but many errors of taste and judgment. The vulnerable points were fiercely assailed, the merits overlooked, in a witty critique in the Edinburgh Review (understood to be written by Lord Brougham), and the young poet replied by his vigorous satire, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, which disarmed, if it did not discomfit, his opponent. While his name was thus rising in renown, Byron left England for a course of foreign travel, and in two years visited the classic shores of the Mediterranean, and resided some time in Greece and Turkey. In the spring of 1812 appeared the two first cantos of Childe Harold, the fruit of his foreign wanderings, and his splendidly enriched and matured poetical taste. 'I awoke one morning,' he said, and found myself famous.' A rapid succession of eastern tales followed-the Giaour and the Bride of Abydos in 1813; the Corsair and Lara in 1814. In the Childe, he had shown his mastery over the complicated Spenserian stanza: in these he adopted the heroic couplet, and the lighter verse of Scott, with equal freedom and success. No poet had ever more command of the stores of the English language. Ata military mob and contending chiefs-turbulence, this auspicious and exultant period, Byron was the idol of the gay circles of London. He indulged in all their pleasures and excesses-studying by fits and starts at midnight, to maintain the splendour of his reputation. Satiety and disgust succeeded to this round of heartless pleasures, and in a better mood, though without any fixed attachment, he proposed and was accepted in marriage by a northern heiress, Miss Milbanke, daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, a baronet in the county of Durham. The union cast a shade on his hitherto bright career. A twelvemonth's extravagance, embarrassments, and misunderstandings, dissolved the union, and the lady retired to the country seat of her parents from the discord and perplexity of her own home. She refused, like the wife of Milton, to return, and the world of England seemed to applaud her resolution. One child (now the Countess of Lovelace) was the fruit of this unhappy marriage. Before the separation took place, Byron's muse, which had been lulled or deadened by the comparative calm of domestic life, was stimulated to activity by his deepening misfortunes, and he produced the Siege of Corinth and Parisina. Miserable, reckless, yet conscious of his own newly-awakened strength, Byron left England and the successive cantos of Don Juan' betrayed the downward course of the poet's habits. The wit and knowledge of that wonderful poem-its passion, variety, and originality-were now debased with inferior matter; and the world saw with rejoicing the poet break away from his Circean enchantments, and enter upon a new and nobler field of exertion. He had sympathised deeply with the Italian Carbonari in their efforts for freedom, but a still more interesting country and people claimed his support. His youthful travels and poetical enthusiasm still endeared the blue Olympus' to his recollection, and in the summer of 1823 he set sail for Greece, to aid in the struggle for its independence. His arrangements were made with judgment, as well as generosity. Byron knew mankind well, and his plans for the recovery and regeneration of Greece evinced a spirit of patriotic freedom and warm sympathy with the oppressed, happily tempered with practical wisdom and discretion. He arrived, after some danger and delay, at Missolonghi, in Western Greece, on the 4th of January 1824. All was discord and confusion rapacity, and fraud. In three months he had done much, by his influence and money, to compose differences, repress cruelty, and introduce order. His fluctuating and uncertain health, however, gave way under so severe a discipline. On the 9th of April he was overtaken by a heavy shower whilst taking his daily ride, and an attack of fever and rheumatism followed. Prompt and copious bleeding might have subdued the inflammation, but to this remedy Byron was strongly opposed. It was at length resorted to after seven days of increasing fever, but the disease was then too powerful for remedy. The patient sank into a state of lethargy, and, though conscious of approaching death, could only mutter some indistinct expressions about his wife, his sister, and child. He lay insensible for twenty-four hours, and, opening his eyes for a moment, shut them for ever, and expired on the evening of the 19th of April 1824. The people of Greece publicly mourned for the irreparable loss they had sustained, and the sentiment of grief was soon conveyed to the poet's native country, where his name was still a talisman, and his early death was felt by all as a personal calamity. The body of Byron was brought to England, and after lying in state in London, was interred in the family vault in the village church of Hucknall, near Newstead. Byron has been sometimes compared with Burns. Death and genius have levelled mere external distinctions, and the peer and peasant stand on the same elevation, to meet the gaze and scrutiny of posterity. Both wrote directly from strong personal feelings and impulses; both were the slaves of irregular, uncontrolled passion, and the prey of disappointed hopes and constitutional melancholy; and both died, after a life of extraordinary intellectual activity and excitement, at the same early age. We allow for the errors of Burns's position, and Byron's demands a not less tender and candid construction. Neglected in his youth-thwarted in his first love left without control or domestic influence when his passions were strongest Once more upon the waters, yet once more!— and visiting France and Brussels, pursued his course along the Rhine to Geneva. Here, in six months, he had composed the third canto of Childe Harold,' and the Prisoner of Chillon. His mental energy gathered force from the loneliness of his situation, and his disgust with his native country. The scenery of Switzerland and Italy next breathed its inspiration: Manfred and the Lament of Tasso were produced in 1817. In the following year, whilst residing chiefly at Venice, and making one memorable visit to Rome, he completed Childe Harold,' and threw off his light humorous poem of Beppo, the first fruits of the more easy and genial manners of the continent on his excitable temperament. At Venice, and afterwards at Ravenna, Byron reLord of himself, that heritage of wosided till 1821, writing various works-Mazeppa, the first five cantos of Don Juan, and his dramas intoxicated with early success and the incense of of Marino Faliero, Sardanapalus, the Two Foscari, almost universal admiration, his irregularities must Werner, Cain, the Deformed Transformed, &c. The be regarded more with pity than reprehension. year 1822 he passed chiefly at Pisa, continuing Don After his unhappy marriage, the picture is clouded Juan,' which ultimately extended to fifteen cantos. with darker shadows. The wild license of his conWe have not touched on his private history or in-tinental life it would be impossible to justify. His dulgences. His genius had begun to pale its fire :' his dramas were stiff, declamatory, and undramatic; excesses became habitual, and impaired both his genius and his strength. He struggled on with The genius of Byron was as versatile as it was energetic. Childe Harold' and 'Don Juan' are perhaps the greatest poetical works of this century, and in the noble poet's tales and minor poems there is a grace, an interest, and romantic picturesqueness, that render them peculiarly fascinating to youthful readers. The Giaour' has passages of still higher description and feeling-particularly that fine burst on modern Greece contrasted with its ancient glory, and the exquisitely pathetic and beautiful comparison of the same country to the human frame bereft of life : [Picture of Modern Greece.] He who hath bent him o'er the dead, Have swept the lines where beauty lingers, That fires not-wins not-weeps not-now- Hers is the loveliness in death, A gilded halo hovering round decay, Spark of that flame-perchance of heavenly birthWhich gleams-but warms no more its cherished earth! The 'Prisoner of Chillon' is also natural and affecting: the story is painful and hopeless, but it is told with inimitable tenderness and simplicity. The reality of the scenes in 'Don Juan' must strike every reader. Byron, it is well known, took pains to collect his materials. His account of the shipwreck is drawn from narratives of actual occurrences, and his Grecian pictures, feasts, dresses, and holiday pastimes, are literal transcripts from life. Coleridge thought the character of Lambro, and especially the description of his return, the finest of all Byron's efforts: it is more dramatic and life-like than any other of his numerous paintings. Haidee is also the most captivating of all his heroines. His Gulnares and Medoras, his corsairs and dark mysterious personages rior. Linked with one virtue and a thousand crimesare monstrosities in nature, and do not possess one tithe of the interest or permanent poetical beauty that centres in the lonely residence in the Cyclades. The English descriptions in Juan are also far infeThere is a palpable falling off in poetical power, and the peculiar prejudices and forced illnatured satire of the poet are brought prominently forward. Yet even here we have occasionally a flash of the early light that 'led astray.' The sketch of Aurora Raby is graceful and interesting (compared with Haidee, it is something like Fielding's Amelia coming after Sophia Western), and Newstead Abbey is described with a clearness and beauty not unworthy the author of 'Childe Harold.' The Epicurean philosophy of the Childe is visible in every page of 'Don Juan,' but it is no longer grave, dignified, and misanthropical: it is mixed up with wit, humour, the keenest penetration, and the most astonishing variety of expression, from colloquial carelessness and ease, to the highest and deepest tones of the lyre. The poet has the power of Mephistophiles over the scenes and passions of human life and society-disclosing their secret workings, and stripping them of all conventional allurements and disguises. Unfortunately, his knowledge is more of evil than of good. The distinctions between virtue and vice had been broken down or obscured in his own mind, and they are undistinguishable in 'Don Juan.' Early sensuality had tainted his whole nature. He portrays generous emotions and moral feelings -distress, suffering, and pathos-and then dashes them with burlesque humour, wild profanity, and unseasonable merriment. In 'Childe Harold' we have none of this moral anatomy, or its accompanying licentiousness; but there is abundance of scorn and defiance of the ordinary pursuits and ambition of mankind. The fairest portions of the earth are traversed in a spirit of bitterness and desolation by one satiated with pleasure, contemning society, the victim of a dreary and hopeless scepticism. Such a character would have been repulsive if the poem had not been adorned with the graces of animated description and original and striking sentiment. The poet's sketches of Spanish and Grecian scenery, and his glimpses of the life and manners of the classic mountaineers, are as true as were ever transferred to canvass; and the meditations of the Pilgrim on the particular events which adorned or cursed the soil he trod, are marked with fervour and sublimity. Thus, on the field of Albuera, he conjures up an image of war, one of the noblest creations in poetry: [Image of War.] Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note? Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. Lo! where the giant on the mountain stands, His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun, With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands, And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon. Restless it rolls, now fixed, and now anon Flashing afar-and at his iron feet Destruction cowers to mark what deeds are done; For on this morn three potent nations meet, To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet. In surveying the ruins of Athens, the spirit of Byron soars to its loftiest flight, picturing its fallen glories, and indulging in the most touching and magnificent strain of his sceptical philosophy : [Ancient Greece.] Ancient of days! august Athena! where, that were: First in the race that led to Glory's goal, They won, and passed away-is this the whole ? A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour! The warrior's weapon, and the sophist's stole, Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power. Son of the morning, rise! approach you here! Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven- Ór burst the vanished hero's lofty mound: Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall, Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son! The third canto of 'Childe Harold' is more deeply imbued with a love of nature than any of his previous productions. A new power had been imparted to him on the shores of the Leman lake.' He had just escaped from the strife of London and his own domestic unhappiness, and his conversations with Shelley might also have turned him more strongly to this pure poetical source. An evening scene by the side of the lake is thus exquisitely described :It is the hush of night; and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more; A forcible contrast to this still scene is then given in a brief description of the same landscape during a thunder storm : The sky is changed!-and such a change! Oh night, And this is in the night: most glorious night! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black-and now the glee Of the loud hill shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. In the fourth canto there is a greater throng of images and objects. The poet opens with a sketch of the peculiar beauty and departed greatness of Venice, rising from the sea, with her tiara of proud towers' in airy distance. He then resumes his pilgrimage-moralises on the scenes of Petrarch and Tasso, Dante and Boccaccio-and visits the lake of Thrasimene and the temple of Clitumnus. His verses on the latter have never been surpassed : [Temple of Clitumnus.] But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave : Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters! Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps The finny darter with the glittering scales, Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales. The Greek statues at Florence are then inimitably described, after which the poet visits Rome, and revels in the ruins of the Palatine and Coliseum, and the glorious remains of ancient art. His dreams of love and beauty, of intellectual power and majesty, are here realised. The lustre of the classic age seems reflected back in his glowing pages, and we feel that in this intense appreciation of ideal beauty and sculptured grace-in passionate energy and ecstacy-Byron outstrips all his contemporaries. The poem concludes abruptly with an apostrophe to the sea, his joy of youthful sports,' and a source of lofty enthusiasm and pleasure in his solitary wanderings on the shores of Italy and Greece. The greatness of Byron's genius is seen in 'Childe Harold'its tenderness in the tales and smaller poems-its rich variety in 'Don Juan.' A brighter garland few poets can hope to wear-yet it wants the unfading flowers of hope and virtue! [The Gladiator.] The seal is set.-Now welcome, thou dread power! Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear; Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear, That we become a part of what has been, And grow unto the spot, all-seeing, but unseen. And here the buzz of eager nations ran, In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause, As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man. And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because Such were the bloody circus' genial laws, And the imperial pleasure. Wherefore not? What matters where we fall to fill the maws Of worms-on battle-plains or listed spot? Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee- Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublimeThe image of Eternity-the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing 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. [An Italian Evening on the Banks of the Brenta.] [From Childe Harold."] The moon is up, and yet it is not night- Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar, And now they change; a paler shadow strews The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone-and all is gray. [Midnight Scene in Rome-the Coliseum.] The stars are forth, the moon above the tops I learned the language of another world. A grove which springs through levelled battlements, And twines its roots with the imperial hearths, [The Shipwreck.] [From Don Juan."] 'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down * Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the braveThen some leaped overboard with dreadful yell, As eager to anticipate their grave; And the sea yawned around her like a hell, And down she sucked with her the whirling ware, Like one who grapples with his enemy, And strives to strangle him before he die. And first one universal shriek there rushed, Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry I can do nothing;' and he saw him thrown The other father had a weaklier child, Of a soft check, and aspect delicate; But the boy bore up long, and with a mild And patient spirit held aloof his fate; Little he said, and now and then he smiled, As if to win a part from off the weight He saw increasing on his father's heart, With the deep deadly thought that they must part. And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed: And when the wished-for shower at length was come, And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed, Brightened, and for a moment seemed to roam, He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain Into his dying child's mouth; but in vain! |