved by concordant action ?** The 
union is, no doubt, desirable and neces- 
fiary to produce perfection j but is there 
no virtue in the grand and beautiful 
speculations of the mind, when they are 
sincere? We are not mere material 
beings ; nor will the rectitude of oiir 
material conduct ennoble us, or render us 
good, if our minds are low, base^ and 
vicious. On the contrary, there may 
be mighty and splendid greatness in the 
mind, even when our actions are some- 
times frail! No one can feel grapd, 
tender, beautiful, and just sentiments^ 
who is not virtuous at the moment of 
their impression. The reverse oS thiSy I 
am aware, must on the same principle be 
true ; and for all that are bad in Lord 
Byron he must answer. But in this last 
class many more have been included by 



GENIUS or LORD BYRON. 31? 

s pubKc, not equally nice on other oc- 
dsions, than strictly and fairly belong 
to it. 

So fiu*, then. Lord Byron had much 
stronger reason for his bitterness, his 
discoDtent* and his misanthropy, than 
been granted to him. It was not all 
with him, as has been repre- 
•entod : the situation he is said to have 
thrown away did not afibrd so much 
ground for gratitude, rather than gloom 
and hatred. He perceived tliat, while 
he was treading on flowers, mines of 
pestilence and destruction were beneath. 
Doors flew open to him ; voices hailed 
him : but he was of a temperament too 
etherial to breathe well in the thick 
tainted air, — of an ear too nice to be 
pleased by the perfidious sounds. 

All these, however, he would pro- 
bably have continued to endure ; and the 
dominion of liis great intellect, the meU 
and aobriety of added years, 



318 LETTERS ON ^THS 

the calmness which long intercourse with 
mankind gives to the irritability of the 
temper and nerves, might gradually 
have secured to him a sort of &me and 
estimation less dangerous, and . more 
satisfactory both to his judgment and his 
pride. All these were irretrievably de* 
feated by a most ill-assorted combination 
of domestic events. It is absurd to sup- 
pose that any human understanding can 
command all the complicated trains of 
human affairs, and be answerable for 
consequences which will befall us in spite 
of wisdom and virtue. There is some- 
times domestic misery where there is no 
fault In the conduct of human afikirs 
there may be derangement where no 
blame belongs to the master ; and vast 
properties have been embarrassed and 
ruined from a thousand causes, for which 
the owners on whom the blow has fallen 
have not been responsible. It may be 
said that we ought to calculate all our 



GENIUS or LORD BTRON. 319 

and conform ourselves to the 
abridgment of them, firom ivhatever 
cause it may have arisen. This position 
may be abstractly correct ; but never yet 
to any individual was it applied in all its 
•rrerity. Any censure, therefore, as re- 
sponsible for this cause, is not worth re- 
fitting because I know not that any one 
baa expressed it 

It seems, in fact, that Lord Byron was 
one whose pride and independence were 
asaddened by the assaults and mortifica- 
tions of pecuniary embarrasment When 
complicated misfortunes and insults came 
upon him in floods, early in 1816; and 
when he found all the evils for which he 
dcacn re d most pity turned into the most 
atrocious and most offensive charges 
against him ; when the fruits of his en- 
chanting genius served but to sharpen 
the tongue of public scandal ; when he 
was pursued, and pointed at, and hooted 
at; when all that passion and hatred 



SSQ LETTC1I8 ON THJS 

could dictate on one side was heard;, 
when all of maliguant tendency was swain 
lowed on that side, in defiance of the 
most repelling improbabilities; ifihm 
nothing due to the grandeur of genius, to 
the charm of a justly-acquired fame, to 
proved manliness . of temper and eleva>: 
tion of pride, was believed, or listened 
to, on the other ; — there remained but 
one asylum, one retreat. It was to seek 
in foreign countries the peace which the 
base ingratitude and injustice of his own 
would not give. 

Lord Byron then embarked for the 
Continent, and arrived by the Rhine at 
Geneva, in June, 1816. He has given a 
most rich and eloquent account of his 
journey to this city, and his residence 
here during the remaining months of 
1816, in the third canio of Childe Ha- 
rold. Whoever reads that canto, and is 
not impressed with the many grand 
virtues as well as gigantic powers of the 



OfiNIUl or LORD BTRON. 921 

■und that wrote it, seems to me to affi>rd 
s proof both of insensibLlity of hewt and 
great stupidity of intellect It required 
a soul of very extiaordinary fortitude 
aod grandeur not to be broken down 
and rendered lifeless by such trials and 
o p pre s sions as Lord Byron had under- 
gone* 

We must observe, then, with astonish- 
ment and admiration in what a state of 
vigour, richness, and intellectuality the 
fountain of Lord Byron's heart, and his 
fiiculties of fancy and imagination, now 
displayed themselves. If, among the 
various powers with which he was so pro- 
fusely gifted, he had now given way to 
his bitter wit and severe insight into all 
the obliquities of the human character 
with a relentless and death-darting rail- 
lery, could it have been an indulgence 
of paMon and of vengeance, which 
(though it might have been regretted) 
could have been either wondered at or 



39X LSTTfiRS ON THE 

thought unpardonable? — But, no! he 
surmounts this unamiable, though na^ 
tural, passion ; never was his heart man 
tender; never was his love of nature 
more intense; never were his thoughts 
more magnificent, or his images more 
brilliant ! He threw away painful recolr 
lections by gazing on the gigantic scenery 
around him; he cultivated a solitude 
which I will not believe that guilt can 
endure ; he awakened all his faculties to 
a degree of splendour, and a nicety of 
distinction and force of contemplation, 
which it seems to me impossible can 
co-exist with an evil and very loaded 
conscience. 

I see, across the lake from the window 
by which I write this, the Campagne •, in 
which he resided, glitter in the sun. It is 
on an height, on which the blue expanse 

* Campagne DiodaU: a name rendered lacred by B^ 
tofC% friendship. 



oBiffiii Of LomD vrmoN. ditS 

of water qipean magnificently spread 
before it ; and bejondt the Jura moun- 
tains ; to the west, Geneva glittering be- 
lieath at a mite distant ; to the east, at 
the top of the fadce, Lauiatme. 

I doubt not that he had sometimte his 
tt of meditation here till he was sick ; 
and that the cup of bitterness could not 
alwajrs be kept from his lips. He was 
not happy : but as Ckarlotie Smih ex- 
claimed in one of her beautifiil poems : 

Lei the reader turn to his description 
of BomMseau ; and of the scenery of 
Cfamu; and say, whether the fountain 
of lender love in Lord Byron's heart was 
extinguishedt or chilled. 

MUtom says in Camus : 

« WbcaloiC 

look*, Umm* gMturti» and foul talk* 
hf Itwd and laHiii art of mi, 
Ltii is MtaMsl lo llw iaward paffU» 

r « 




904 



LSTTfiRS OH THS 



The soul grows dotted by. fonfiyon» 
Imbodiet and inibnitei^ till ibe quite lote 
The divine property of her fint beiDg."* 

Could Lord Byron's soul, when he 
wrote this cantOf be imbodied . and im* 
bnitefi? 



GKmUt Ol^ LOED BTROK. $M5 



LETTER XXXIII. 

July 6. 

It is said that the crime of disseminat- 
ing evil opinions is greater than the crime 
of evil acts ; ^stf because it is more 
deliberate; seamdfyt because the ex- 
ample and influence extends wider, and 
because the source of action is thus at- 
tempted to be poisoned. Perhaps as a 
general proposition, cautiously applied 
only to the cases which strictfy meet it 
in all its parts, this is true ; but it must 
not be applied to an occasional intermix- 
ture of passages, even though they be 
decidedly liable to objection ; much less 
to those which are doubtful ; and least of 
all, where the general spirit of the com- 
position counterbalances, or goes far to 
counterbalance, the mischief. 

Whatever contains that which awakens 
tiw reads r^a imagination to grand con- 

T S 



Sfl6 LETTBRS ON THE 

ceptions or grand emotions; whatever 
softens and refines the hearts and gives 
light, .vigour, and impulse to the under- 
standing; is an unquestionablepreparative 
tf> virtue, evjen i^ it be pqt yirtiie ^^^ 
It will be answjsr^d^ that ffiei^ wbq hav^ 
produced such fri^its b&v^ jbf^Q qA;^ 
yiciou^. I dov|bt it: men yrhq li^iv? 
written the turgid, th^ ^epted, the fyl^ 
pathetic, hav^ oft^n b^eu so^ becaiute 
they w^re pretenders, ^d oxdy act^d 9 

In all our atten^pts to improve hupifiD 
nature, we ought always to have rega[r4 
tp its frailties it» dispositions,, and (h^ 
tendency of it^ passions : ^ excesfiyf 
Puritanism lead? tP l^pocrisysi Bx^^ht^^^ 
mqre mis^^hi^i^ thfm it i^ur^ |t mi^ b« 
admitted that Lprd Byron not iW^ 
quently pushed this principle too &f;^ 
but it may fairly be supposed that I^ 
acted upon it, and that it will pften 
justify him UK cas^ wh^re be h^^ b«ep 



C£N1U8 OF LORD BYRON. 3^7 

■XMt uospariqgly blamed. It cannot be 
iolidly and enduringly beneficial to 
tociety, that pretence and disguise should 
take the phce and reap the reward of 
virtuous motives, and supersede good 
done for the sake of good The practice 
of the world is to uphold decorum and 
outward appearances,— 4md there rest con- 
tent To pierce the veil, and show tilings 
io their true light, is a mortal offence, 
and always confounded (wilfully con- 
founded) with an attack on virtue itself. 
If truik were not thus unmantlcd and 
brought to new, no sagacious mind nor 
sound taste would be pleased with it; 
and truth may surely be in general safely 
spoken i where it nuy not be spoken, the 
«M» probamdi lies on the side of the ex- 
eeptia$u There are, no doubt, cases, 
where pictures, though faithful, are yet 
pemictous or dangerous to morals. If 
the preponderant quantity of Lord 
Byron's works is of this cast, they ought 

V I 



328 JLKTT£B8 ON THE 

to sink. I, for one, most strenuously 
deny Uiat it is so< 

I can conceive a poet endued with 
great genius pandering to the corrupt 
passions of mankind for the purpose of 
acquiring a distinction which shall gratify 
his own vanity, or what is still worse, to 
gain money, which shall feed his own 
love of lucre, reckless all the whUe of the 
consequences to others, and regarding 
only his own selfish indulgences. Such 
a being, however gifted by nature, I pro- 
nounce to be base and rotten. The most 
radical and comprehensive of all the 
principles of morality is to do as we would 
be done hy. Nor is this recklessness of 
consequences to others consistent with 
sound sense, and the very ends proposed; 
because if we need not pay attention to 
what shall result to others, others need 
not pay attention to what shall result 
to us. 

There is, indeed, often a blindness, ao 



OBlflUt or LOED BTRON. 9C9 



. delinum in passion, wtucb 
IttdeB these consequences from men, and 
diem flatter themselves that they 
be exempted from general rulest 
eajoy the pleasures without being 
to the day of retribution ; who 

^ the charm as long as it will 

trork} and care not who sufTersi while 
their own ears can be tickled with flattery 
smI applause. 

There are parts in almost all Lord 
Byron's poems, and incidents in almost 
ftcry pvt of his life, which refute the 
upplicalion of this character to km/ 
Uta enemies and defamers have applied 
it to him : but much of the venom by 
which be has suflered has probably risen 
fiiwn the revene of it ; from the bitter- 
ridicule with which he has attacked 
Ml passions and common follies; 
Irom the nobler impulses which he has 
striven to substitute for them ; from the 
attrfirr* to turn the tide of impetuous 



890 LfiTTERS ON THE 

passion, which the evil condition of 
human nature will engender, into grander 
vices, and delights more intense, more 
heart-felt, and spiritual ! So it is that all 
the finer parts of Lord Byron's poetry 
would have made no impression either 
on the fashionable world, oc the mob of 
society, if they had come fixHn a saint : 
it is an universal feeling that the reader 
prefers Lovelace with all his profligacy 
to the cold, tame, formal, unnatural Sir 
Charles Grandison. Lord B3rron had all 
the attractions of Lovelace^ with the ad- 
dition of a splendid, elevating, and ro- 
mantic genius ! As cold, tame, rule-bound 
virtue is the least beneficial to society, 
so cautious, calculating, -heartless vice 
does the most unqualified ill : it is a creep- 
ing, insidious poison, which wins its way 
imperceptibly, and is not detected till 
too late. 



GENIUS or UHU> BTRON. 8S1 



LETTER XXXIV. 

July 7. 

1 EBOSST that my letter of yesterday 
ended without developing the ideas it 
was iiiteiided to convey. I was inter- 
mpted by other mote pressing occu- 
palioMi and at the same time I felt my 
aind doodad^ and my faculties feeble. 
With me, want of self-confidence is im- 
mediate want of power. I must leaver 
tfaen» the imperfect manner in which 
tlie topics of that letter are treated to 
ilB fiite» instead of retumii^ upon stale 



There are two principal thii^ to be 
cooside r ad in cstimatii^ the merit of a 
poet's works : the choice in what is in- 
vented or reflected ; and the manner, 
and power, and force, with which it i% 
oasveyed. As to Ijofd Byron, there is 



SSS LETTERS ON THE 

not now, I believe, (nor perhaps ever 
was,) any difierence of opinion as to 
conceding to him excellence in the 
latter : in the firmer there has been a 
most violent discordance, which probably 
still continues in no small portion of 
society, though much lessened. 

I have been endeavouring to assist in 
this diminution, and to show that the 
odium and persecution which the ob- 
jectors brought on Lord Byron, and the 
perverted comments by which they ex- 
tended it to his personal character and 
all his actions, were grossly unfair and 
malignant, and ought in candour to be 
admitted as an apology, if not a justifi- 
cation, for much of that occasional as- 
perity, ill humour with the world, railleiy, 
defiance, ridicule of pretended virtue, 
and unsparing attack on those (m whom 
the world confers its favours, which have 
been deemed so unamiable, so ferociou% 
and so unprincipled Lord Byron had 



OBKIUS OF LORD BTRON. 933 

teen manldiid without a mtsk^ partly 
from mgKxtyp and partly firom sufibring } 
and he was provoked to represent them 
with a rude and daring fidelity. He 
somerimwi caricatured: but then every 
one must see that it was meant for a 



And now I have got back to the point 
with which I ended my thirty-Meamd 
letter. I repeat» that much of that 
g|oom» and those bursts of indignation* 
diylsyril by Lord Byron after his retire- 
■Mot to the Continent in 1816, which 
have been pursued with such tirades of 
ipalling censure, had a natural and venial* 
if not justifiable, cause; and not mily do 
pffove the heartless pride and selfish- 
idipitted to him, but proves on the 
contrary* that with all his outward port 
of haughQr and reckless disregard, he 
had at the bottom a bosom which was 
tiw finrntain of tenderness ; a deep, con- 
contemplative mind, intensely 



as4 



LCTTBR8 ON TfinB 



sensitive of the sorrows of -oiir nature ; t 
<:;onscience awake, full of regrets, and 
ef^er pondering oti our frailties | a fmcy 
always conversant with beauty ^and grni^ 
deuir; and an imagination accuatoued to 
create not merely viskAis of^aiatenal 
splendour but of moral sublimityi J je» 
cidlect nothing in LordByronfa imems, 
which is purely arid merely de sti iplite : 
the strong feelings of humanity alwa^ in* 
termix themselves with, att his imageiTk ^i 
Here, then, is the index of tli& fhonil 
state of Lord Byron in the smnme# and 
autumn of 1816. He who is consckmi 
to himself of thoughts, sentiments^' tkad 
powers vastly elevated above itmAmUd 
insult and traduce him oan seetrcely ^vtaid 
to be agitated by titron^i etnoticmf ^ 
spleen, resentment, aiid ^akku .iif kt 
he not of a soif^ feminine, sicUy ieia^ 
perament, he will not answer ik^Aii' 
juries by whining complaints aMdeW^uvti^ 
pFFdtestatic^ of iimocefiee';'^ut h^tWi 



L 



OeNlUS OP LORD UYRON. SSS 

become desperate: he will break out 
into indignation, sarcasm, and exposure 
of his opponents, so severe as to seem 
inexcusably cruel to those who know not 
the provocation. 

There are those— and a very numerous 
dmm — who will contend, that an author 
ought not in his poetical fictions designed 
fiir the public to intermix them with the 
colouring of his own private concerns. 
If Lord Byron had, in 1816, exhibited 
any brilliant fruits of fancy or imagination, 
and yet avoided such intermingled co- 
louring; then I should have considered 
-H as an infallible test that he had no 
heart or moral sensitiveness. It is on 
this very fact, on which so much fnght- 
fU odium and calumny is built, that I 
fimnd my conviction of his high sensi- 
bililiesi and moral ele%'ation of intellect 
I speak this with reference to his com. 
positions considered comprehensively : 
I cannot but feel that his genius, like his 



33G LETTERS ON THE 

temper, was irregular, and liable to not 
a few exceptions ; but so inconsistent and'' 
imperfect is humanity, that I am afraid 
more restraint and seU-control wouldt 
in checking his excesses, have also tamed 
and blighted many of his beauties. His 
fearlessness, his defiance, his very anger, 
gave to his pen not only a frankness, but 
a resistless fire, which is among its main 
attractions. It forms one grand distinc- 
tion between him and almost all other 
poets: he never studies to write; he 
lays prostrate all the arts of composition, 
and kicks down all their rules, forms, 
and boundaries ; he trusts to the weight 
of his matter to support him ; and I do 
not remember a passage where he uses a 
trick or formulary of expression to support 
a trite or unnecessary thought, —and still 
less an absence of thought ! He was a 
substantial character both in poetry and 
in life : he stood alone, where none had 
preceded him ; none formed a part of hinif 



GENIUS OP LORD BTRON. 337 

and none, I fetft will follow him* He 
acted from his own humours ; he wrote 
and qpoke nothing merely because it was 
plausible; he was himself and none 
but himself, — whether he diflfered firom 
others or agreed with them. The major 
part of those who enjoy the fame of 
poetical genius have nothing more than 
the minor talent to catch and communi- 
cate the images, sentiments, and thoughts 
which they think will shine most, and be 
most agreeable to the public ; and are 
devoid of what proceeds from the in- 
ternal fountains of the heart, or is the 
result of intimate conviction. . They are 
therefore nothing better than repeaters, 
and add nothing positive to the stores of 
the intellectual world. 

About the beginning of 1817 Lord 
ByroQ went onward to Vemce^ where, 
I believe, he remained two or three years. 
The fourth canto ofCkildc Harold gives 
sooie account of his residence here, and 



338 LETtEBS ON THE 

I 

of his visits to the south of Itafy as far 
as Rome. I do not find that he ever 
went as far as Naples. He wrote several 
of his poems at Venice, and he indulged 
himself in many of its gaieties ; but he 
at length grew weary of them. About 
1820, he removed to Ravenna^ and thence 
in 1821 to Pisa. It was not, I think^ 
till 1823 that he quitted Italy for Greece. 
In July, 1822, he was deprived of his 
friend Bysshe Shelley ^ who was lost in a 
storm oif Leghorn^ by the upsetting of 
his boat, in returning to his campagne 
on that coast from a visit to Lord Byron 
at Pisa. 

I can only judge of his head and his 
heart, of his amusements, occupations, 
and habits, during these important six or 
seven years of his life, by his writings. 
I pay little attention to the hundred silly 
stories which folly and malignity have 
busied themselves in circulating. So many 
have been proved to be false, that com- 



GENIUS or LORD BTRON. 399 

itton cmiulour ought to presume the rest 
to be so. That his mind was never 
idle, that his imagination exerted itself 
in ek^uent and qplendid inventions, is 
AilBciently attested. He has given an 
account, in a note to one of his poems, 
of the very few English he chose to 
admK to his society when at Venice} 
and mudi ill will and obloquy has been 
generated among his countrymen by that 
note. Yet the note was naturally and 
justly drawn from him by a gross provo- 
cation. He luul not much reason to love 
his countrymen ; and still less to love 
ihetr society. He was not, like Danie^ 
exiled by law from the land of his nati- 
vity : but he was exiled by circumstances 
not less painful, and certainly more 
inimical to pri^-ate and personal attach- 
mrnta. A much less irritable man, and 
of more guarded habits and manners 
than Lord Byron, might well have 
avoided the flodis of his curious but ill- 

a « 




S40 LETTERS OM THE 

« 

discriminating countrymen, who come to 
stare and make wonders ; and to repeat, 
without just observation, and even with- 
out r^ard to such knowledge as their 
feeble judgments have obtained, what 
they pretend to have learned. 

It may be doubted, if any one who 
has a name to support in literature, even 
iar below Lord Byron's, ought not to be 
very cautious and select in the persons 
with whom he associates. Authors have 
not always the power or habit of throw- 
ing their talents into conversation. 
There are some very just and well-ex- 
pressed observations on this pmnt in 
Johnson^ s Life of Dryden^ who was said 
not at all to answer in this respect the 
character of his genius. I have ob- 
served, that vulgar readers almost always 
lose their veneration for the writings di 
the genius with whom they have had per- 
f^onal intercourse. 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. S4I 

It has been supposed, that witliout a 
consUnt exercise of observation, without 
a constant fiuniliarity with men and 
manneis, all opinions of life are merely 
visionary, inexact, and empty. Lord 
Byron is at any rate a contradiction to 
this: Us inexhaustible intimacy with 
living manners is among his numerous 
surprising superiorities. At the same 
lime, it may be justly questioned if ab- 
solute sc^tude is good for man. All the 
fitfullies of the mind are freshened and 
invigorated by v-ariety, by select convers- 
ation, and the endearments of social 
inleffcourse. From these Lord Byron 
•ever withdrew himself: he was no 
merely dreaming, merely ideal recluse : 
lie had a keen delight in the cheer which 
g ener o u s spirits receive from hospitality ; 
lie loved all manly exercises. It might 
be tmid by him, 

" Tcnrff^d cittci plwwr im then. 
Amd^hmf humei 

z 3 




34S LETTERS ON THE 



And throngs of knig^ta^ and barons bold. 
With store of lacUes^ whose bright eyes 

Rain influence : 

And pomp, and letot, and revelry, 
>¥ith mask and antique pageantry. 



»» 



And such, I suppose, was the life he 
led at Venice. He was not, however, 
insensible to the manner in which his 
name was treated in England by very 
powerful parties, though he rose above 
it. His genius was praised, -— some- 
times fulsomely praised, — his poems 
were bought and read, — his assumed 
merits and demerits were upon ev^ery 
tongue : criticism paid a sort of worship 
to him ; but it was a worship such as is 
paid to the devil : — a worship of fear, 
intermingled with ill-suppressed horror. 
There was a bitter thrown into the cup 
of every flattery, which turned it to 
poison ; — and where there was not cour- 
age to attack him under the criticism of 
his own works, the most virulent flings 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. Si^i 

wei-e made at him sometimes by single 
|KLHsiagea» sometimes by whole pages in 
articles which undertook to criticise the 
works of others. He had not only con- 
cealed as well as open enemies in every 
quarter* but sometimes, perhaps, also 
treacherous friends, who only paid ador- 
ation to the superiority of his genius out 
of fear. 

Yet with all these obstacles, maligni- 
tias, and misfortunes to contend with, he 
had also some advantages to spread the 
celebrity of his writings, and enforce the 
impression of his genius. It is a favour- 
ite position with those who have had the 
good luck to be popular, that real ge- 
nius will always win its way, and that 
the popular opinion is always just 1 
caonol conceive a position more absurd 
in reason, and more disproved by facts 
and the whole history of literature. In 
tiieorv and reason how can it be so ? — 
What are taste and judgment but the 



344 LETTERS ON THE 

result of native sensibility 2Xkd talent, im- 
proved by cultivationi experience, know- 
lege, and extensive power and habit of 
comparison ? Does a common mind like 
MiUon as well as Pornfret f or CoUms as 
well as Ambrose PAiUips or Gay ? And 
how, if it were true, can poems be in 
every one's hands for half a dozen 
years, and then totally shik ? And how 
happened it, that Paradise Lost was 
neglected by contemporaries, and the 
author seldom named, and never cited 
among the authors of his day ? 

I deny, then, that Lord Byron's great 
poetical merit was itself sufficient to gain 
him even a twentieth part of the unpre- 
cedented reputation which it reached. 
All great circulation of works, all imme- 
diate fame, is parUy the result of a com- 
bination of lucky incidents, and partly of 
tnanagement. Much depends upon a pub- 
lisher ; much upon politics ; much upon 
the influence of literary friends and ac- 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 346 

qtuunUnce, — and, not unfrequently, 
much upon the author's personal in- 
trigues. All these together, sometimes, 
will not do, when accidental circum- 
stances will by themselves effect success : 
some extraneous events which befall the 
author personally and draw notice to 
him ; some momentary interest in the 
subjects treated by him which inflames 
the popular curiosity and passion ; some- 
thing of oddity which pleases merely be- 
cause it is new, &c. &c. If these, or 
any of these, happen to be united to real 
nerit, then what has been thus acci- 
dentally brought into notice will keep its 
nation. And thus, sometimes, these 
accidents even produce the genius, as 
well as bring it into notice; because 
there are occasions when encotiragement 
«iid praise force into future bicxmi what 
accident had only first shown in embryo. 
Much of Lord Bvron's fame was anterior 



346 LETTERS ON THE 

to the works which have entitled him to 
its continuance. 

But the singularity of his character aod 
of the events of his life unquestionably 
assisted in first bringing his poems into 
celebrity ; and the skill and activity of 
his publisher, taking advantage of these 
circumstances, did also much. 

These happened to fall, in Lord Byron's 
case, upon a soil where there was a ferti- 
lity to ripen them into the richest bar- 
vest ; where hope and praise lighted the 
fire of inspiration, and opposition only 
fanned the flame, when once it was 
lighted. 

This concurrence of circumstances 
might not make him happy ; the opposi* 
tion that inflamed and strengthened 
might still wound ; and there might be 
more of occasional bursts of short exult- 
ation than of steady and complacent en- 
joyment in the years of his intense yet 
clouded glory, which must have been 



GENIUS OF LORD BTSON. S47 

accompanied by so much feverish and 
vafiable tumult. But had he a tempera* 
ment whidi would have been more happy 
in an ordinary and sober comse of events ? 
Were not restlenness and tumult his ele- 
ment? Was he not bom to ride on the 
whirlwindt and battle with the tempest? 
His energies would have gangrened, and 
opp res s ed him to the earth, if they had 
not fimnd vent He had a dominion 
over the public mind, in spite of all its 
rebellions and all its enmities against bim» 
which must have been an almost inebriat- 
ing triumph to his aspiring and haugh^ 
mind. 

I have serious doubt, whether any 
<ither concurrence of circumstances would 
have brought forward the poems which 
now attach to Lord Byron's name. The 
answer may be, that it might have brought 
them forward, not only different, but bet- 
ter. I cannot, in reply, controvert the 
poJuibHiijf of* this, but I am entitled to 

• z 8— A A 



S48 LETTERS ON THE 

deny the probability ! Certainly nothing 
less than violent impulse would have done 
it \ and I suspect that it must have been 
an impulse mixed up in some degree with 
anger and resentment. If his first poems 
had not been so rudely attacked, perhaps 
he might have written only smooth com- 
mon-place poetry} and if misfortunes 
had not disgusted him with England, 
perhaps he might have sunk into a politi- 
cian, or a luxurious noble, of ordinary 
habits. 

Frugn contumere nahtm ! 

He might have lived!— but what is 
life worth, to be consumed in sloth and 
uselessness ? 



GIIMIUS OP LORD BYRON. 540 



LETTER XXXV. 

It ift universally agreed that mediocrity 
in poetry is not to be endured } but the 
greatest genius f>ays high for the few 
happy moments that it enjoys. The 
temperament of a genuine poet is too 
subtle and refined for the atmosphere in 
which he breathes. Lord Byron's mind, 
humour, and constitution, were less than 
ordinarily formed for' long continued 
happiness ; but they were formed for (its 
of intense delight. When alone, he 
must have been deeply and incessantly 
occupied : 



ll« phuBtd hk fffhtn» wad Wc grow hit wiofi, 

IWi ia tiM wioat boftW oC fMft 

W«w an too t^UL wad ' ' ^-' *• 



A A « 



350 LETTERS ON THE 

Much has been said of his peculiarities. 
I never saw a real genius, or read the 
account of one, who was not peculiar, 
who had not many eccentricities of feel- 
ing, manner, and habit. J have seen 
popular authors, who were quite men of 
the world, and quite uniform^ proper, 
and accommodating, in tlieir intercourse 
with society; but, then, their vrritings 
were as tame, artificial, and common- 
place as their manners. 

Lord Byron's poetry does not lie upon 
the surface : it could not be washed or 
stripped off like an extra ornament on 
the outside of a- gem, or a flower em- 
broidered on a richly woven web : it has 
penetrated into the depths of the national 
mind, and intermingled itself with it: 
an abscision must pierce to the core, and 
leave a palpable void when the work is 
done. Perhaps this may be said of him, 
next to ShakspearCi — for all his poetry 
breathes of human life in its most ani- 



GENIUS OP LOEO BYRON. 951 

mated movements. Fearlessness, the re- 
sult of conscious strength, made him 
strike home; and then the fountain of 
the human bosom opened to him, and 
threw forth its abundant waters in all 
their vigour and freshness. 

AAer all* one cannot help suspecting, 
OQ longer and more mature consideration, 
that one has been led to join in ascrib- 
ing much more force to the objections 
made against such characters as The Cor- 
mhr.Lara^ The Giaour. The Bride qfAb^- 
dos. Parimut^ Mattfred. &c., than belongs 
to them. The incidents, habits, kc. are 
much too remote from modem and Euro- 
pean lile to act as mischievous examples 
to others ; while under the given drcum- 
itaoces, the splendour of imagery, beauty 
and tenderness of sentiment, and extra- 
ordinary strength and felicity of lan- 
guage, are applicable to human nature 
at all times, and in all countries, and 
convey to the best faculties ot* the 

A A 3 



35S LETTERS ON THE 

reader's mind an impulse which elevates, 
refines, instructs, and enchants with the 
noblest and purest of all pleasures. 

At tlie close of the last century our 
poetry had grown languid and dull with 
excess of polish, and a timid adherence 
to beaten tracks. It then broke out 
into extravagances which appear to me 
still more objectionable ; because, while 
they were much more unnatural than 
their predecessors, they were quite as ar- 
tificial, — and extragavance and artifice 
in union are a little too revolting. 

Lord Byron, therefore, did well to 
look out for subjects where splendid 
imagery and violent emotion could be 
displayed, with a strict adherence to the 
actual appearances and actual course 
of the human passions under the situ- 
ations and events assumed. I do not say 
that this was exclusively with him a choice 
ot' pure abstract judgment. Fortuitous 
causes concurred in it ; for, no doubt, 



GRNI08 OF LORD BYRON. S58 

the Goune of hit youthful travelsy his 
penMnal experiences, and the bent of 
his own genius, had rU a powerful in- 
fluence. So fiur he was born under a 
kickj pbmet ; for all united to raise him 
to the rank of one d our greatest poets. 
I have said nothing about Lord By. 
f0D*s pontics ; my concern with him has 
been as a poet : in politics, I have always 
entertained c^inions very diflferent from 
his I but never in my life did I allow my« 
seli^ or even feel the inclination, to inter- 
mix political prejudices vdth literary 
taste or judgment. I have seen too 
much of the bane and poison of this in- 
termixture in the last thirty years not to 
have been cured of* it, had I even been 
originally so disposed. It in the canker- 
worm, or rather the direct and rapid de- 
stroyer, of our modem literature : it is 
ruinous to both sides, though of course 
the popular politicians have the ad- 
vantage. 

A A ^ 



854 LETTERS Om THE 

Lord Byron is accused of having been 
as licentious in the treatment of this sub- 
ject as of subjects of morals and reli- 
gion. His raillery and his jests are 
9ensured for tibeir unbounded extrava- 
gance and virulence J and surely it 
cannot be denied that this charge is 
sometimes true, and that there are oc- 
casions on which he indulges in unac- 
countable vulgarisms, — and that in these 
cases the coarseness and bitterness of 
his personal satire cannot be justified by 
the interests of the political cause he un- 
dertakes to advocate, admitting that 
cause to be in all respects patriotic and 
just. 

But here again the censure of Lord 
Byron has been much too indiscriminate, 
and carried much too far. If he thought, 
as many wise and good people have 
thought, that rational liberty was in dan- 
ger, and that revolution had become 
necessary to correct and cleanse the 



GftNIUS or LORD BYRON. 355 

and deep-bid corruptions of 
he might be entitled to uae very 
fCrong indignation^ ridicule, and ¥dt» in 
fiMXMir of the principles he espoused, — 
tiMMigli still imder the restraint of taste 
mad deceocy. And he could not be ex- 
pected to cootenplate even glorious vie- 
toriea, which went to re-establish power 
he deemed dangerous to the happiness of 
ikind, with the complacency, and, still 
rith the triumph, which they who 
held revolutions, and the anarchy they 
coMidered as attendant on them, in 
hofTOTy would necessarily feel. To me^ 
■ol all the cruelties of arbitrary power 
which history reconls can equal in 
horror the ferocities, the bloodshed, and 
ruin df revolutionaiy anarchy; — but 
dilferent minds may honestly make dif- 
ferent calculations, and see things in 
dilferent lights. When once the atten- 
tion is awakened to the evil conduct, the 
fellies, the mistakes, the intrigues, the 




MS LETTEM ON TUS 

treacheries, the comqitkMit of govern-. 
ments, it may find food for its demmofci 
ations which will not easily be exhaustedi. 
A mind of intuitive percespHkm^ hkB 
Lord Byraa% a heart of quick and 
strong emotion, and a frankness and 
force of language to give vent to hii 
impressions, ware almost inevitabfy led to 
many of those scwnful ebulliticms of 
overwhelming ridicule with which he 
has covered his political adversaries. 
The misfortune is, that wit and ridicule 
know no bounds ; and the line between 
things which are fair game, and those 
which ought not to be touched, was 
never yet duly observed. There is 
something fatal in the stroke of ridicule, 
which puts esteem and respect at once 
to flight, — even when it fitUs on what 
ought to be held most sacred. 

But Lord Byron has this only in com- 
mon with other wits ; and the objection 
goes to wit itself. The answer, indeed. 



G£NIU8 OF LOED BTRON. 957 

will be, that Lord Bjron carries it to a 
greater excess. If he does, is it not 
principally because his powers are greater 
than those of others ? P^utly, also, from 
the general freedom and boldness with 
which he treats every subject he writes 
upon. ** And this,'* it will then be ob- 
served, << is a reason why the indulgence 
** of wit is more dangerous in him than 
** in another !'* 

Bat I know not how to wish he had 
never written Don Juan^ in defiance of 
all its faults and intermingled mischief 
and poison ! There are parts in it which 
are among the most brilliant proofs of 
his genius ; and, what is even yet better, 
there are parts which throw a blaze of 
light upon the knowledge of human life. 

And thus, as one continues to investi- 
gate this subject from day to day, the 
clouds which at first seemed to press hard 
on this great man's brilliancy lessen and 
lessen, and his glories come out more and 



358 LETTERS ON THE 

more effulgent. The reflecting 
gradually catches something of his radi- 
ance; and then it finds that its former 
objections arose partly from its own nar- 
rowness and blindness when it com- 
menced the view of him. 

One of the pieces which has had the 
effect of throwing the most unfavourable 
hues, not upon the brilliancy of Lord 
Byron's poetry, but upon its results to 
society, is Cain. Yet, it must be confessed, 
that there is no inconsiderable portion of 
that poem which is second only to por- 
tions of similar import in Milton, — and 
many of them not second ; in a style 
still sweeter and more eloquent, and with 
equal force, grandeur, and purify of sen- 
timent and conception ; such as the 
most rigidly-religious mind would have 
read, if it had come from Milton, or any 
other poet whose piety was not suspected, 
as the effusion of something approaching 
to holy inspiration. Let us then reconsider 



OCNIUS OF LORD BYRON. 959 

this extraordiiuuy poem, which we have 
abandoned a little too hastily; let us 
task our candour afresh, and enquire <^ 
oufidves, whether he who could write 
such passages could mean wrong? Let 
us recoUectt that as the rebellious and 

• 

Ua^emous q>eeches he has put into the 
mouths of Lucifer and Cain are warrant- 
ed bj Milton's example, and the fact d 
Gsm's transgression recorded in the Bible, 
the omission of the design and filling up 
a character who should answer all those 
speeches might be a mere defect in the 
poet's judgment ! He might think that 
Lucifer's known character, as an Evil 
Sp iritf prtcktded his arguments from the 
sMiction of authority, and that Cm^M 
punisliroent, and the denunciations which 
aooompanied it, were a sufficient warning. 
I know not that any objection has been 
to Heaven and Earth. It has the 
cast of excellence as the more peiw 



360 LETTERS OK THE 

feet parts of Cain^ but, perhaps, not quite 
so intense in degree. 

It seems as if Lord Byron persuaded 
himself with r^ard to his own being, 
that he had always within hhn two con- 
trary spirits of good and evil contending 
for the dominion over him, and thiis 
reconciled those extraordinary flights of 
intellectual elevation and purity with a 
submission to the pride, the ferocity, the 
wprldly passions, the worldly enjoyments, 
the corporeal pastimes, the familiar 
humour, the vulgarisms, the rough and 
coarse manliness, to which he alternately 
surrendered himself, and which the 
good-natured public chose to consider as 
the sole attributes of his personal charac- 
ter. Much of his time must, however, 
have been spent in the musings by which 
these high poems, so compacted of the 
essence of thought, were produced ; and, 
in all this large portion of his existence 
here, his imagination must have borne 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 

htm up on its wings into ethereal r^ona» 
fiur above the gross and sensual enjoy- 
menta of this grovelling earth. Did he 
deal, as minor poets deal, in mere qileii- 
dour of words, his poetry would be no 
proof of this ; but he never does so : — 
there is always a breathing soul beneath 
hia words, 

* HMt o*cr-M9mt iIm teoemfnt of day r^ 

it ia like the fragrant vapour that riaea 
in incense from the earth through the 
morning dew ; and when we listen to 
hia lyre, 

* htm tiMB a God we thiak there cmoot dwell 
Widiki tiM hollow of dwt ibell, 
HMt mm^ io iwee dy » tDd to well !** 



If Lord Byron thought, that however 
loudly noisy voices might salute him with 
a rude and indiscriminate clamour of 
applauae, his poems were not received 
with the taste and judgment they merit- 



362 LETTERS ON THE 

ed, and that severe and cruel comments 
were attached to them by those who as* 
sumed to themselves authority, and who 
seldom allowed the geniu^ without pert 
verting it into a cause of censure that 
more than outweighed the praise ; those 
fumes of flattery which are imputed as 
the causes of a delirium that led him 
into extravagances, outraging decorum 
and the respect due to the public, never 
in fact reached him. To confer ** fidat 
" praise** is " to damn ;'* to confer praise 
in a wrong place is to insult and pnv 
voke. Lord Byron, therefore, had not^ 
after all, the encouragement that is most 
favourable to ripen the richest fruit; 
and it was a firm and noble courage that 
still prompted him to persevere. 

For this reason, as well as for those 
formerly mentioned, I think his foreign 
residences were more propitious to the 
energies of his Muse than a continued 
al^e in England would have been. The 



GENIUS OP LORD BYRON. 3&S 

poiton of the praises that were insidious 
did not reach him so soon ; and he was 
not beset by treacherous companions, 
mortifying gossip, and that petty in* 
teroourse with ordinary society which 
tames and lowers the tone of the mind. 
To mingle much with the world is to be 
infallibly degraded by familiarity ; not to 
mingle at least among the busy and the 
known, is to incur the disrespect to 
which insignificance is subjected. Lord 
Byron's foreign residence exempted him 
firoro these evils : he saw a few intimate 
friends, and he corresponded with a tew 
others ; but such an intercourse does not 
expose to similar effects. The necessary 
knowledge and necessary hints may thus 
be conveyed; but not all the pestilent 
diilb which general society is so officious 
to unveiL 

A high self-confidence is necessary 
for the production of all \'igorous fruit : 
it of course is not the sole nor prinuny 

B B 



364 LETTERS ON THE 

essential; it cannot produce it, where 
genius does not already exist: where 
such does not exist, it wUl only expose 
to failures and inanities. 

If Lord Byron had not had a mind 
with a strong spring of virtue within it, I 
think that he would have thrown down 
his pen at some of the attacks he re- 
ceived, and given himself up to the 
sensual pleasures of his rank for the 
remainder of his life. The finer parts 
of his poems were of such spiritual splen- 
dour, and so pure, though passionate, an 
elevation, that they ought to have re- 
deemed any parts which were open to 
doubt from a malevolent construction, 
and even have eclipsed and rendered un- 
noticeable many positive faults. 



GEHIUS OF LORD BTBON. 36S 



LETTER XXXVI. 

Jul; 9. 

LoKD Btron's Style, like his thou^ts, 
had every variety : it did not attempt 
(a> is the common practice) to make 
poetry by the metaphorical and the 
figurative ; it followed his thoughts, and 
was a part of them : it did not latigue 
itself to render clear hy illustration, or 
important by ornament, because the 
thought was clear or important in itself: 
if the thought be sufficient to fill the 
mind, the ornament in superfluous ; if it 
be not, the attention is drawn from the 
principal to the secondary. 1 do not 
mean to inveigh against occasional meta- 
pbort: there are figures which rise up with 
the thoughts unsought and involuntarily 
in particular moods of mind ; but a con- 
•taotly ornamented styl 

D B « 




366 LETTERS ON THE 

and an infallible proof of a minor and 
mere technical genius. 

I have purposely forborne to fill these 
letters with extracts; but I must for 
once give an extract to exemplify my 
idea of a perfect poetical style, as well as 
perfection of poetical imagery and sen- 
timent It is from that proscribed and 
bitterly condemned poem, Cain. 



" Cain. 

— All the stars of heaven, 
The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb 
Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world — 
The hues of twilight — the sun's gorgeous coining — 
His setting indescribable, which fills 
My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold 
Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him 
Along that western paradise of clouds — 
The forest shade — the green bough — the bird's foice *■ 
The vesper bird's — which seems to sing of love, 
And mingles with the song of cherubim. 
As the day closes over Eden's walls; — 
All these are nothing to my eyes and heart, 
Like Adah's face : I turn from earth and heaven 
To gaze on it.' 



cc 



»l 



OBHWS OP LORD BYRON. 36? 

In another place, speaking of the 
beauty of the sky, and tlie stars that light 
it, Cain says, 

-Whirt 

b cfaii blue wtldemeii of intenniiiAble 

Aifp where jc roU akMig ■• I have teen 

The iemwrt mhmg iMe impid tiremms of Edemf*' 

Did Milton ever write a more beautiful 
line than the last ? It would be as easy 
to persuade me that there is no splendour 
w virtue in the sun, and no silvery ra- 
diance in the moon, as that he who could 
write such poetry as this was ^ imbruted 
and imbodied/' I cannot contemplate 
such magical powers of composition 
without a degree of admiration, which I 
should not dare to express, even if I had 
adequate words at my command. And 
let it be remembered that the wkok poem 
of Gvn, from beginning to end, is com- 
poted in a style as beautifuL I re- 
member when l^firsi read Cain^ I thought 
it, as a composition, the most enchanting 

a B 3 



3t)8 LETTERS ON THE 

and irresistible of all Lord B3rron's works, 
and I think so still. Some of the aenti- 
ments taken detachedly, and left un- 
answered, are no doubt dangerous, and 
therefore ought not to have been so left i 
— but the class of readers whom this poem 
is likely to interest are of so very elevated 
a cast, and the e£fect of the poetry is to 
refine, spiritualise, and illumine the inf- 
agination with such a sort of unearthly 
sublimity, that the mind of these, I am 
persuaded, will become too strong to 
incur any taint thus predicted from the 
defect which has been so much in- 
sis ted on. 

Wide as the regions of poetry were 
before, Lord Byron has surely enlarged 
their limits. He has added new and 
elevated pleasures to human existence, by 
teaching us to behold and feel some of its 
nobler appearances and emotions with 
new faculties. The world may be, in a 
great degree, what a real poet may make 



OENIUI OF LORD BVRON. 369 

it ; the mere outward forms o( things are 
insipid and inert ; almost all the interest 
in derived from what the poet associate* 
with them, or what he inspires them with. 
But he must perform his task according 
to certain laws <:^ our nature, and in a 
manner with which the bosoms of others 
are formed to sympathise. The same in> 
visible shiq>efl are about us all : many 
cannot we them even when turned into 
palpable form, unless reflected from the 
fiincie* of others ; and even when so re- 
flected they make no impression, or no 
just impression, except they are of the 
genuine sort, except they are such aa 
are common to our nature. 

I can perceive nothing in what vulgar 
tehion or vulgar criticism calls poetry 
but gaudy, superfluous, and tedious words. 
Of all reading it u the least interesting 
mni the mml uiiprnfitahlv. I'tit- i-Hi'ct erf 
true pociry, on i 
viiftuddcnly i 



870 LETTERS ON THE 

fore was a blank, and a new scenery 
opened upon us, and a new order of 
beings to people it, at which a cheer and 
a glow strikes the frame, and a sunshine 
dances upon the chords of the bosom. 

There are thousands of emotions that 
lie buried in the heart till such notes as 
those of Lord Byron awaken them, and 
then they make responses like the strings 
of the ^olian harp to tlie sighs, the 
murmurs, or the louder gusts of the 
wind. These responses may not be heard 
by others, but they are perceptible by 
him in whose bosom they are awakened. 

I know not whether he, who, having 
genius, (much less such a genius as Lord 
Byron's,) does not cultivate and employ 
it, can be happy. I suspect that, like 

m 

vigour of body, the very strength with- 
out exercise will turn to disease. The 
wonder is, how Lord Byron could do so 
much : — not that he did so little ! — so 
young, too ; so fond of out-door plea- 



G£NIUt or LORD BYRON. 971 

Mires, and of all pleasures ; and with so 
many thorns and regrets in his heart ! — 
But variety did much ; and the energy of 
genius fed the fire while it fanned it 
There is virtue even in the very act of 
virtuous occupation, because it clears 
the mind of clouds, and disperses the 
unhealthful vapours which idleness af- 
fords opportunity to collect 

The trials, prejudices, and persecu- 
tions to which great genius is subjected 
in life, are among the mysterious ways 
of Providence, which cannot but perplex 
us» but which we cannot hope to fathom. 
The fact is, that Lord Byron's sensitive 
temper, united to a haughtiness which 
might be immoderate, but which was 
essentially intertwined with his genius, 
was exposed to affecting crosses and deep 
mortifications, even from a boy ; and 
though he might resent them in a way 
which only increased their force, and 
gave new point to the weapons of his 



372 LETTERS ON -THE 

enemies, yet a just judgment, dictated by 
a profound knowledge of human nature, 
joined to an enlightened regard to the 
principles of morality, must admit that 
they were often such as it required great 
magnanimity to surmount, and such as 
increased the wonder that his imagination 
and intellect shone so splendidly in spite 
of them, and that his spirits and energies 
were not oppressed and broken. It is 
base to pay no attention to these cir- 
cumstances in his history, — to judge of 
him as if he had only a smooth path be- 
fore him ; as if he fell into errors, and ec- 
centricities, and violences, without tempt- 
ation ; and as if he had at command 
ease and luxury, united with innocence 
and literature. No such lot attended 
him: he worked out his way under 
clouds, provocations, calumnies, hatreds; 
he set out with a fortune greatly dimi- 
nished, and the relics deeply embarrassed 
by his ancestors; he had evil passicms 
to contend with ; he burned for distinc- 



OBNIUt or LORD BYRON. S7S 

lion, as all great minds ever burn ; — yety 
for numy years, all his efibrts were turned 
to insult. The early death of his fiither, 
and the accidents of his boyhood^ had 
broken the ties of blood, alliance, and 
station to which he belonged : the inun- 
dation of new families raised into sudden 
afflu^ice, notice^ and rank^ had intro- 
duced a new set of purse|>roud notions 
and habits, of which it was the delight 
and system to torment and tread upon the 
fallen branches of ancient and honourable 
houses. The maimers of London began, 
about the period of his birth, to turn all 
the long-settled opinions and customs of 
upper society topsy*tur\'y. Pi//, though 
a strenuous opposer of the French Revo- 
lution, was the great instrument to level 
down the aristocracy before the demo- 
cracy at home, by a profusion of indis- 
criminate titles, by an elevation of mean 
men into high places, and by a constant 
prderance of tiie mercantile and manu« 



734 LETTERS ON THE 

facturing interests to the landed. An- 
other tendency, if not intention, of his 
system, was to change the Lords' House 
into a popular assembly, and to break 
down the intervening power of the Whigs 
and great families. This effect, whether 
purposely or not, was completely pro- 
duced before his death, and the present 
constitution of England is no more like 
what the Whigs made it in 1688, by put- 
ting King William on the throne, than 
that of present France is like what it was 
under Henry IV. 

Lord Byron, then, had to begin life 
with the tide, winds, and weather, all 
powerfully against him. The struggle 
soon roused his energies into bitterness, 
— for he had not a spirit to be tamed. He 
scowled upon his enemies, and sometimes 
showed contortions in the depths of his 
resentment ; and then a thousand tongues 
of reproach were opened upon him, be- 
cause he was not placid in the state of 



GCSlUt OF LORD BTKON. SJS 

difficulty in which he was placed. And 
how did his resentment finally vent itself? 
Not in helpless despair ; not in abandon- 
ment of vigorous exertion ; not ** in low 
** sullen sounds" of feeble complaint ;— 
but he fled from a mean, upstart society, 
corrupted and enervated by new wealth, — > 
sought adventure in distant travels, — and 
rriated, with all the splendour of poetic 
eloquence, the powerful sentiments and 
enlightened observations to which those 
enterprising travek gave rise. 

When he returned home, and when, 
after a short triumph of flattering but de- 
ceitful days, new disappointments, still 
more heart-rending and more provokingly 
calumnious, came upon him, he retired 
again to the Continent, gloomy, but 
neitber yet despondent, nor even abated 
in his fire ; and then, for the remainder 
of his short Ufe, he seemed, by the fruits 
be produced, as if* he had only sat by 
the fountain of Helicon, and drank its 
waters, and dreamed its in^ired dreams ! 



9J6 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XXXVII. 

July 10. 

I PERCEIVE, since I wrote my last, that I 
am quite in opposition to the periodical 
critics on both sides in my judgment of 
Cairu But it is probable that there is 
some secret history in all this, about 
which I shall not concern myself. At 
any rate, one who writes openly, and 
cannot be suspected of private motives of 
any kind, may have as fair a chance of 
being right, as those from whom he dif- 
fers. There is some advantage, indeed, 
in wearing a mask, because omne oh- 
scurum pro magnifico est. Thus I quit 
the subject, not at all inclined to retract, 
because I am not supported by the au- 
thority of reviewers. 

I come to a point not of so much im- 
port to Lord Byron as a poet ; — I mean 



GEK1U8 OF LORD BYRON. SfTJ 

his Letter regarding Bowleses Strictures 
on Pope^ dated from Ravewia^ 7th Feb. 
1841. This was, probably, written hastil^t 
and not originally intended for public- 
ation ; at any rate, it is written inelegantly 
and clumsily, and is not worthy of 
Lord Byron*s genius and taste. The 
opinions are such as I have always con* 
tended, and always shall contend, to be 
mainly right ; but they are badly argued 
and illustrated ; deduced from principles 
imperfectly understood, arranged in m 
confused manner, and otleu expressed 
with an aukwardness and even vulgarity 
which quite surprises me. 

Johnson has said in his Life qf Grmf^ 
that *' an epithet or metaphor drawn from 
«« nature ennobles art ; an qiithet or me* 
«« taphor drawn from art degrades nature,** 
He applies this to Gray's epithet of 
«« velvet green.'* But Johnson's position 
thus broadly laid down is not just. Yet 
on this position, even still more extended* 



578 LETTERS ON THE 

is founded Bowleses condemnation of 
Papers poetry and genius, and this is the 
judgment which Lord Byron undertakes 
to controvert; and which it seems that 
Mr, Bowles (for I have not seen his 
book) assumes to be founded on the *^ in- 
" variable principle of poetry/* And all 
this I infer is exemplified by a reference 
to the image of a ship, which Mr. Bowles 
contends cannot be poetical, because it is 
a work of art. Lord Byron shows to 
what absurdities such a doctrine leads, 
and how many of the finest passages of 
poetry it would exclude. But Lord 
Byron argues only on the fact ; he omits 
a much shorter and more decisive over- 
turn of this ridiculous principle ; he does 
not show that it is as contrary to theory 
and reason as to fact; for it assumes 
that all in nature is grand without the aid 
of human skill, and that Providence has 
lefl nothing to be done by man's own la- 
bour and ingenuity : — we might as well 



CENlIIg OP LOBD BTROK. 97^. 

My tbmt the flower uid the plant which 
cannot be reared without the assistance 
of man's culture and care exhibit no 
beauty which forms an image for pure 



Lord Bynx) perceived and asserted 
that human nature constituted the grand- 
est subject which regarded this state of 
being and the globe of its abode, and. 
that it far exceeded in interest not only 
all of the inanimate parts of tliis earthly 
creation, but all else of animate ex- 
Mtence i and that mere description of 
scenery, where man funned no ingredient, 
was comparatively unafiecting and iiii> 
perfect. All this might have been safely 
ventured as an abstract position, in- 
stead of multiplying i«o many illustrations 
to prove a imum. 

Lord Byron then Jumps to the conclu* 

sion that moral truth is the primary object 

and grand ingredienta) |»K'lry ; luidt 

Pope dedicated hinweli most i 

c c 




S80 LBTTERS ON THE 

poetry, and was excellent in moral 
poetry ; therefore Pope was the greatest 
poet! All this is surely an astonishing 
instance of loose reasoning and confused 
conceptions; especially from one pos- 
sessed, not only of such a splendid im- 
agination, but such a powerful under- 
standing, as Lord Byron, and to whose 
own practical merits as a poet the whole 
of it was in utter contradiction. At the 
moment that Lord Byron could persuade 
himself that this huddle of opinions was 
correct, he must have experienced a sting 
of great self-humiliation ; and, indeed, he 
expresses that humiliation with the noble 
frankness which was among the various 
merits of his great mind. He says that 
fashion has now ** raised a grotesque 

* edifice" in poetry ; and then says, •* I 

< shall be told that I am conspicuous 

* amongst its builders ;— true, and I am 

< ashamed of it. I have been among the 

< builders of this Babel, attended by a 



onmit or loid btkon. 881 



ff« 



confusion of toi^es, bot nevsr among 
^ the envious destroyers of the classical 
^ temple of our predecessor/' Reason- 
ing as Lord Bjron at that moment rea- 
soned, this self-condemnation was the 
inevitable result to an ingenuous mind ; 
but had he given himself a little more 
time to digest his ideas, he would have 
found that his awn splendid merit was 
not inconsistent with Pope's splendid 
merit* 

It is not easy to pursue Lord Bjrron 
through this letter on any plan, for all 
Ins thoughts are thrown together with 
strange irregularity, and form a perfect 
maaEe. In one place he lays down the 
strange assertion, that *' the poet is always 
M ranked according to his execution, and 
•^ not according to his branch of the art !** 
Why, then, the writer of the best epigram 
b a better poet than Davenant, because 
(hmdiheri is not a perfect epic. 

But here follows Lord Bjrron's main 

c c « 



98f LETTERS ON THE*: 

position^ <* In my mind,*' says he, 
<< the highest of all poetry is. ethical 
«* poetry ; as the highest of all earthly 
«* objects must be moral truth/* There, 
are those in whom this opinion of Lord 
Byron, thus worded, will raise a smile ; 
but not in me :. I believe that the smile 
will be a smile of levity, prejudice, and 
ignorance. The opinion is correct ; smd 
Lord Byron was sincere when he ex- 
pressed it. But the strangeness is, that 
he suffered himself to be entangled in 
the trap of words, and to be narrowed 
in his deductions by an interpretation 
much too confined. He has thus been 
led to confound the means with the end. 
The end is moral truth; but the means 
ought to hejictiony — imaginative creation/ 
Abstract truth ought to be embodied by 
feigned characters and feigned stories: 
as opinions and sentiments are generated 
in the mind, it ought to " body them 
" forth into form, turn them to shape, and 



OfiNIUt or LORD BYHON. 38tf 






give a local habitation and a name td 
airy nothing/* — This Pope in many of 
his cikical poems has not done ; so far, 
then. Pope is deficient in the essentials 
of poetry. In these compositions Pope is 
a mere versf/ier for pages together. Now 
and then he mixes in them grand burstd 
of perfect poetT}' ; for Pope could write 
not only beautiful but sublime poetry, 
when he chose : beautiful and sublime in 
wuUieTf aided by all that the most perfect 
art could confer of polish and harmony 
in execution. And when he is not highly 
poetical, it is not, as Mr. Bowles sup^ 
poses, because his images are not drawn 
from mere nature, — because his descrip 
tkms are not purely pkiuresque (in the 
technical sense), and confined to land- 
scape-painting and rural scenery; but 
beauise he does not deal in any imagery 
or sentiment ; because he does not em* 
badjf ; because he does not create and 
animate witli life \ because his thoughts, 

c c 3 



884 I.ETTBR8 ON THE - 

though just and tru^ and full of observ* 
ation» good sense» and deep reflection^ 
are abstract, dry, not put into palpable 
form, and not shown in action. 

Lord Byron has cited in favour of his 
opinions the two celebrated lines of 
Pope so often cited : 



That not in fancy's mate be wandered long ; 
But stoop'd to truth, and moralized his song.' 



And it must be confessed, that Pope 
himself seems to have used this language 
in the narrow sense in which Lord Byron 
understands it But fancy^s maze, thus 
put in opposition to truth, ought to be 
taken as the inventions of an unsound 
imagination ; such as do not represent 
truth, nor are framed according to the 
principles of nature, nor illustrate what 
exists, or can exist. Imaginaticm is so 
far from being opposed to truth, that it 
is by the Ught of imagination that the 
purest and most perfect truths are repre- 



CESWM or LOBD BYEOlf. SS5 

tented ««The poet's busmesa.^' says 
Edwmrd Phillips, (Milton's nephew,) ^ is 
^ to enlarge hj feigning of probable 
*• circumstances, in which, and m premier 
** all^ory, invoition prindpallj consist- 
^ eth; and wherein there is a kind of 
** truth even in the midst of fiction ; for 
^ whatever is pertinently said by way of 
** allegory, is mcmdly, thouj^ not histo- 
** rically, true," &c 

But Lord Byron having admitted into 
his head this perverse idea of ^^Jmcjf* 
(meaning *< imaginaiiaH**) as exposed to 
truth, darts on without any regard to a 
distinction which, if he had given himsdf 
a mcmient to consider, he could not have 
missed* and allows himself to write the 
following absurd sentence : — ** It is the 
^ fitthion of the day to lay great stress 
^ on what they call imaoination and uf^ 
** vENnoN, the two commonest of quali» 
** ties : — an Irish peasant, with a little 
** whiskey in his head, will imagine and 

c c 4 



880 H. ,12nr'BEM 09 THE 

u invent more than would furnish forth 
** a modern poem." JHe here takes 
^* invention" and " imagination" in the 
narrow and vulgar sense of Jabricaled 
falsehood .*— not such as has regard to ve- 
risimiUtjft — not such as is consistent with 
what is possible and likely, — not such as 
embodies an abstract verity. When 
Pope himself undertook to exhibit to the 
world the energetic and astonishing 
effects of the passions of love and reli- 
gion united in a highly tender heart and 
most accomplished mind, he did not 
convey the results by dry philosophic 
elucidations, but by personifying them 
in Eloisa, one of the most brilliant 
imaginations that the known poetry of 
any nation can produce; most intense 
and most natural in its passion, most 
polished, most beautiful, most classical, 
and most perfect in its language, and 
most harmonious in its verse. Here, then^ 



GENIUS OF LOED BYKON. 38? 

Pope's genius surmounted his theory, 
and overturned his ordinary practice. 

In another place. Lord Byron, with an 
extraordinary inconsistency and confii- 
sion of ideas, endeavours to prove that 
mri is superior to nature^ by saving, that 
** the great landscape-painter does not 
** give you a literal copy of a country, 
** but he invents and composes one/' 
Now this ia the precise overturn of his 
own position. It is imaginaiion, not 
ari ; it is the reverse of the iruih (taken 
in the sense in which he has applied it 
to Pope) on which he has placed Pope's 
merit. And then he has the following 
•eotence, of which the last part is such^ 
that I should have thought Lord ByroD 
the last man from whom any thing so 
absurd could have come ! ** Nature^ 
** exactly, simply, barely nature, will 
^ make no great artist of any kind, and 
** least of all a poet \ the most artificiali 



388 LETTERS ON Jaȣ 

<<.perfaaps, of all artists in his very 
" essence/* 

Lord Byron says, that << Cowper is 
** no poef It is true he does not belong 
to the highest class, because he wants 
moention. But this, according to the 
other parts of Lord Byron's argument, 
is no defect. He is at least as ethical as 
Pope } and this is the very merit on 
which Lord Byron contends in terms for 
Pope's superiority. Surely this is a more 
than common degree of inconsistency ! 

The great wonder of all is, that when 
it imported Lord Byron so much to 
know the true ground on which he him- 
self stood; and when the eflfect of a 
deeper enquiiy would have been to show 
that his own poetry was borne out by 
the grand and essential principles of his 
art when well understood, he should be 
content to perplex himself with such su- 
perficial, detached, and conflicting ideas, 
on the theory of that on which aU bis 



GENIUS or LORD BYBON. 8S9 

own fame was to rest, and to which all 
his Ubours and cares were turned* His 
genius led him right ; but, had he con- 
sulted his own rules and theories, he 
would have failed. What would he have 
made of An E$9ajf on Criticum^ or a set of 
Moral Es$ajfs^ written after the model of 
Pope? 

It is clear that Lord Byron means 
to rest Pope's superior claims on his 
producing what more especially comes 
home to our bosoms ; what concerns the 
business of life, in opposition to tliose 
unnecessary freaks of imagination, which 
are at best but empty amusement, and 
neither make us better nor wiser ; which 
are toys as whimsical as children play 
with* and as little instructive. But in 
the application of this principle he took 
a y^ty slight view of its mere surface. 
He for a moment forgot that what comes 
deeply home to men's bosoms goes fiur 
beyond the ordinary conccms of ^ 



sgo XieiTBRS OK tUti 

mere necessary business of life ; that the 
movements of the mind and the heart as 
much form a part of our being as those 
of the body ; and that to direct the fancy 
and the imagination into right channels, 
and to give them food and exercise, is at 
least as useful, and surely more dignified, 
than thie lessons which teach prudence 
and skill in common affairs, and which 
seem more solid because their effects are 
more seen by the eye, are more palpable 
to the senses, and more operative on the 
material part of our nature. 

He did not then reflect that moral 
wisdom and moral truth are illustrated 
and enforced by pictures of the more 
secret and spiritual movements of our 
minds, — by the visions of the imagination, 
when it is under more vigorous and more 
noble excitement He for the moment 
blended these with the baby fictions of 
childhood, folly, ignorance, and affect' 
ation. He seems to have adopted for 



GENIUft OF LORD BYROK. CiQl 

Uic occasion the doctrine contained in 
two lines of Collins : 



" Youth of the quick unchestcd tight, 
Thjr pstbft, Obtenrmnce, more inrite.** 

But they who will not often quit the 
paths of observance for those of am^ 
templaiion and oijiciion^ in its best sense, 
must be content to belong to an inferior 
order of intellectual beings ; notwith- 
standing Collins ventured this position in 
a fit oi' spleen, when he was tired of 
•' refiosing by Klysian waterfalls," and, 
perhaps was under some momentary suf^ 
fering from a neglect of worldly wisdom 
and caution. And if this theory of Lord 
Byron be correct, what becomes of the 
poetr)' of his (avourites Dante and 
Tauo f I do not say what becomes of 
his own Manfred ; his own Heaven and 
Earik, kc. ; for these, at tlie instant he 
is under the dominion of such principles, 
he very consistently and honourably 



392 LETTERS ON THE . 

gives up, and talks of " his own paltry 
" renown" with a humility which, during 
the furious dominion of such a prejudice, 
was, I doubt not, sincere ! • 

I take the ordinary temperament of 
Pope to have been want of fire and 
quick emotion, and this temperament h^ 
had not endeavoured to counteract in 
early life, but to confirm. The acci- 
dental course of his studies, the models 
he proposed to himself, the taste of his 
age, all concurred to make him cultivate 
the walks of reason and observation, 
more than of imagination and the pas- 
sions; but when either his passions or 
his imagination were roused they were 
deep, strong, and splendid. Notwith- 
standing Eloisa was an historical subject, 
his invention of circumstances of detail, 
his imagery, the changes and turns of 
passion, the brilliancy of hues thrown 
upon the whole, the eloquence, the ten- 
derness, the fire, the inimitable grace and 



OENIUi OF LORD BYRON. 393 

iUictty of languagCt were aU tlie fruits 
of creative genius. This poem stands 
alone in its kindt never anticipated, and 
never likely to be approached hereafter. 
I do not, therefore, mean to remove 
Pope even the very least of all removes 
from the hi^ seat where Lord Byron 
places him : I only deny the base on 
which Lord Byron puts him there. I can 
hardly doubt that a different discipline of 
his genius would have given to all Pope's 
productions the quality of imaginatwe 
mtriip instead of that of abstract moraUty 
versffied. 

The following passages of Lord Byron 
have more of correctness : — > <* The at- 
^ tempt of the poetical populace of the 
** present day to obtain an ostracism 
against Pope is as easily accounted for 
as the Athenian's shell against Aris- 
^ tides ; — they arc tired of hearing him 
'* always called * The Just.* They are 
** also fighting fbr litis ; for if he main* 



M 



S94» LETTERS ON THE 

" tains his station, they will reach their 
•* own by falling !" — " There can be no 
" worse sign for the taste of the times. 
*^ than th6 depreciation of Pope/* 

As to the taste of the times, I believe 
it to be far worse than the taste of 
any other times in the four last cen- 
turies ; and that this is one of the signs, 
— but only one of a thousand. No 
former age was so fond of whim and 
extravagance ; -^of the Jalselto / Nor was 
literature ever before under the do- 
minion of such factions and intrigues : 
there are certain monopolisers, who keep 
by intrigue and corruption what they 
have got by trick or accident : they 
secretly hate one another; but they 
praise and counterpraise for mutual in- 
terest, and join against the common 
enemy, which they consider every new 
candidate to be, till, by management or 
chance, this new candidate is admitted 
into one of the leading factions ; and 



GENIUS OF LOKD BTBOM. 995 

then he adopts all the fashionable arts of 
war, and carries on the tactics with a zeal 
propmtioned to his former dissatisfaction. 
Persons who do not belong to one or 
other of these cabala, have nothing to do 
but to say to themselves, A/ai tirtute me 
imvolvo ; for self-consciousness of having 
deaerved well is all the reward they 
will reap. But Lord ByitHi's dominion 
was not one of diplomacy : his was not a 
bloodless victory ; it was carried by the 
fiercenem of the oniet, and the fear 
that hovered over his banner. 



' What umn ivund him wm, 

lis vmn, «itb Itifhi e 



The olive>branch was immediately ex- 
tended, and peace-offerings were made 
at his feet Like a generous foe, he re- 
ceived his enemies into his fricnilship, 
grasped the oflered hand ; anil gave hts 
heart with the grasji. Whether in some 
ol' those thus received, tear 
p P 




396 LETTEliS ON THE 

mained the operative tie, time will 
«how. 

Ill-written as this letter of Lord By- 
ron on the subject of Bowleses criticism 
of Pope is, a great deal of very curious 
matter lurks beneath the surface of it 
It shows that Lord Byron's mind was 
not at ease with regard to his contem- 
poraries. All their flattery had not blind- 
ed him : all their venom had not made 
him obstinate, though it had increased 
his darings. But neither had the extra- 
ordinary distinction which he enjoyed, 
nor the very extraordinary popularity of 
his writings, given him that just self-com- 
placency, that gentle and smiling triumph, 
which the many and acknowledged proofs 
of his vast and towering genius wen 
calculated to produce, even in a mind the 
most remote from arrogant and vain. It 
shows how much it is in the power of 
wasps and hornets to disturb the peace 
even of the noblest creatures ; and it 



OCIIIUS or L09LD BTEOK. 397 

aflonk a contolalory ienon to humble 
fkcuities and obscure fates in life, and 
warns them not to pine at their lessi 
splendid destiny ; since supreme genius 
and supreme celebrity are still haunted 
by perplexities and failures of* self-confi- 
<lence. 

Lord Byrou in this respect forms a 
most extraordinary contrast with Milton. 
Lord Byron was in the full bUuee of hb 
tiune, — a blaze which very rarely shines 
on the living brow of genuine and lofty 
genius, — but which shone on him, while 
he might rationally expect that it would 
be as lasting as it was early and bright { 
yet he was still harassed with doubts and 
aiigivings sufficient to cloud the joy of 
the triumph. Milton brought forth 
hia Paradise Last in darkness and ne- 
glect; and the following is Joknsan^B 
noble description of the eficct he sup- 
poses it to have had on him : — > ** Fancy,** 
says h«b ^ can hardly forbear to conjee- 

u D < 



398 LETTERS ON THE 

" ture with what temper Milton surveyed 
" the silent progress of his work, and 
** marked its reputation stealing its way 
" in a kind of subterraneous current 
^* through fear and silence. I cannot 
** but conceive him calm and confident, 
** little disappointed, not at all dejected, 
" relying on his own merit with steady 
" consciousness, and waiting without im- 
" patience the vicissitudes of opinion, 
" and the impartiality of a future gener- 
** ation." — There is, perhaps, a grandeur 
in the endurance of this sort of injustice, 
which elevates the mind far above the 
triumph of success. It calms the mind 
more, and is free from the painful Ian- 
gour that follows extravagant expect- 
ation and excessive excitement. 

But if Lord Byron had ah unbounded 
and oversetting quantity of incense paid 
him in his life, he had at least an equal 
quantity of tremendous and insatiable 
obloquy. Others, however, who have not 



GENIUS OP LOEO BYRON. 399 

had the same solaces and charnis to 
counteract it, have not been secure 
from bitter calumny and reproach. The 
sanctity of Milton was no proof against 
such attacks. His politics exposed him 
to foul aspersions which the royalists 
heaped upon him; and the same pas- 
sions have descended to posterity, and 
vented themselves in the same way 
upon' him. Johnson speaks of his '* en- 
** vious hatred of greatness ;*' his «* sul- 
«« len desire of independence ;*' his 
** petulance, impatient of controul, and 
** pride, disdainful of superiority ;** his 
** hatred to all whom he was required to 
«* obey ;** his ** predominant desire to 
** destroy rather than to establish ;** and 
his feeling ** not so much of love of 
^ liberty as of repugnance to authority ;'* 
— and still worse, in another place, of a 
** malignity, at whose frown hell grew 

•• darker,** &c. 

n D .S 



400 LfiTT£R8 ON THE 

Lord Byron had no part of Milton's 
learning, and could not fortify and ren* 
der firm his opinions as Milton could 
What he did was the impulse of mere 
native force } and this, in arguing points 
which are partly technical, will some- 
times fail a man. Had Milton taken on 
himself to controvert such principles of 
poetical criticism as those ascribed to 
Bowles, he would have done it in a \ery 
different manner. He would have shown, 
both from reason and from the authority 
of all ancient critics of reputation from 
the earliest times, that the strange q)ecies 
of exclusiveftess endeavoured to be set 
up, not only was never, from the time of 
Homer till that of Spenser, thought of 
as a primary essential, but not even 
made one of many essentials ; that from 
the very origin and nature of poetry, 
illustrations drawn from the works of 
men must always have entered into it as 



G£NIU8 OF LOEO BYROfC. 401 

anmng its most interesting and gnuidest 
images and figures. 

Conceive for a moment this famous 
line in Pope's Eloua^ 

*" Tlie ibriMi all troDhled, Mid the lamipt l^vv p^f^** 



to be denied the beauty of pure and high 
poetry, because shrmes and lamp$ are 
works of ari! I think it has been ob» 
served in some criticism on this subject* 
that a man nuiy be a great poet who does 
not know an oak from a sycamore or 
popkr, or a field of wheat from a field 
of barley! It is not necessary that 
there should be any images at all in every 
part of poetT)', — much less imagw 
merdy drawn from nature : — whole 
pages nuiy be found in Milton, senti* 
mental, spiritual, and intellectual, -^ but 
rarely of pure dry abstraction* 

A spirit of petty criticism, which set 
up coxcomical and narrow principles, 
that turned p<ietry into an artificial fiUa- 

D D 4 



^02 LETTERS ON THE 

gree-work of effeminate ornament, began 
to grow up a little before the death of 
Pope i and though it underwent various 
little changes of fashion till the end of the 
century, still it was all in the same spirit of 
feebleness and little unmanly glitter. Dr. 
Joseph Warton, though a man of great 
taste, and an ingenious, elegant, and ex- 
tensive scholar, contributed to this. He 
began with good intentions, and on prin- 
ciples mainly right: but his desire to 
draw the nation to a higher order of 
poetry than the dry didactic versification 
which Pope's example had rendered pre- 
valent, urged him too far to the contrary 
extreme. 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 403 



LETTER XXXVIII. 

July II. 

Dr. Joseph Warton was a leader among 
those who drew the public taste from 
poetry of matter to poetry of stjfle ; — a 
most unfortumite change, from the sub* 
stance to the shadow ! Hence ensued a 
prevalence of artifice, formality, cold- 
ness, and insipidity. For matter, even 
if it be not poetry, is still worth some- 
thing; but idle words, and glitter in 
wrong places, not only give no pleasure, 
but diiigust! Nothing could be so 
Htupidly mechanical and senseless as an 
OAr to Manor If ^ or to Hope, or to Famy^ 
or to Sculpture, or to Morning, Noon^ or 
\igkt, &c., with which all the antbo- 
logics were over-run. Even the splendid 
imaginations of Collins and Gray began 
to lose their charms when cot>^ ' 



404 LETTJBB8 ON THE 

with such masses of noisy and turgid 
affectation. 

A contrary extreme (as always hap- 
pens) at last followed ; and then chaos 
came again, and rudeness and irregu- 
larity were all the vogue. Johnson's 
Lives qf the Poets were popular, and 
still justly continue to be so ; but I have 
not perceived that they ever had any 
practical effect on the poetry of the day. 
I remember that Mason^ the fFartons, 
and Hayley^ continued to write as they 
wrote before; and when Omper and 
Bums afterwards came forth, in 1785 
and 1786, neither of them had formed 
themselves on Johnson's precepts or 
taste; and still less did Darwin^ who 
broke forth in 1789f follow them. After 
1789 commenced the attempt to return 
back nearer to the simplicity and energy 
of nature ; and shortly after this, some 
of those who still enjoy the greatest re- 
putation became known to the public : — * 



GENIUi OF LORD BYEON. 405 

I scmrcelv need name Wordsworth^ Cole^ 
ridge^ and Souihey^ as the poets alluded 
ta The public loves novelty so much, 
that they who had kept in the beaten 
paths could not hope to attract the same 
attention. There was, however, one ex- 
ception : — Rogers^ who seems to have 
formed himself on a mixed model of 
Gotdsmitk and Skenstone. became pc^ular 
soon after his first appearance in 1786w 
Orabbe has had the most singular fiUe. 
His poems» describing familiar life and 
the iiabits of pauperism, with a fidelity 
which gained the applause of Burke, were 
DoCioed for a year or two; the author 
then lell into silence and oblivion for 
thirty years, and all at once emerged 
again in his old age, and has received • 
degree of praise from the Edinburgh re* 
viewers, which seems as if he was better 
suited to their sincere taste than any other 
poet of their times. Seoii^ Moortf and 



406 LETTERS ON THE 

Campbell, appeared a little later, each with 
a manner of his own. 

I do not mean that many others, here 
omitted to be mentioned, have not written 
good poetry during this period. But for 
some cause or other they have not been 
equally marked out to the public, or 
equally adopted by it I have never 
ceased to express the opinion, that popu- 
larity is not the test of merit : the whole 
history of poetry, in every age and every 
country, proves it The various modes 
by which popularity is attained, — some of 
accident, some of management, some of 
novelty, some of merit, i — would make a 
curious volume, or perhaps half-a-dozen 
volumes, if* accompanied by anecdotes 
and biographical sketches. From Vak' 
rianus de iitfelidtate lAteratorum to the 
amusing volumes of D^IsraeUj the mate- 
rials are abundant. 

There are those who say, that though 
not every one who attains celebrity de- 



GENIUS or LORD BYRON. 407 

wrvet itt yet none miss it who are entitled 
to it* Edward Philtips (and we must 
take this to be the opinion of Milton) 
thought otherwise : ** Among the writers 
*« of all ages," says he, ** some deserve 
** fame and have it ; others neither have 
^* nor deserve it ; some have it, not de- 
** serving ; others, thoufi^ deserving, yet 
•« totally miss it, or have it not equal to 
«< their deserts.*' 

When Lord Byron became a candidate 
for poetical fame. Sir Walter Scott^n 
poetry was in the height of its renown ; 
but he did not form himseli* after this 
modeL His Hours qf Idleness are more 
in the numner of a preceding generation» 
and Ckilde Harold^ if it had any proto- 
Qrpe, was more in the mingled tone of 
Beat tie and of Mickle^s Concubine; and 
1 think it is probable that Lord Byron 
was always a great reader of Pope. 

There are parts of \\v^ letter on 
Bowlegs Strictures which regard the 



408 LETTBBS ON TH£ 

attacks on Pope's moral character ;— and 
here his indignation is generous and just 
Why should the poet's papers be raked 
up» and told the public, at the distance 
of eighty years, not by a production of 
copies, but by dark comments, for the 
purpose of throwing obloquy on the pu- 
rity of his affection for Martha Blount ? 
All this trial of genius, by a rigidness 
of examination not applied to common 
men, is very uncandid and very unwise. 
It was rather unlucky for Pope's fame that 
the task of editing his works should have 
fallen on Dr. Warton, who had been the 
great opponent of his school of poetry ; 
but it was doubly unfortunate when it 
fell, a second time, on one of Warton's 
own scholars, who^ in respect to his 
master, would naturally push his doc- 
trines further than Warton himself could 
in decency do. Thomas Warton would 
have performed the office much better : 
he was a more original genius ; a more 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 409 

vigorous, if not more elegant, scholar; 
was more enlarged and comprehensive 
in his taste ; and knew the details of the 
history of poetry, especially English 
poetry, much better. He would not, 
indeed, have dealt in so numy light anec- 
dotes, and so many sprinklings of the 
flowers <^ literature, as render Joseph War- 
ton's E$$a^ and his Noies so popularly 
amusing ; for the Es$m/ on Popt^$ Gemm 
is a work of* great attraction, the fruit of 
a rich and refined memory, and a nice 
and amiable taste. 

Lord Byron says, that ^ in these days 
** the grand primum mobile of England 
^ is cami ; — > cant political, cant poetical* 
^ cant religiousi cant moral ; but always 
^ cant, multiplied through all the varie> 
^ ties qIl life. It is the fashion, and 
•* while it lasts will be too powerful for 
^ those who can only exist by taking 
«« the tone of the time." 

Two traiu of Lord Byron*^ character. 



410 LETTERS ON THE 

scattered in t?u$ Letter, may be here se- 
lected, as standing' on his own authority. 
•• I look upon myself/* says he, " as en- 
*< titled to talk of naval matters, at least to 
•• poets : with the exception of Waltbe 
" Scott, Moore, and Southey, perhaps, 
<< who have been voyagers, I have swam 
« more miles than all the rest of them to- 
" gether now living have ever sailed, 
<< and have lived for months and months 
<< on ship-board ; and during the whole 
" period of my life abroad have scarcely 
" ever passed a month out of sight of the 
** ocean, — besides being brought up from 
" two years till ten on the brink of it. 
" I recollect, when anchored off Cape 
*< Sigeum, in 1810, in an English frigate, 
** a violent squall coming on at sunset, 
^* so violent as to make us imagine that 
«* the ship would part cable, or drive 
<* from her anchorage. Mr. Hobhouse 
•* and myself) and some officers, had 
"^^ been up the Dardanelles to Abydos, 



ccsnrt or load srmoy. 411 

^ mod wete jiat letwii e J in tiBK. The 

«« ttipect of a stom in the A fchip e h go 

•• ift as poetical as need he, the sea. hong 

M particularlT shorty dashing and dan- 

** geroiis» and the navigation intricate 

*« and broken br the isles and currents. 

•* Cape Sigetim, the tumuli of the Troad* 

^ Lemnost Tenedos» all added to the as* 

** sociations of the time. But what 

•• seem ed the most poetical of all at the 

*« moment, were the numbers (about 

** two hundred) of Greek and Turkish 

*• craftt which were obliged * to cut and 

^ run' before the wind from their un- 

*« safe anchorage, some for Tenedos, 

•* some for other isles, some for the main, 

«« and some it might be for eternity. 

•« The sight of these little scudding 

** vessels, darting over the foam in the 

** twilight, now appearing and now dis- 

«« appearing between the waves in the 

«« cloud ot* night, with their peculiarly 

•• white sails, (the Levant sails not being 

E r. 



41S LETTERS ON THE 

<< of coarse canvass, but of white cotton,) 
<< skimming along as quickly, but less 
<* safely, than the sea^^mews which ho- 
<* vered over them; their evident distress ; 
^< their reduction to fluttering specks in 
** the distance ; their crowded succession ; 
*< their littleness, as contending with the 
** giant element, which made our stout 
** forty-four's teak timbers (she was 
'< built in India) creak again ; their as- 
<< pect and their motion ; -^ all struck me 
<< as something far more poetical than 
<< the mere broad brawling shipless sea, 
*< and the sullen winds, could possibly 
" have been without them." 

This is a very beautiful passage^ in 
which Lord Byron throws fine poetry 
into his prose. The other passage is 
this: — 

'< I have seen as many mountains as 
** most men, and more fleets than the 
<< generality of landsmen ; and to my 
<< mind a large convoy, with a few sail of 



OEKIUI OF LOEO BTIION. 413 

** the line to conduct them, is as noble 
** and as poetical a prospect as all that 
*^ inanimate nature can produce. I 
^ prefer < the mast of some great admiral* 
«< with all its tackle to the Scotch fir or 
«' the Alpine tannen, and think that 
^ more poetry has been made out of it'* 
It was this poetical life (if I may so 
call it) led by Lord Byron, which gave a 
freshness and reality to his compositions 
that goes through the whole frame of the 
reader, and will never lose its power. 
Many years ago, in a printed character of 
Bmrm^ I remarked the same thing of Aim; 
but the life of Bums was in no dq^ree 
to adventurous and varied. Spain, Por- 
tngal, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, 
Italy, and Greece again ! — > what nume- 
rous, grand, and gigantic forms of nature 
and of art had Lcurd Byron's eye been 
accustomed to gaze upon ! But, perhaps, 
nothing is so grand as the ocean, and 
this was his element 

B E « 



414 LBTTEES ON THE 

** And I have loved thee. Ocean ! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy hieast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy 
I wanton'd with thy breakers, — they to me 
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror, *twas a [leasing fear; 
For I was, as it were, a child of thee. 
And trusted to thy billows far and near. 

And laid my hand upon thy mane,— -as I do here.** 

Again he exclaims, — 

** There u a pleasure in the pathless woods ; 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore ; 
There is society, where none intrudes. 
By the deep sea; and music in its roar," &c. 

These passages wouldt perhaps, be read 
without emotion, — at least without the 
strong emotion which they awaken, — if 
we did not know that Lord Byron was 
here describing his actual feelings and 
habits, and that this was an unafiected 
picture of his propensities and amuse- 
ments even from childhood, — when he 
listened to the roar and watched the 
bursts of the northern ocean on the tem- 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 415 

pesluous shores of Aberdeenshire. It 
was a femrfiil and violent change at the 
age <^ ten years to be separated from this 
congenial s<rfitude, — this independence so 
suited to his haughty and contemplative 
spirit, — this rude grandeur <^ nature, — 
and thrown among the more worldly- 
minded and selfish ferocity, the afiected 
polish, and repelling coxcombry <^a great 
pubHc school ten miles from London, 
where new-sprung lords filled their child- 
ren's pockets with money and dandled 
them with luxuries, andstock-jobbers, and 
contractors, and manufacturers, clad their 
boys in gold ; — where all was estimated 
by TatiersaW%. and Almack\ and the 
gayest equipages in the Park, and the 
finest houses in the fashionable squares, 
and the greatest familiarity with the two 
chief clubs in St James's Street How 
many thousand tiroes did the moody, 
sullen, and indignant boy wish himself 
back to the keen air and boisterous billows 

c e 9 



416 LETTERS ON THE 

that broke lonely upon the nmple and 
soul-invigorating haunts of his childhood. 
How did he prefer some ghost-stoiy; 
some tale of second sight * ; some rela- 
tion of Robin Hood's feats; some harrow- 
ing narrative of buccaneer-exploits, to 
all of Horace, and* Virgil, and Homer, 
that was dinned into his repulsive spirit ! 
To the shock of this sudden change is, I 
suspect, to be traced much of the eccen- 
tricity of Lord Byron's future life. There 
is great good in public schools; but 
there is also great evil: a boy must be 
prepared for them not only in learning, 
but in habits : if he be not pliant and 
supple, he will not make his way ; and 
if he be, he will, of course, lose all his 
energies : he is more likely to exhibit 
scholarship, but much less likely to 
exhibit genius. Which of our modem 
fashionable poets have been educated at 

* See Collins's Ode on the Supcrttiiums of ike Higk- 
lands. 



OEKraS or LOEO BTRON. 417 

a public school 7 I believe only Sauihtjf ! 
I am aware that Cowley^ Dryden^ ColUm^ 
and Gfnry, were so educated; and all 
were scholars ! 

I am not one of those who exactly 
think that whatever is^ is best; but I 
very much doubt whether those crossesi 
contrarieties^ and mortifications, which 
aflUcted Lord Byron's life, were not 
main nutriments to the sort of poetry 
which he produced. This will probably 
raise the observation, that, admitting the 
justice of it, it does not follow that a 
diftrent and more tranquil life might 
not have produced a beiier sort Cer« 
tainly it is not impossible ! Better poetry 
dian Lord Byron's is yet passible : but 
they who think it probable^ must have a 
very sanguine idea of human genius! 
Pathos and melancholy are among the 
prime springs of high poetry ; and joy 
is apt to be too self-satisfied for much 
exertion. 

K E i 



418 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XXXIX. 

July 19. 

LiORD Btron belonged to no school qf 
poetry ; and I hope that he will not be 
ihe^imder of any school, — because it 
will be dangerous to tread in his steps 
without his powers. He drew as much 
as suited his purpose from ex^ery school, 
to aid his own thoughts and expressions. 
Schools of poetry are, indeed, always 
bad things : they controul and cramp 
genius, and make minor poets mocking- 
birds. All that has been said of Lord 
Byron's borrowings may be conceded, 
yet not detract in the smallest d^^ree 
from his genius. Hurd has written Es- 
says on the Prqqfs qf Poetical Imitation : 
he was a dry, ineloquent writer j but he 
had a strong analytical head, and was 
ingenious in his own department: his 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 419 

proofk, if I recollect, are clearly deve- 
loped and defined ; but I cannot recall 
to my mind (for I have not seen his 
book for many years) whetlier he enters 
into the question in what cases these 
imitations do, and where they do not, 
discredit the genius of the imitator. If 
they only form one of the ingredients of 
the imitator's own combination or crea- 
tion, if they perfectly amalgamate with 
it, instead of forming pakkes upon it, 
the borrowing is no more tlian bor- 
rowing any of the separate images of 
nature to form a new landscape. The 
greatest in%*entor must use materials 
which ieparaiely are not new. This is 
to dearly the use which Lord Byron 
makes of his borrowings, that I cannot 
suppose any sound-minded critic will 
ventufe to deny it. 

I have already said in these I.«lterR, »-* 
I suspect that I liave repeaieMif Mud it, 
— that the fpmi$^ «li4tificti#ifi tA \am%\ 



4/SO LETTERS OM THE 



Byron's poetry is that it lies in his matter 
more especially than in his styk. His 
style is excellent, but it is so because it 
is the most proper and most congenial 
vehicle of his matter. To illustrate this 
position, let me take The Corsair. What 
is its attraction? Does not the interest 
lie in the characters, sentiments, passions, 
actions, and attendant scenery of the 
hero and his mistress ? We do not think 
of the style, — of the manner in which it 
is told, except so far as it impresses the 
subject itself. 

Is this the case with the generality of 
poets ? With them all the interest lies in 
the expression, in the mode of convey- 
ing an idea or fact : there is no novelty^ 
nothing of particular import or force in 
the idea or fact itself. I could instance 
this even by a very splendid poem of a 
very great poet, — Gray^s Bard. What 
is there new in it of character, fects, 
thoughts, or scenery ? The whole charm 



G£NIU8 OF LOEO BYRON. Ml 

\m in the poeticml language, the imagery^ 
the arrangement, the versification, and 
the brilliant style! Let me not be ac* 
ciited <^ invidiousness in saying this ! I 
bold Gray to be the second, if not the 
first, lyric poet of our nation : I consider 
the Fragment on FkUsiiude to have the 
finest passages of lyric poetry in the 
world } and I do not believe that so per- 
fect a poem of its kind as the Eltgjf 
will ever again be written. 

But I resume, that Lord Byron was 
pre-eminently a poet in substance, if I 
nuiy use the word subsiamx for that of 
which the essence is Mphrii* His poetry is 
so much so in its ore, that its character 
would remain even if told in coarse, rudc^ 
bold language. Put Lara, or ihe Lameni 
qf Tosio, into bad prose, yet their inte* 
gral character and interest cannot be de- 
stro3red. There is very little poetiy of 
any country or of any age which will 
hear this transmutation. All common 



4^ LETTERS ON THE 

poets are fanc^fid in the unfkvourable 
sense of that word, — Lord Bycon is never 
so. 

The poetry of "words is that which 
gives pretence to severe minds to treat 
the art with contempt. They call it 
empty ^ and ask what is learned by it ? 
Is there any one who will venture to say 
this of Lord Byron's poetry ? Sweep it 
all to the consuming fire ; let not a page 
remain, nor any memory of a page, or a 
Une ! — w hat a multiplicity of new 
incidents, new characters, new images, 
new sentiments and passions, new scen- 
ery, new reasonings and reflections, 
new views of things, and new expres. 
sions, will be destroyed ! A whole 
creation will be blotted out ; a world of 
new forms, new beings, new intellectual- 
ities will be extinguished : not a world 
of babyish inventions, such as may amuse 
idle leisure when it wants to exercise a 
petty ingenuity, but a world such as 



0EKTU8 OP LORD BTRON. ^93 



those who have had a glimpse of it per- 
ceive gives new energies to our nature* 
new charms to our existence, and new 
light to our understandings. 

We had not time to estimate duly the 
brilliancy which came upon us with so 
much rapidity. Lord Byron's inexhaust- 
ible genius eclipsed his own light,-^as one 
wave swallows up another. Flash after 
flash, and thunder after thunder, till the 
very excess blunted and confounded our 
perceptions. 

I think in some bantering verses of 
Dr. Johnson, on the poets who affected 
the romantic school, he says, 

* All «•• omife, )ct noUitag ocv.** 

It might be said of Lord Byron, that 

* All wii Mm, jcc oolbsaf •ttwife.'* 



In all his wild imaginations he was still 
true to naiurc ; he still struck some chord 
of the human bosom, that answered as if 



424 LETTBRfl ON THE 

touched by magic He who works him- 
self up by effort into the imaginations 
which he forms, may get into mazes into 
which he will find no one who will follow 
him ; but he on whom imaginations come 
quicker than he can develope, who has 
only to select among those which haunt 
him, is sure of sympathy, if he can but 
find language to communicate them. 
Those invisible beings that visit us invo- 
luntarily are round all ; though, without 
the aid of the lamp of genius, they can- 
not be perceived by all. Lord Byron liad 
a lamp which reflected multitudes of 
them seen by none before j though ac- 
knowledged by all when thus shown in 
palpable shape. 

Like the ideas and intelligence con- 
tained in an unknown language, which 
are locked up till industry opens them by 
acquiring a knowledge of the tongue in 
which tiiey are registered. Providence has 
destined that the highest riches of our 



OENIUt or LOED ITEOK. 4M 

being should be hid from us till unveiled 
and embodied by the eye and tongue of 
genius. These are the tasks to which 
Lord Byron*s powers, propensities, and 
ambitions impelled him. 

On the other hand, the matter^^fiaet 
part of mankind say and think, that what 
there is of grandeur, beauty, and attrac- 
tion, in this world, exists without the aid 
of poets, and will be experienced without 
any pointing out by thenu They might 
as well say that a buried inscription would 
be read as well before the covering of 
earth and moss should be cleared Irom it 
by a skilful decypherer. 

But to be merely a master of expraa* 
sion and the art of writing is a compa* 
ratively trifling endowment) commonly 
nothing more than dressing with a little 
ornament, or exhibiting^ in a more sliowy 
point of view, what is already known to 
others ! WluU that is new can be told of 
/si^, or memorif. or hope, or despair, emvjf. 



4S6 LETTERS ON THE 

jealousy 9 tnaUce^ cahmny^ &c. &c. ? Their 
attributes, their motives, and their modes 
of action, are all familiar to the human 
mind, and to embody each of them into 
one corporeal and active being is, in the 
common practice, but a mere piece of 
mechanism. 

It has been observed, that all Lord 
Byron's inventions are more or less iden^ 
tified with himself, and therefore have 
some foundation in reality and experience. 
This has been mentioned as having nar- 
rowed the character of his inventions 
compared with those of Shakspeare and 
others ; but it has given them intensity of 
energy and fidelity. If Lord Byron 
could have been detached from self in 
the origin and conduct of his pieces, the 
chances are that they would not have 
possessed the same life and certainty. 
In ordinary cases, self is a very uninterest- 
ing person; in the present, the reverse 
was true. 



OENIUa OF LORD BTRON, 497 

One can never cease to wonder by 
what processes, so far as self-discipline 
went, such a being was formed. Very 
little of his time could have been spent in 
the peace and solitude of the retreats of 
learning ; he had little aid of artificial ac- 
quirement ; much of his time was spent 
io trm€l$f and in such as required great 
exertion of bodily enterprise ; but, added 
to this, not less is supposed to have been 
qpent in dissipation and the pursuit of 
youthful pleasures. His habitual amuse • 
nents were in the open air ; ridingt swim- 
miiig, sailing, exploring countries. He 
loved sociality with the chosen friends or 
acquaintance whom he admitted to his 
confidence, and half his evenings, even 
tiU midnight, were consumed in free con* 

versation. 

His temper was liable to be ruffled, and 
his passions are known to have been vio- 
lent; and these do not leave one in a 
slate very well adapted to high poetical 

r r 



488 LETTERS ON THE 

composition. The mind cannot be vigor- 
ous when the body is languid or ex- 
hausted. 

All this shows that genius is paramount 
to any combination of external circum- 
stances, and whatever way it works, 
or however it be managed or culti- 
vated, imagination will still produce its 
fruit : the spirit will find an intercourse 
with its congenial beings ; and the cup 
of Helicon will throw off the impurities 
that would debase its inspiration. 

A truth so consolatory, so elevating as 
this, is not exhibited for the first time 
in the case of Lord Byron. Instances of 
it may be found in all literary history : 
the cases of Dante and Tasso do not 
apply, because their impediments and 
misfortunes came after their genius was 
formed. One modern instance, even of 
our own time, of another brilliant star 
occurs, which may be more nearly 
applicable. The splendid powers of 



CiENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 4S9 

Bums surmounted the poverty and ob- 
scurity of his birth, and the anxieties 
and distresses of his future life. 

I know not how to compare Lord 
Byron and Bums : — they had not, I 
think, much in common in their genius ; 
but it requires a nicer power of distinc- 
tion than mine to show precisely the 
diflerence. I do not think that they 
would have been much alike in a similar 
station, and under similar circumstances. 
Lord Byron was more vigorous, more 
expansive, more visionary, more inven- 
tive, more intense ; — Bums was more 
delicate and tender, more pliable, more 
mellowed, more plaintive, of a more 
softened melancholy, less gloomy, and 
sullen, and haughty, and daring. This 
is the more striking, because their respec- 
tive situations would have led to reverse 
these cluuwrters. 

Each of them tnycd in the poetical 
char^^ter which his works reflect: ^ 

w w i 



430 LETTERS ON THE 

eachy the poems were the representations 
of existences, and not the mere skilful 
artifice of words. 

I do not thinlc that Lord Byron could 
ever have written exactly the kind of 
songs which Bums has written. There 
is something moire supplicatory in Bums ; 
-» something of tenderness which makes 
him put himself more at the mercy of 
another ; — yet Burns is nobly independ- 
ent ; still he has less of the defiance of 
haughtiness : — < he has something less of 
the stubbornness of the oak» though he 
has not the pliancy and suppleness of the 
willow. His images from nature are not 
so grand, nor surrounded by such an 
atmosphere of blazing intellect, as Lord 
Byron*s ; but yet there is a playful fire 
about them ; they dance like the inno- 
cent and cheerful coruscations of the 
autumnal lights ; as no one can deny is 
the case with his exquisite Tarn O'Shanter. 



0£yiUS OP LORD BTRON. 



431 



It U a singular coincidence that Col* 
I ins. Burns, and Lord Byron, each died 
at the early age of thirty-six. And what 
a mixture of deep melancholy and suf- 
fering there was in the fate of all of 
them. Collins died insane ; Bums heart- 
broken ; and Lord Byron, though in the 
midst of his glory, yet drenched in ei^ 
venomed calunmy, and writhing with the 
poison of it in huheartl 



WW » 



49€ LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XL. 

Julj 13. 

I HAVE said nothing of Lord Byron's 
last public action, — his enterprise to as- 
sist the Greeks : I have avoided it, be- 
cause these Letters have abstained from 
all concern with politics. It is a noble 
cause ; and it is not necessary for me to 
enter into the question of expediency on 
which Mr. Canning touched in one of 
his speeches of the session just termin- 
ated. There are possible cases of expe- 
diency to which regard must be had in 
politics \ but expediency is always a dan- 
gerous argument, because it is an excuse 
for any deviation from principle. We 
are not bound to find intelligence for 
the despot of Turkey, or to yield to his 
misapprehensions, lest the disregard of 
them should involve us in a war with 



Gcsfius ar lord mrmou. 4SS 

him. Because ke chooses to consider 
that the act of indii^iduals of the British 
oatiofi, where they are free to act, is the 
act of their govemiiieiit» we are not 
bound to alter our conduct, but ought 
rather to abide firmly the consequences 
of his error. 

The mass of mankind, who are always 
more practical than speculative, will esti* 
mate more highly this last occupation of 
Lord Byron's life than all his poetiy. 
He has indeed thus put the mmceriiy of 
his politics beyond all question ; be has 
shown himself^ in aciion as well as in 
iiumgki^ a patriot of the highest and most 
extended glory. And it is the more 
fortunate for his poetical fiune, and the 
fiune of aU poetry, because it in- 
terests so many in cherishing his me- 
mory, and holding sacred his name^ who 
are insensible to the charms and refine- 
menu of the Muse. 

And now I come to a more difficult 

r r 4 



484 hWTRBLS ON THi^ 

tfl^ than any whieh I have hitherto 
encountered on this subject : -— it may be 
required that I should give a sununary 
of Lord B3rron's character, and concen- 
trate the scattered rays which have been 
thrown so irregularly amoAg bo many 
letters into one compact whole. But I 
shall avoid this ; *-* I have already given 
ipy opinions on the principles of poetry 
in so many places and so many forms 
and changes of words, that to repeat any 
one of them to the exclusion of the rest 
would but weaken the effect, and leave 
some shade and distinction unnoticed, 
which may be necessary for a due esti- 
mate of Lord ByrcHi's genius. 

Johnson, in his Li/e qf Fqpe^ has laid 
down the constituents of poetical genius, 
and then asked triumphantly, ^* If these 
" be true, whether Pope had not a high 
" poetical genius ?'' I refer to what I 
have said on the principles of poetry. 



GENIUS or LORD BTRON. 4SS 

and then ask the same question with 
rcgart) to Lord Byron. 

It is easy to frame principles which 
shall meet the character of the object 
selected for praise ; it is necessary, there- 
forc« to examine the principles with 
jealousy and severity, especially in these 
days, when new-fangled doctrines so very 
generally prevail. But it will not be 
found that I differ from Johnson in prin- 
ciples ; it is, indeed, alvrays dangerous to 
difier from him, wherever he puts forth 
his strength as he has done in the lives 
of Pope, Dry den, Milton, and Cowley. 

I shall be asked in what exact place 
or degree of the poetical roll of our 
country I put Lord Bjrron. This is one 
ot* the questions on poets which I am 
always inclined to resist. It is scarcely 
|Ki6sible in many cases to fix precedence 
among those who have taken different 
routes, and cannot, therefore, be strictly 
compared. No one who has undertaken 



430 LETTERS ON THE 

to do this 1ms ever satisfied others. If 
I attempt this in the case of Lord Byron, 
I am quite sure that I shall be blamed 
by a thousand tongues both for placing 
him too high and too low. I have not 
indeed any confidence that it is not yet 
too early, when our grief is so recent, 
for the calm exercise of a judgment that 
shall stand the test of time. 

We may safely pronounce that our 
three greatest poetical names are Milton^ 
Shakspeare, and Spenser : — the contest 
begins with the next name. Pope and 
Dryden are the two between whom it is 
commonly supposed to lie : others have 
named Chaucer^ and others even Gray 
and Collins. Mr. Bowles, according to his 
own principles, ought to name Thomson. 
The principles advocated by Lord Byron 
himself in his Strictures (on Bowles's 
Criticisms) would, in the unqualified 
extent in which he lays them down, put 
Pope next to Shakspeare^ if not Jirst of 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 4^7 

the list ; but he evidently wrote under 
some momentary impulse, and had not 
duly considered the subject 

I am myself inclined, — with some 
hesitation, yet sincerely, — to put Lord 
Byron himself next to Spenser. I am 
not unprepared for the wonder and 
clamour which this opinion will produce 
from certain schools of poetry, and cer- 
tain classes of readers, religious, moral, 
political, classical, and fashionable. But 
either those principles of poetry which 
have been admitted from the time of 
Homer to the chse of the last century 
are wrong, or this opinion, if not with- 
out some remnant of doubt, stands upon 
arguments and deductions so difficult to 
be refuted, and of such prevalent force, 
that prejudice alone will resist it as un- 
founded and ridiculous. 

It may be said in favour of Pope^ that 
no poet ever before exhibited so much of 
the perfection of the arl ; yet that in 



438 LfiXTERS ON THE 

Eloisa it does not, in the smallest degree, 
lessen the poetical fire and beauty of the 
matter. Lord Byron has never carried 
art half so far ; (indeed art is not one 
of his excellences ;) — »nor can I venture 
to say, that he has exceeded the poetical 
merit of the matter of Eloisa. Limiting 
ourselves then to this point of view, 
Pope is superior to him. But we are 
bound to look a little farther, and 
weigh the mass of the merits of one 
against the mass of the merits of the 
other. Pope had certainly neither the 
same variety, nor the same originality, 
nor does he so commonly live in poetical 
regions and among poetical beings. 
There is scarcely any composition of 
Lord B}nron which is not poetical : — - at 
least three-fourths of Pope's verses have 
no poetry in them. Pope could be a 
poet on great occasions, when his pas- 
sions were roused to unwonted energies, 
and his ambition took a proper course. 



GENIUS OF LORD BTRON. ^3^t 

His habits wcru those of a phUusofthical 
versifier, — a moralist, an observer of lilt? 
and manners who put prosaic subjects 
and a prosaic manner of treating them, 
into excellent metre, terse cxpresnons, 
and pointed forms. He had good sense, 
sober reasuii, and strong penetration into 
the characters which bustle on the public 
stage of Ui'e j but he seldom indulged 
himscU' in the higher 6ights of imagin- 
ation, ^ in contemplating and painting 
the more \istoitar)r beauties of ideal ex- 
cellency, or in the intense feelings which 
such ideal beauties exdtc. Wherever 
poetry- iloes only that which prose can 
do ; — whecevcr its merit diHurs from a 
ratiuoal and able bfx>k of prose only in 
the metre, surely it cannot entitle its 
autlior to a high place among poets : 
such i>art«, tlierefore, of Pope's writings 
as haw no merits but these must nL>\er 
be put into the scale when preeminence 
lb claimed tor him. ilail lii» siyk 




440 LETTERS ON THE 

ahoays poetical, (which it was not,) 1 can 
never put the poetry of expression in 
competition with the poetry of matter. — 
Lord Byron's was always the poetry of 
matter : he was even careless of style ; 
yet his matter alone often gave unsought 
excellence to his style. . 

Epic poetry is considered to form the 
first class ; and Lord Byron can scarcely 
be said to have written an epic poem, if 
the definition of the Dictionnaire de Tre- 
voiur be right *< £piqu£, qui appartient 
d la poesie hSroiquCj ou poeme qui decrit 
quelque action^ signalee d^un heros. Le 
poeme epique est un discours invents 
avec art pour former les meeurs par des 
instructions deguisees sous les allegories 
d^une action importante^ racontee d'une 
maniere vraisemblable et merveiUeuse. La 
di^erence qu*il y a entre la poeme Epique 
et la tragedie^ c^est que dans la poeme 
epique les personnes n*y sont point intro- 
duites aus yeux des spectateurs agissant 



GENIt'S OF LOKD BYICON. 441 

eUes-memes comme dans la iragtdie ; 
mats r action est raconiee par Ic poeic.^* 

Yet under this definition, perhaps, 
many would put The Corsair. And 
9ome critics (among the rest Edward 
Phillips) consider every narrative poem 
to be EPIC, whether heroic or not. They 
who are of this last opinion must give 
up the necessary priority of rank which is 
claimed for the epic. And in this sense 
I^rd Byron is almost always epic ; for 
he is almost always narrative^ except in 
his dramas. And narraiive-poeiry is 
the most natural, the least likely to fall 
into corruptions and the empty fantas- 
ticalities of style, the best test of the 
true faculty of invention, and most 
capable of interesting the simplest and 
least facrtitious tastes. Pope was scarce 
ever a narrative-poet, except in liis mock- 
heroics and his translations. Dryden*% 
fame must rest principally on his powers 
zs a narrative-pm^ ; for tliough he hor- 



442 LETTiSRS ON THE 

rowed the outline of all his stories, 
much of the detail and colouring of 
many of them was his own invention. 
Though the spiritual parts of poetry are 
beautiful by themselves, when standing 
alone in lyric pieces, yet they are still 
more beautiful when intermingled in 
tales^ by which the reader has been pre- 
viously worked up into a proper temper- 
ament to receive them, and where they 
re-act on the parts of the tale which 
follow. 

Madame de Stael and others have di- 
vided poetry into the classical and the 
romantic; but the latter is commonly used 
to confound very different sorts of poetry, 
both in their origin and in their consti- 
tuents. It belongs properly to the school of 
the TroubadourSy — the school of chivalry 
and amorou? gallantry. It is used to con- 
found with it the Gothic^ the German^ and 
every sort of extravagance. The Italian 
school grew out of the strictly romantic; 



GEVirS OF LORD BYROM. 44S 

the Frrmck school from the leas enthu- 
siastic and less imaginative character of 
its people, and the pre%'alence of esprii 
which marks the French genius, early 
came nearer to the classical model : (I do 
not say near^ for it commonly wants 
ekvaium Mndjimcy as well as inveniion). 

IxNtl Bvron wm of none of these 
schools, but he took advantage q€ all, 
which it is the very essence of genius to 
do. He could compose in a classical 
manner ; witness his Ijxmeni qf^ Tasso .- 
if there be not« indeed, in that piece 
more passion, more ^ntiment, more 
depth of* colotiring than any classical 
poem of antiquity can show. But after 
the lapse of* two thousand years, so 
many extraordinary events, so many 
changes of opinions and manners, he did 
not refuse any additional materials adapts 
ed to poetry which time had furnished. 
But he scorned to be an echo €^ rhival* 
rouH tales when the opinions, prrjudires, 

a G 



444 LETTERS ON THE 

and attachments of chivalry had ceased v 
he scorned to repeat, with childish won- 
der, superstitions which no longer had 
influence on the popular belief: if he is 
supposed to allude to the mysteries and 
magic of which Germany is so fond, it 
was only where, from whatever cause, it 
had got a dominion over his own mind. 
Manliness and directness characterise 
every thing which he wrote. I do not 
recollect a passage of affectation in all 
his works, after the termination of the 
second canto of Childe Harold. Up to 
that date he did not entirely trust to 
himself; .nor, indeed, did he always in 
The Giaour; but there it never, I think, 
fell into affectation : — very seldom before 
that publication. Affectatioriy when it 
prevails in any degree, is a vital sin, 
totally inconsistent with eminent merit, 
or with any merit which can secure ^ 

9 

permanent fame. 



GEKIt'8 OF LORD BYRON. -M>.5 

I sav, then, that Lord Bvron is neither 
of the classical nor rcmanik school ; but 
that he shows what poetry* itself, which 
it of no school, could do, under the di- 
rection of a mif^hty genius, vast ener- 
gies, deep sensibility, and intense pas- 
sions, with the materials ofTered to it at 
the commencement of the nineteenth 
centurw 

It is said of I^rd Bvron, that he alwavs 
had some particle of n^ality, some actual 
experience, to ground all his imaginations 
and visions upon ; that he never wrote, 
but from positive and unsought excite- 
ment ; and that on no occiision did he 
ever attempt cold, sickly, rtowery, arti- 
ficial invention. 

Let us see which we could spare of 
Lord Byron*s poems ! Three or Jhttr^ 
perhapa, and a great many particular 
pMiiges of Don Juan ; but what a chasm 
we should makt* in the fruits of our na- 
tional genius, it' the rest were withdrawn. 

GO "i 



446 LETTERS ON THE 

He has thrown into the shade so many 
who formerly had attractions, that, per- 
haps, we should sink again to be con- 
tent with mediocrity; for his fire and 
vigour have made many poems, which 
formerly were deemed to have animation 
and spirit, appear tame and insipid! 
Such, at least, has been the effect on me. 
I could name instances, were it not in- 
vidious. 

If Lord Byron be of all modem poets 
he whom we can least spare, this alone 
is surely magnificent praise. If I add 
that he is the poet whom we could least 
have spared at any time since the death 
of Milton J then it cannot be answered, 
that he is only comparatively missed 
among the twinkling lights of our days ! 
Not that all are twinkling; for in the last 
sixty years we have had many noble poets, 
and have some still surviving, though 
they have taken a different route from 



GEMIUS OF LORD BYRON. 



4*7 



Lord Byron. And sio 1 would have them 
take ! *— He who treads in the path of 
another mocks his faults, but never 
reaurhes his merits. 



OG S 



448 LETTERS ON THE 



LETTER XLL 

July 14. 

As the time for concluding these letters 
has arrived, I must refrain from expatiat- 
ing a little longer on some points which 
I think would still admit of elucidation. 
But I must endeavour to leave the reader 
with the impression of the grand point I 
have undertaken to make out ; — a point 
which, it may be said, no one denies, but 
which yet I find a very large party admit 
very reluctantly, and rather in fear than 
in conviction. I wish to leave the point 
shortly put on grounds, which, if false, it 
is easy to controvert, and if true, will 
allow of no answer. 

I assert it to be undeniable, that poetry 
is excellent in proportion to its degree of 
that poetical invention which is sublime^ 
patheticy or beautiful. Now I do not 
contend that Childe Harold is poetical 



GESWS OF LOKO BYKON. 449 

uivention ; neither the ilescription of 
particular scenery^ nor the portraits of 
particular persoiiss nor the relation of the 
iucidenUi of actual observation and ex- 
perience, can be invention : they may 
be reflected brilliantly by tlie faculty of 
a aplendid tancy. So far, then, Lord 
ByroD would not have been entitled to 
nt on the upper seat of the Temple of 
Parnassus. 

But he has other poems which exhibit 
this quality with so much certainty, and 
in to very eminent a d^^ee, as to give 
him an undoubted claim to aui upper 
•eat. The Corsair^ Lara^ Manfred^ 
Lament qf Tasso^ the Dramas^ Prophecy 
qfDanie^ Cain^ Heaven and Earih^ (not 
to tay Dan Juan,) abound every where 
with that poetical invention, which is 
wblinie, pathetic, or beautiful. It is not 
inoomistent with the most perfect poe- 
Itcal invention that the oiUline should be 
hirtorical, or founded in fact : '* some 

G G i 



450 LETTERS ON THE 

^ brief, obscure, or remote tradition, where 
** there is an ample field to enlarge by 
" feigning of probable circumstances/* 
This is precisely what Lord Byron has 
done in most of these poems : the details 
and colouring are all his own. And let 
us appeal, not to a few, but to all minds, 
which join education to the least degree 
of native feeling and native talent, 
whether these poems do not display, — 
not merely here and there, but through- 
out, — passages either of such grandeur, 
such intense tenderness, or such vivid- 
ness, elegance, and grace, as 



** take the prison'd soul. 



And lap it in Elysium.** 



The expression, too, is almost always 
exquisite ; but that is their least attrac- 
tion. The censorious may say what they 
will of Cain ; but there are speeches in 
the mouth of Cai?i and Aduy especially 
regarding their child, which nothing in 



GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 



451 



Enf^isb poetry but the " wood-notes 
" wild" of Shakspeare ever equiUled. 

And here I will leave this question, 
without weakening it by more distinctiolU 
and qualiticatioDS. Unless the positions 
here laid down can be overturned, there 
in no room tor liuther controversy. 

** And no* m; Utk u fMoathl; done, 
I «*n fljr. Of I MB run, 
Qiiickir to the ipvca mrIi'* end, 
When Ih* bcra'd wdkis low dotb tmmii 
And from ihcncc can mw ■■ looa 
To ilie tomfn of the nwon. 
Mortal*, that would loUow mt. 

Lore Virtur ; ihe atoar k &•• : 

She ran irath j-c bow to tlinib 

Hinber ihm the ifilirn thimm : 

Ur if Viituc fertile wcr^ 

Hann iticir would Moop to bar." * 




NOTE. 



(vKOtOB OOEDOM ByRON, MuM LoED BtBON, 

was bom Md January, 1 788. He was only 

too of John Byron, born 1 756, by his second 

wife, Catharine Gordon, of Aberdeenshire, who 

died in Aogost, 1811. He lost his father on 

1 1th June, 1795, in his sixth year. His grand- 

bther, the well-known Commodore John Byron, 

bom 179S, died 1786, aged 65. The yarra- 

ikr of hb shipwreck on an uninhabited island 

of the imith Seas, when a midshipman of the 

IFai^rr, one of Lord Anson's squadron, long 

remained a ▼otume of extraordinary popolarity. 

It was published in 1 768. He was promoted lo 

the rank of admiral in 1775, and distinguished 

hiniMrIf in the American war. He was younger 

brother of \Villiani,^/i/?A Lord Hymn, on whose 



454 NOTE. 

death, 19th May, 1798, his grandson, the poet, 
succeeded to the peerage^ at the age of ten 
years. 

Till that period the poet had passed almost 
all his childhood in Aberdeenshire. He was 
now brought out of Scotland and sent to Har* 
row school. About 1805, he was removed to 
(Trinity Collie) Cambridge. In 1806, he pub- 
lished his Hours of Idleness^ on which the very 
extraordinary criticism in the Edinburgh Rexnem^ 
Vol. XI. {January^ 1808,) has eventually caused 
so much surprise; and operated at the time, 
and, perhaps, through life, so importantly on the 
mind of the poet. It gave rise to his English 
Bards and Scotch RevietverSi 1808. 

Soon after he came of age, he left England 
on his travels to Spain, Portugal, and Greece, 
and did not return till about the beginning of 
1812, when he gave to the world the first two 
cantos of Childe Harold. He then published, 
in rapid succession, 2. The Giaour. S. The 
Bride of Abydos. 4. The Corsair (January, 
1813). 5. Lara (1814). 6. The Siege of Co- 
rinth and Parisina. 



NOTE. i55 

On 2d January, 1 8 1 5, he married Anne Zw- 
belkfj only child of Sir Balph MUbank^ Bart, 
by Judith, sister and co-heir (and heir of entail) 
to Thomas Noel, second and last Viscount 
Wentworth, and by her had an only child, bom 
lOth December, 1815. 

In the following year a legal separation took 
place between him and Lady Byron ; and in 
April, 1816, he embarked a second time for the 
Continent, never to return. He passed by the 
Rhine to Geneva, where he passed the summer 
of that year in Campagne Diodati^ in the village 
of Cdigny^ on the Savoy side of the Lake, with 
the Alps behind him, and the Jii/o, cross the 
Lake, in his front. At Geneva, he wrote, 7. 
The third canto of Childe Harold. 8. Man-- 
Jred. 9. The Prisoner of Chillon. 

At the end of this year he passed on to Ve^ 
nicef where he long took up his abode, making 
excursions into the south of Italy, as far as 
Rome. Here he wrote, 10. His fourth canto 
of Childe Harold. 11- LametU of Tasto. 
12. Beppo. 13. Marino Faltero. 14. The 
T\co Foscari, 1 5. The earlier canU)s of Don 
Juan, 



450* NOTE. 

About the end of 1819, he removed to JZa- 
vennOf where he wrote, 16. The Prophecy of 
Dtmte f and, perhaps, .17. Cain. 18. &7r- 
danapalm. 19* Other cantos of Don Juan, 
90. His Strictures on Bowles. 

In the latter end of 1821, he removed to 
jRmo, in Tuscany. But, perhaps, he had al* 
ready sent for publication, 21. His Heaven 
and Earth. Here he wrote, 22. Werner. 
28. The Deformed Tran^brmed. 24. Other cantos 
of Don Juan. Here, in July, 1822, he lost his 
friend Shelley^ by the upsetting of an open 
boat in a storm, returning from Leghorn to 
Lerica. 

He remained at Pisa till 1828, when he 
went to Greece, where a fever carried him off, 
in the prime of his genius, on 19th April, 
1824. 

His character and his genius I have endea- 
voured to delineate in the preceding Letters. 
He was great-great*great-grandson of Richard, 
second Lord Byron, who died 1679, setat. se- 
venty-four ; and whose elder brother, Sir John, 



I 



NOTE. 



tarj 



was raiaed to the pe er a g e ^ (with a collateral re- 
mainder,) S4th October, 164S. William, thiid 
peer, died 1^5 : — William, fimrth peer, (the 
poec^t great grandbther) died 1736. 



THK EMD. 



tow «MSL 



Becenthf pMithed, 

THEATRUM 
POETARUM ANGLJCANOSUM t 

COMTAIIIIXO 

BRIEF CHARACTERS OF THE ENGLISH POETS 

Down to the Tcu- 1675. 

By EDWARD PHILLIPS, 

the Nephew of Mflton. 

The Third Edition. Rqirinted at the Expence, aod 
with the Notes, of Sir EgertoD Brydges* Bart. 

Oenetm? Fhm the PTcm of Boonmut. 1894. 

100 Copies (25 large Paper). 8vo. 



1. . i , 



-I