fame," and equally strange is it to see Campbell and "Melodious Rogers" placed highest on the roll of praise, as distinguished from the "race who rhyme from folly or for food." This vigorous satire is in the manner of Pope, for whom Byron always had a strong regard. He had brought From 1809 to 1811 he travelled on the Continent, chiefly about the Mediterranean, and his poetic genius shaped itself and developed. Returning to England he took his seat in the House of Lords, and for some six months was as unhappy as a young man proud, praise-loving, friendless, and cast adrift in a great city would naturally be. back two manuscripts with him. some frigid and insipid Hints from Horace, a poetical satire; the other was the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. It was another case of "discovery." A friend of Byron's-Mr. Dallas-insisted upon the publication of the latter, though the Hints were much more to Byron's taste. In February, 1812, the two cantos appeared. "I awoke one morning and found myself famous," says the poet. His success was instant and overwhelming, seven editions of the poem were bought up in five weeks. All London opened its doors to him, society suddenly discovered the romantic charm of this young lord-he was only twenty four-with his personal beauty, his cleverness and his delightfully naughty and mysterious reputation. The wonderful effect which the poem produced was due not so much to its intrinsic beauty-which after all is not very moving-as to its embodiment of youthful tragedy. Byron had been preceded in this particular field both by German and French writers-by Goethe in Germany (Sorrows of Young Werther) and Chateaubriand in France (Réné). No one yet, however, had expressed what almost every one has experienced-the bitter disillusionment of youth, when its proud spirit finds the unreality of pleasure, and its own insignificance in the universal scheme of things. This is about what the opening cantos of Childe Harold expressed, and if the setting was theatrical, none the less the feeling was sincere. The fame to which he awoke was enjoyed by Byron for about four years. His life was absolutely lawless, and he gratified every whim of a luxuriant fancy. But his intellect was never idle. During the short term of his London career he produced six other poems, written for the most part in the flowing "Spenserian" stanza like their famous predecessor and resembling it in thought as well. The more important were: The Giaour, May, 1813; The Corsair, December, 1813; Lara, August, 1814. Of these as of his other work a word later on. In 1815 he married, but, as might have been foreseen, the marriage proved in no sense a happy one, and a year later he left his wife and England. The circumstances of the separation are shrouded in a good deal of mystery which does not particularly concern us here. Suffice it to say that public opinion sided with the wife, and Byron departed with the disapprobation of his countrymen resting, rightly or wrongly, upon him. As a critic has pointed out, his meteoric career in England was limited to four years, beginning in obscurity and ending in general reprobation. Setting out from England " upon the second tragical round of his pilgrimage," Byron came upon Shelley at an inn near Geneva. The two instantly became friends. Shelley could sympathize with his brother poet in that rebellion against fate which characterized the mental attitude of both-though Shelley's life had been far more blameless than Byron's. Four summer months on the borders of Lake Leman they lived in fellowship, amid "metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love inextinguishable,— thoughts unutterable." To this period belongs some of Byron's best work-the third canto of Childe Harold and The Prisoner of Chillon, both pervaded by a manly and dignified spirit that does credit to the poet's better nature. The next place of his abode was Venice, where, as always, he drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs. A journey to Rome in 1817 called into existence the fourth canto of Childe Harold-splendid poetry. In 1819 he left Venice for Ravenna, having fallen in with the woman who influenced him perhaps more than any one else could do. Here his intellectual activity was great. He wrote six dramas-three of them in the mystical vein which he had already essayed in Manfred (1816). The famous and powerful Vision of Judgment was published in a London newspaper at this time. Byron's next move was to Pisa, in 1821. Here he was installed when Shelley was drowned in the Bay of Spezzia the following August, and he formed one of the little band of friends who burnt the body on the shore. About this time he seems to have felt a certain waning in his literary powers, and a restlessness, a desire for new fields to conquer, came upon him. At this crisis the committee of Greek sympathizers in London made proposals that he should join them. He eagerly accepted and volunteered to go to the front. Greece was in the throes of her first struggle for freedom from Turkish oppression, and to Byron the idea of assisting in the fight for liberty was irresistible. Already he had made some generous efforts on behalf of Italy. In July, 1823, he sailed down the Adriatic for the scene of his last exploits. The insurgents were only half organized, and during several months Byron showed much force of character and power of ruling men. But his days were numbered. He lived to see little effect from his unselfish work. He caught a fever and died after a distressing illness in April, 1824, at Missolonghi, near Lepanto. His body was brought to England for burial. Byron has been adversely criticised, but there is one thing that admits no doubt-his popularity. England went mad over the poems that he wrote, while on the Continent his influence was unprecedented. To this day he is regarded by some foreign critics as the greatest of English poets. His field was the expression of the "Welt-Schmerz” which every young man of the period experienced. The reason for his popularity lies in the valiant revolt-note in most of his work, in the strangeness of its setting-mostly eastern-and in the personal interest which infuses the greater part of it: the heroes being generally a "sort of fancy portrait, a sketch in cap and yataghan of Byron himself as he would like to be thought." The best of Byron's work, in our after judgment, was done in the later period of his life. Cain is a very powerful drama which raised a storm among the orthodox in England, but which possesses a great deal of beauty. It is absorbed in the mystery of man's fate-man who is compelled to die for the sin of his first parents. Don Juan is a long and unfinished narrative satire published at irregular intervals between 1819 and 1824. To give an idea of Byron at his best, we may quote the sonnet Bonnivard: Eternal spirit of the chainless mind! And when thy sons to fetters are consigned, 1 |