AllFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
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F THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSI 
 
 F THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSI 
 
LETTERS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 CHARACTER AND POETICAL GENIUS 
 
 OF 
 
 LORD BYRON. 
 
 BY 
 
 Sir EGERTON BRYDGES, Bart. 
 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN, 
 
 PATERNOSTEK-ROW. 
 
 1824. 
 
PRM3gf 
 
 B7 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 More than twenty of the first of these 
 letters were written with httle intention 
 to pubhsh them. They were the succes- 
 sive daily impressions w^hich 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 lie now and 
 then perceives some inconsistency in 
 them, a little candour and reflection will, 
 I hope, induce him to alter his opinion. 
 He must recollect that these are Letters, 
 — not a formal essay or dissertation, w^here 
 
 a 
 
 387157 
 
VI PREFACE. ^ 
 
 an author is bound to digest the whole be- 
 fore he commences to write it. 
 
 As to any deprecation of censure and 
 criticism, or any anxiety about it, lie who 
 has had intercourse with the Hterary world 
 for more than forty years must know too 
 much of its private history, its passions, 
 prejudices, and intrigues, to concern him- 
 self with any thing of sucli utter inutility. 
 He who cannot endure heartless and fitful 
 criticism, or is not prepared even for foul 
 and perverted criticism, must not wTite. 
 All Jirst reception is at best a chance : 
 what is just and solid wdll some day iind 
 its due place in the public mind ; what is 
 not so will 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. Vll 
 
 did the fame of Darwin or of Hayleij do 
 either of them ? 
 
 Some will censure my warmth : if they 
 camiot prove it affected, they are w^elcome 
 to all which they can make of the objec- 
 tion. 
 
 Geneva f July 14, 1824-. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Saturday, May 22. 1824. 
 
 Yesterday the papers brought me the 
 news of Lord Byron's death, on Monday 
 April 19th, at Missolonghi in Greece, of 
 a ten days' inflammatory fever. He was 
 born in January I788, and was, therefore, 
 aged thirty-six years, and three months, 
 wanting a few days. 
 
 On the first emotion of such intel- 
 ligence 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 a^'^ 
 almost always found together. His splen- 
 dours and his extravagances ; his beauties 
 
 B 
 
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 
 wichastisedi 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 always 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 OF LORD BYRON. 3 
 
 views, where gilded clouds soften, and a 
 thousand counteracting tints correct ex- 
 cesses, and turn glare into mellowed 
 beauty. 
 
 Either his faculty of reason was very 
 much inferior 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 w^hom he had misled by 
 his partial exhibitions. 
 
 I think that this will account for the 
 instability of opinion, which he so often 
 discovered. He was not considerate ; 
 
 B 2 
 
4 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 w^hich 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 liim 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 BYRON. 5 
 
 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 his strength ! 
 
 He who was endowed with this almost 
 superhuman audacity of spirit, combined 
 with a rare splendoiu: of intellectual gifts, 
 was free 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 views 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 3 
 
O LETTERS ON THE 
 
 which he was destined ; and it set off the 
 brilhant 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 j of extravagant and partiaf 
 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 whicli genius 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON, 7 
 
 may throw the beings of its invention ; 
 and 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. Truth, 
 — eternal truth, — is against them; and 
 truth only will allow of developments, 
 which may justify the temporary agitation 
 of the passions, and the excitement of 
 temporary wonder. 
 
 Lord Byron, accordingly, leaves almost 
 all his fictions at last under the veil of 
 the darkness in w^hich they commenced, 
 and with which they have been carried on. 
 — The Corsair ; — Lara ; — AIa7i/red, &c. 
 how is our curiositv satisfied in these ? 
 To what end do they lead ? What truth 
 is exemplified by them ? 
 
 An exercise of imagination without 
 producing an end, is like " long pas- 
 " sages" in a palace, or castle, " which 
 " lead to nothing !" 
 
 B 4 
 
8 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 So far as there is an undeveloped re- 
 sult, — . so far as inferences rise from 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 inchned to defend such 
 indulgences of the imagination as Lord 
 -Byron gave way to, will probably meet 
 me here, and charge me witli begging tlie 
 question, even if they admit the position 
 that TRUTH ouglit to be the result of the 
 Jiction, — They will contend, that the 
 quahties, of wliicli J deny the union, are, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 9 
 
 in fact, often united ; they will say that 
 it is necessary to tear off the disguise 
 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 
 paint things as they are, however con- 
 trary to prejudices, deserves all the dis- 
 tinction 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 
 colours of unqualified 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 quahties with 
 those which we condemn. 
 
 Is it not dangerous to the morahty 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. 11 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 May 23. 
 
 1 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 the unlimited exercise of his caprice, 
 and anger and violent resentment at 
 whatever thwarted his purposes, were his 
 habitual temperament. It did not seem, 
 that any hold could be made upon his 
 conscience, or the nicety of his regard 
 to the interests or happiness of others. 
 He was one who lived according to his 
 own humours, and w^hose will was his 
 law. 
 
 In one sense he could not be properly 
 said to have any enthusiasm, because en- 
 thusiasm is uniform, sincere, and cannot 
 
12 LETTERS ON 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 far as it hap- 
 pened to suit some transient humour. 
 
 This disposition of mind and temper 
 aided the Jbrce 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 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 13 
 
 energy. He had risen above the breath 
 not only of vulgar opinion, but of all 
 pubhc opinion. He found himself, or 
 thought himself^ above the reach of any 
 assault which should endanger his fame ; 
 and, 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 ; he, there- 
 fore, 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 foul, and 
 sometimes ungenerous ; and it will be 
 well, if this vast mass of objectionable 
 matter does not finally hang heavy on his 
 fame. 
 
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 tlie 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 unaffected, 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 often impressions which others 
 would contend to be partial, diseased, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 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- 
 pressions 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 often 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 
 surprise 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 
 to give to this sort of merit a little 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 inchned 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 temporaiy attraction for its 
 native strength and justness. Even when 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 17 
 
 it is erroneous, still, it may be the means 
 of discovering truth, by the broad and 
 distinct light in which it thus shows 
 itself. 
 
 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 them. But this is a sort of 
 praise, with which the poet and his ad- 
 mirers would be in no degree content. 
 They would say, '* We scorn the praise 
 " of having afforded 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 or 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 tnith or 
 verisimilitij, in magnificence, pathos, or 
 beauty. 
 
GEN^IUS OF LORD BYROX. 19 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 May 24. 
 
 jLord Byron, however, was a very ex- 
 traordinary man, not only in his own 
 country and age ; but, compared with 
 any country and age, the brilliancy of his 
 fancy and the power of his imagination 
 have not been surpassed ; and the active 
 use of them was ahnost 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 he delighted in personal dangers and 
 the fatigues of the body. 
 
 c 2 
 
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 
 faculties which he so pre-eminently pos- 
 sessed. His solitude ; his defiance of the 
 petty formalities of the world ; his fre- 
 quent abstinence from those ordinary 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 OF LORD BYRON. 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 point 
 beyond 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 faculties gradually 
 developed itself. It shows itself little, if 
 at all, in his earliest compositions : some 
 of them show taste and poetical feeling 
 — but not force ; — 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 
 polished. There can be no doubt that 
 these were but a very inadequate picture 
 of what was already passing in his mind ; 
 
 c 3 
 
22 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 but he had not yet strength enough to 
 appear in his own poetical character. 
 
 Even in his first tuco 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 over his own resources. 
 Luckily for the expansion of intellect, 
 the public received this production with 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 23 
 
 high favour. How much of this favour 
 arose from a due appreciation of the 
 merits of his poem, — and how much from 
 the eccentric reputation of the author, 
 and from the boldness with which he 
 had repelled the unprovoked assaults of 
 criticism, and the powerful bitterness 
 with which he had turned back on the 
 critics their own weapons, — matters not. 
 It had at once the effect of setting free 
 those rare powers, w^hich 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- 
 sciousness 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 
 gloomy musings ; from watchfulness of 
 
 c 4 
 
24 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 his own fierce passions ; from a habit of 
 looking, not only without pain, but with 
 a dark dehght, 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 splendour of magnificent qualities, — 
 and its seeming propensity to evil, as if 
 born 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 had 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 ; ho liad few 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 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 
 joys 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 
 
^26 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 hreak 
 out in the compositions which he first 
 gave to the pubhc. 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 to 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 encourau'cd his rare 
 faculties into the path in which they were 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 27 
 
 most fitted to shine. Whatever be the 
 amount 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. 
 
28 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 May 25. 
 
 ooME 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 
 often 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 BYRON. 29 
 
 on a sensitive intellect or heart in early 
 life, before reason has gained dominion, 
 which nothing afterwards can efface. 
 We know not what accidental circum- 
 stance may have given an impression of 
 horror or bitterness to Lord Byron in his 
 infancy. 
 
30 LETTERS OM THE 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 May 26. 
 
 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 infancy. The 
 belief in evil spirits, wliose dominion 
 could not be resisted, may have been a 
 strange sort of balm which reconciled 
 him to himself. His family were under 
 a cloud : his great-uncle, who possessed 
 the peerage, had been tlnown into sad 
 and misanthropic seclusion by the unfor- 
 tunate result of the duel with Mr. Cha- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYIION. 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 first mar- 
 riage, at least, had been unhappy ; and 
 his temper was said to have been harsh 
 and despotic. 
 
 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 one 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 
 
32 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 amusements. He grew defiant, misan- 
 thropic, and careless of moral character. 
 He felt within him tlie stirrings of a 
 genius, of which he perceived that others 
 had not only no suspicion, but of wliicli 
 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 tlie hap})ier 
 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 of Idle- 
 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 brouglit 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 33 
 
 forth but by a considerable command of 
 language and power of execution. But 
 perhaps it will at first seem a little sin- 
 gular, 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 
 originality. 
 
 It is a proof that the author did not 
 yet know his own strength ; or, perhaps, 
 had not y^t felt 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 
 gross, hard, and savage materials ; as one 
 
 D 
 
34 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 aspiring to vulgar distinctions by fero- 
 cious eccentricities ; as one " fit for trea- 
 " sons, stratagems, and wars ;" as one 
 not of melting mood, who was insensible 
 to the elevated refinements of literature ; 
 would now see with 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 then 
 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- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 35 
 
 act the general indifference to such an- 
 nouncements. 
 
 The peiiodical 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 EjigUsh Bards and Scotch 
 Reviexvers, and bowed down those who 
 had hitherto held a despotic victory over 
 the public mind. There was, after all, 
 more in the boldness of the enterprise, 
 in the fearlessness of the attack, than in 
 its intrinsic force. But the moral effect 
 of 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 energy 
 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 liis fortune to liis 
 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 wliithersoever 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYKON. SJ 
 
 they led him ; abhorrent of h^^ocrisy, 
 and disregardf'ul 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 ; 
 they 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 
 his^rst two cantos of Childe Harold's 
 Pilgrimage. '* The scenes attempted 
 "to be sketched are in Spain, Portugal, 
 " Epirus, Acarnania, and Greece. The 
 " whole, except a few concluding stanzas, 
 ** was written in the Levant." 
 
 Whatever favour these two cantos re- 
 D 3 
 
S8 LETTKRS ON THE 
 
 ceived, — a favour probably springing 
 from the impression Lord Byron liad now 
 made on the pubhc, — 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 BYllON. 59 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 May 27. 
 
 1 HE Giaour was published about 1813, 
 after thej^r^^ two cantos of Childe Harold* 
 In this poem Lord Byron began to show 
 his powers ; he had now received en- 
 couragement which set free his daring 
 hands, and gave his strokes their natural 
 force. Here then we first find passages 
 of a tone pecuHar to Lord Byron ; but 
 still 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 
 Scott. 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 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 trom other writers ; now began to display 
 themselves. 
 
 In the next poem, The Corsair, he first 
 felt himself at fiill liberty ; and then all at 
 once he shows the nnbroken stream of 
 his native eloquence, of rapid narrative, 
 of vigorons and intense, yet unforced, im- 
 agery, sentiment, and thought ; of extra- 
 ordinary elasticity, trans})arency, purity, 
 ease, and harmony of language ; of an 
 arrangement of words never trite, yet 
 always simple and iiowing ; — in such a 
 })erfect exj)ression of ideas always im- 
 pressive, generally pointeil, frecpiently 
 passionate, and oflen new, that it is per- 
 sj)icuity itself, with not a superfluous 
 word, and not a wortl out of its natural 
 place. 
 
 It is strange how he who was so vounii:, 
 who had leil a life oi' adventure more 
 thau of study, nay, who had otlen seemed 
 a good deal encumbereil in his j)hraseo- 
 logy, could all at once arrive at this 
 
GEXIUS OF LORD BY HON. 41 
 
 excellence. It nuist liavo been the ex- 
 altation ot' spirit caused bv icmporary 
 and unexpected favour, which by ro- 
 movino: the o-looui from his heart ini- 
 parted extraordinary 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, 
 
 Lam is commonly considered as the 
 second part of JVie Corsair. — Lara has 
 some charms which the Corsair has not ; 
 it is more dofncstic ; it calls forth more 
 sympathies with polished society ; it is 
 more intellectual, but much loss pas- 
 sionate, less vigorous, and less brilliant ; 
 it is sometimes even languid, at any rate, 
 it is more ditllise. 
 
 The vear ISl 1- was the ijreat vear of 
 Lord Byron's ti'iumph. Domestic disa- 
 greements, which came in with ISlo, re- 
 embittered all. 
 
 In the spring of 181(>, he quitted Eng- 
 
42 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 land, never to return. Then came Ma?i' 
 Jred, — T/ie Prisoners of Chillon, — The 
 Lament of Tasso, — the third canto of 
 Childe Harold, All these betrayed his in- 
 creasing gloom and discontent. 
 
 In Manfred 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 
 there is much more inequality. Whether 
 it arises from the complex form of the 
 stanza, or whatever be the cause, the 
 style is much more encumbered ; and 
 even the thoughts and images are some- 
 times laboured. But still they are a very 
 great improvement upon the Jirst two 
 cantos. Lord Byron here speaks in his 
 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 
 Jiction is composed. Sometimes he has 
 a conciseness which is very powerful, 
 
44 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 but almost abrupt. From trusting him- 
 self alone, and working out his own 
 deep-buried thoughts, he now, perliaps, 
 fell into a habit of labouring, even 
 where there w^as 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 fortii strength, 
 and it draws from the fountain, but 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYROX. 45 
 
 it does not come without a struo^o^le : 
 — it has far more of depth tlian The 
 Corsair, but not so much of inspiration. 
 The words (as Johnson says of some 
 one) 2iXQ forced into their places ; there is 
 none of that fehcity of expression, which 
 seems beyond the reach of art. Lord 
 Byron no longer seeks aid from others ; 
 but w^hat 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 
 elastic. 
 
 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 the Lake 
 of Geneva, 
 
4t) LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 May 28. 
 
 oiNCE I liave written thus far, I have 
 recurred to tlie criticisms on ChUde 
 Harold, cantos 1. and '2., — 21ie Corsair, 
 — The Bride of Ahjjdos, in the Edinburgh 
 Review, I 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 little, per- 
 haps, too subtle and fl\r fetched. It is 
 more probable that it arose out of that 
 general commotion and subversion of 
 opinions caused by the French Re- 
 volution. 
 
 Tlie critics go on to declare that in 
 Childe Harold Lord Byron discovers 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 47 
 
 powers likely to gratify this new taste of 
 the public, and, therefore, likely to make 
 him very popular. Here their anticipation 
 has been proved true by the event. 
 
 They then sav that he discovers in these 
 two cantos a good deal oi original vigour ; 
 and yet they say that he often imitates 
 Scott and Crabhe ; of whom, however, 
 they state the poems of the former to be 
 but a cento from the works of his prede- 
 cessors, assigning to him, at the same 
 time, the praise o^ original genius. All 
 this is possible ; but it requires a much 
 more nice and distinct development than 
 the pages which contain these assertions 
 afford. The nature of originality seems, 
 in the generality of critical works, very 
 imperfectly understood, and still more 
 imperfectly explained. I must not say 
 more of it here, because it requires the 
 space of a separate dissertation. 
 
 The critics object to many particular 
 passages 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, tliey 
 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 OF LORD BYRON. 49 
 
 seem now to have had no Hngering doubt 
 tliat Lord Byron was a real genius ; and 
 from this moment were perhaps inclined 
 to give him credit for even more than he 
 had yet displayed ; but their taste was 
 too acute not to perceive his inequalities 
 and his faults ; nor could it be expected, 
 that when they saw them so distinctly, 
 they should forbear to point them out. 
 They did do so ; but with sufficient can- 
 dour and justice ; and their criticism 
 on this poem is altogether fair, 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 felt, (as all judges must, I pre- 
 sume feel,) that the poem then before 
 them, was one, which not only confirmed 
 but much increased the proofs of his ex- 
 traordinary gifts of genius. 
 
 They praise in high terms the manner 
 
 E 
 
50 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 in which he has managed the couplet ; 
 but when they assimilate it to the tone 
 of Dryderiy they do not seem to have a 
 very nice ear. 
 
 They 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 violence and fe- 
 rocity with genius and splendid virtues. 
 
 They regret the sort of perversity, 
 which always seems to dwell with particu- 
 lar delight on these strange and impro- 
 bable mixtures. — \i\ indeed, though these 
 odd combinations do not exist, they 
 ought to exist, it would be well! but if 
 they neither do exist, nor ought to exist, 
 why create the picture of them ? 
 
 In this article of tlie Review^ though 
 the praise is high, the criticism is not very 
 discriminate. It is principally made u|) 
 of extracts. 
 
 And now I will resume n)y own ex- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 51 
 
 am illation of the third canto of Childe 
 Harold. 
 
 Lord Byron's character of Rousseau is 
 drawn with great force, great power of 
 discrimination, and great eloquence. I 
 know not that he says any thing which 
 has not been said before ; but wliat he 
 says issues apparently from the recesses 
 of his own mind; it is a little laboured, 
 which possibly may be caused by the 
 form of 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- 
 seaiC^ 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 'Z 
 
52 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, occupying 
 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 
 
GENiriS OF LORD BYRON. 53 
 
 to confirm himself in the belief that great 
 minds were only fit to live alone. 
 
 The description of The Storm has a 
 mixture of originality and grandeur, but 
 it is a good deal laboured, and some- 
 times scarce intelligible ; nay, it has some 
 passages, which can scarcely be denied 
 to be made up of false thoughts, thoughts 
 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 can hardly therefore confer 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 capable of 
 all good. 
 
 The stanzas on Clarens (xcix. to ex v.) 
 are exquisite : they have every thing which 
 makes a poetical picture of local and par- 
 
 E S 
 
.54 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 ticular scenery perfect. They exhibit a 
 miraculous briUiancy and force o^ fancy , 
 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 words, 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 diffuser 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 un- 
 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. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 55 
 
 « 
 
 The stanzas on Voltaire and Gibbon 
 are discriminative, sagacious, and just. 
 They are among the proofs of that very 
 great variety of talent, which this canto 
 of Lord Byron exhibits. It is true, that 
 taking this production by itself, we might 
 hesitate to ascribe to Lord Byron that 
 freedom, that native brilliancy, that 
 copiousness and ease of rich fiction, which 
 are essential to constitute a great poet. 
 We should 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 ambition of 
 giving his own thoughts in his own 
 words ; but that his language was not 
 easy, that he seemed to have no com- 
 mand over it till after great effort, and 
 that even it often remained harsh and 
 crude ; that he wanted simplicity, and 
 that transparency of ideas which show 
 the perfect master ; and that the admir- 
 
 E 4 
 
5(i LETTERS ON THE 
 
 ation we bestowed on him was often ra- 
 ther extorted than quick and vohuitary. 
 
 But when we bring to our minds The 
 Corsair and Lara, 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 
 them we find ease, harmony, rapidity, 
 fire, a perfect command over language, 
 and no obscure undeveloped thought. 
 
 The difi'erence must have been the 
 effect of a casual change of temperament 
 of the author's mind ; of an effort in a 
 new department, of a struggle at a moment 
 of tempestuous suffering, when the calm 
 sought by solitude had not worked its 
 effect ; when the severe course of mental 
 investigation which he had endeavoured 
 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. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 5^ 
 
 The defects, therefore, of canto iii., (if 
 such they were,) contrasted with the 
 powers wliich Lord Byron had already 
 shown, did not operate disadvantageousJy 
 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 iniequivocally 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 
 poets, at their commencement, partake, 
 more or less, of this 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 29. 
 
 I HAVE, since my former letters, read the 
 articles in the Edinburgh Review, on the 
 Prisoners of Chillon ; on Manfred ; on 
 the third canto of Childe Harold ; on 
 Parisina ; on the Siege of Corinth ; and 
 part of that on the fourth canto of Childe 
 Harold. 
 
 The best is what is said of Manfred : 
 the praise is just, discriminative, and 
 temperate : — it is not so, I think, in that 
 regarding Childe Harold, which is com- 
 mended, but not in the riglit 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 harslincss of huiguagc and 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 59 
 
 verse, after the specimen of inimitable 
 ease and harmony given in The Corsair, 
 
 On canto iv. qfChilde 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 much 
 exaggeration and violence, to be con- 
 sistent with true taste ; it often discovers 
 the fury of its own contortions ; it is fre- 
 quently abrupt, harsh, and obscure ; and 
 the reader is fatigued and often pained 
 at a tone of constant indignation, repro- 
 bation, and bitter anger, which represents 
 the past as furnishing nothing but a 
 series of unvaried oppression, injustice, 
 cruelty, bloodshed, delusive expectations, 
 unmerited fame, and false 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 world worse 
 
60 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 than it is ? The poet's purpose ought to 
 be to awaken our nobler })assions, 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 tlie essence of what the 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 61 
 
 muse dictates ; and what is narrow and 
 detached can never be truth ! 
 
 There is, for the most part, amazing 
 force in the hght 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 
 is given us to act uncontrouled by our 
 reason. To encourage these uncontroul- 
 
62 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 ed impressions is to bring back the hu- 
 man mind to a state of infancy. -~. 
 
 And this very effect was, perhaps, that 
 which it was the desire to bring back, at 
 the crisis when the fashion of poetry of 
 this sort became so alarmingly prevalent. 
 — The Frencli Revolution had endea- 
 voured to inculcate that all artificial in- 
 stitutions had gone too far ; had become 
 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 from 
 the foundations. 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 
 effect J and every subject was there- 
 fore chosen where the features were 
 most prominent, and the thoughts, and 
 
GENIUS OF LORi) BYRON. 63 
 
 sentiments, and manners, least polished 
 down. 
 
 The fashion of an age has a necessary 
 tendency to draw forth those candidates 
 for distinction, whose talents are best 
 fitted to shine in the career most favour- 
 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 violent. He would not have 
 excelled 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 Byron, 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 : he is 
 
64 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 never touched by what is trifling, insipid, 
 or unworthy of existing emotions : — 
 taste and strong intellect, though often 
 without temperate reason, mix themselves 
 up in all his mental movements. 
 
 Lord Byron had a stern, direct, severe 
 mind : a sarcastic, disdainful, gloomy 
 temper : he had no light sympathy with 
 heartless cheerfulness : — upon the sur- 
 face was sourness, discontent, displeasure, 
 ill-will : — beneath all this weight of 
 clouds and darkness lay buried in tiie 
 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 fiery temper 
 was absolutely 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 imaaination 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 65 
 
 would have clothed him ; and the na- 
 ture which his frail corporeal constitution 
 imposed on him. The regret at these 
 incompatibilities ; the aggression which 
 one nature was continually making on 
 the other ; perhaps produced those rest- 
 lessnesses, those compunctious visitings, 
 by which his life seemed to be harassed. 
 
 But, in answer to these speculations, it 
 may be asked, ** How the fruits of his 
 " secluded imagination did not then con- 
 " sist of ideal beauty, and sublime un- 
 *' contaminated virtue ?" 
 
 Because it was seldom in his utmost 
 seclusion that he could purify himself 
 from the effects of the irritated temper 
 which he 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 
 clouds from his opposing temper, yet, on 
 
 F 
 
66 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 the whole, melt and enrapture the reader ; 
 and overcome and efface for a tune 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 feeUngs is even apt to 
 throw itself on the poet's faults 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 fancy 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 OF LORD BYRON. 67 
 
 instances, both to the faults and to the 
 merits 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 sometimes full of exquisite beauty and 
 deep tenderness ; not always : sometimes, 
 in his ill humours, his imagination sub- 
 mitted to the dominion of his temper ; 
 and on these unhappy 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 misanthropic eye 
 seemed gratified to gaze intently. 
 
 It is probable that the extreme bitter- 
 ness of his spirit was produced by early 
 crosses, and early outrages on a morbid 
 temper. Under other circumstances, un- 
 der an earlier sunshine, it might have 
 been corrected : it could never have been 
 
 F 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 thoughts 
 or feelings which are not his own ; but 
 his retentive memory recalls to him pas- 
 sages of others, when they agree with his 
 own impressions ; and then it is often 
 impossible to avoid the recurrence to his 
 own mind of simiku' language : — tlie 
 prepared language rises with tlie thought ; 
 and, confident in the power of liis own 
 resources, he does not reject it, nor fatigue 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 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 reading, 
 as well as in composing, was intense. 
 Retentive memory is undoubtedly the 
 result of a laboured and continued atten- 
 tion : a quick memory is always as fuga- 
 cious as it is quick. 
 
 F S 
 
70 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 May 30. 
 
 N EITHER the Edinburgh nor the Quar- 
 terly Review makes the due distinction 
 between fancy and imagination ; wliich 
 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 w^ith himself. When 
 Shakspeare imagined, he threw himself 
 into the soul o^ Macbeth, or Hamlet, or 
 Othello, or Lear. When Lord Byron 
 imagined, he invested the imagined per- 
 son with his own soul. It was thus when 
 he imagined Manfred 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 LORD BYRON. J I 
 
 It is always chosen as a topic of great 
 and perhaps exaggerated praise to Lord 
 Byron, that he has the power of reflecting 
 at once, with fideUty and brilHant 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 degree of poetical im- 
 agination, to represent something more 
 grand or more beautiful than actually 
 exists. I will not say that Lord Byron 
 never does this : but this is not the praise 
 insisted on. ^ 
 
 It is said by the EdtJiburgh Review, 
 that, when Lord Byron's first two cantos 
 of Childe Harold appeared, the public 
 were prepared to demand what was for- 
 cible, striking, and direct : that they 
 were tired of a polish, which had pro- 
 duced feebleness and faintness ; and that 
 they required prominent and distinct fea- 
 tures, however rough, and even rude. 
 Whatever, therefore, came fresh and full 
 
 F 4 
 
7^2 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 their prede- 
 cessors. 
 
 They might have added, that magi?!' 
 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 ; wliereas it was the present fashion 
 to tear the disguise (or what was called 
 disguise) from every thing. A strong, 
 daring fancy, with powerful expression, 
 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 exjiressly to 
 gratify the irritated and ferocious tem])er, 
 under which the crisis was alHictin^ it- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYROiV. 7^ 
 
 self, and stirring 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 pliren- 
 sied applause : — the magnanimity (as 
 they called it) which dared to give things 
 their proper names, and to tear down 
 with undazzled strength and unswervinof 
 courage the idols whom the w^orld had 
 hitlierto set up to w^orship. 
 
 This temper and disposition was direct- 
 ly gratified by a genius which turned its 
 piercing eye on reality, and, seizing on 
 objects in a single point of view, drew 
 forth the marked features, as they thus 
 appeared, with intensity of force. Subtle- 
 
74 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 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, even 
 when it is in sympathy with the prevail- 
 ing humour. Of what the eye has seen, 
 and the ear has heard, the dull fancy can 
 be awakened with the impression. 
 
 By accident, therefore. Lord Byron 
 came forth at a period peculiarly fitted to 
 obtain a favourable reception for the dis- 
 tinct cast of his genius. His faculties, 
 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 this 
 turn, but why it was better received and 
 more highly praised by the public than 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 7^ 
 
 hive?ilion. Neither the Edinbur^gh Re- 
 view nor Quarterly Review pretend that 
 there is invention in Childe Harold, 
 
 Of the Giaour, I think a large propor- 
 tion is not only not imagination^ but not 
 the sort of fancy of which I have been 
 speaking, — the fancy which strongly re- 
 Jiects 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 afford- 
 ed to the ear, is a sort of indistinct assem- 
 blage, which it calls up of twinkling 
 lights, and half-defined 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 
 according 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, somehow 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. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 77 
 
 The thirty-Jive lines in The Giaour, be- 
 ginning at line 67., 
 
 " He who hath bent him o'er the dead," 
 
 are so beautiful, so original, and so ut- 
 terly beyond the reach of any one, whose 
 poetical genius was not very decided, 
 and very rich, that they alone, under the 
 circumstances 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 Cor- 
 sair dissipated all doubt. That poem 
 was splendid, rapid, harmonious, easy, 
 throughout, while it had the new and 
 more essential merit of rich poetical in- 
 vention. 
 
 When fashion, or party, or faction, has 
 taken up a favourite, it of course em- 
 braces eagerly every new plea which may 
 
78 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 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 were 
 anxious to corroborate. They, there- 
 fore, who did not care for the inventive 
 merit, in right of itself, liked it for this 
 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 
 Byron before he had shown his poetical 
 invention, and for the praises still con- 
 tinued to be lavished on him, in right of 
 the qualities which he Jirst exhibited to 
 the world ; and xvhicli 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 otke7^ grounds. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 79 
 
 When praise 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 flosver 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- 
 found 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 energies 
 of the human heart. Poetical invention 
 is that which truth, when she takes it 
 under her controul, chooses as her ve- 
 
80 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 liicle, 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 quality of the invention, with 
 regard to verisimility , grandeur, pathos, 
 beauty, morality, instruction, novelty, 
 &c. 
 
 Of thoughts equally just, one is more 
 poetical than another in various ways ; 
 
GENIUS OF 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 
 
 fereiice. 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 public was now tired of 
 art : all that art could do had been done ; 
 they wanted solid 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 whicli 
 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 sliown 
 his energy, originality, and mental power, 
 and one also known for his adventurous 
 spirit and habits of enterprize, it cannot 
 be wondered tliat Childe Harold was 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 83 
 
 perused with avidity, and in a state of 
 mind prepared to receive the most fa- 
 vourable and most animated impres- 
 sions. 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 G 2 
 
84 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 May 31. 
 
 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, — 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 tlie sur- 
 face, but could only be awakened by long 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 85 
 
 meditation. 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 painful 
 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- 
 tention they require, and the pain and 
 effort 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, beautiful 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 3 
 
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 
 world, 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 that 
 which gratified its taste, and to ascribe 
 the interest to a kind of strength, which 
 was not that on which tlie best and 
 most refined judgments placed it. 
 
 The imagination may in the preceding 
 ages liave wandered too far from the 
 earth, and have lost, itself too much 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 87 
 
 among the clouds : it might be requisite 
 to freshen it, and bring it back a Httle 
 nearer y^eality in its primary materials, 
 by reconducting it to its starting place ; 
 it might be well to recommence and re- 
 gather the elemental materials from the 
 ground. 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 inveiition ; 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 
 Harold : but, bating a few stanzas, I 
 think it might have been written by one 
 
 G 4 
 
88 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 totally deficient in the first quality of 
 poetry, — iiwention, I do not mean to insi- 
 nuate that Lord Byron wanted that quality : 
 he has shown it unequivocally and most 
 distinctly in other poems. But the ten- 
 dency of the extravagant and indiscri- 
 minate praises bestowed on Childe Harold 
 is to induce the reader to believe that 
 there are higher merits in poetry than 
 those of i?ivention, — and by confounding 
 all tests, to make poetical merit an opinion 
 of caprice. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 89 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 June I. 
 
 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, w^ith 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 off, 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 man : he con- 
 sidered its range, therefore, as unUmited 
 
90 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 as that of prose, with tlie addition of many 
 dominions pecidiar 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 verisimility ; 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 them turn 
 on ^omQ 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 C'orsair's 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 91 
 
 faithful 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 affronted; 
 eager to resent insult ; engaged in a duel 
 with one who never afterwards appears, 
 to whom he is suspected of foul play, 
 and whose body there are signs of his 
 having thrown into the river ; then 
 drawn 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 
 Corsair, who thus re-appears in the cha- 
 racter of Lara, 
 
 Parisina is one who, though attached 
 to a son, marries his father ; then commits 
 adultery with the son ; and is with that 
 son put to death under a public judgment 
 made by the order of the father himselfj 
 
92 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 who is the sovereign of the country. Is 
 not this a compHcation of frightful and 
 revolting crimes ? 
 
 The Bride of Ahydos 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 Ma?ifred 
 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. T'he Prisoners 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 93 
 
 ofChUlon is a picture of cruelly exercised 
 power. 
 
 The hament of Tasso is, perhaps, the 
 only poem of Lord Byron's which is free 
 from objection. It is pathetic, vigorous, 
 poetical, 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 the 
 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 Hfe and genuineness of the ima- 
 ginative conception ; — so that, if the 
 facts are conceded, all that results from 
 them is di'awn 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 energy 
 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 OF LORD BYRON. 95 
 
 among secondary poets, are to be sick/j/ 
 or fantastic. Feebleness is destructive 
 to the charms of poetry, because it impHes 
 a want of inspiration. To h^ fantastic 
 impHes exaggerated effort, and want of 
 native vigour. By long research, the 
 imagination gets into bye-paths, and in- 
 volves itself in intricacies, which the 
 reader's mind does not easily 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 lan- 
 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 
 clear, vigorous, transparent, and unaf- 
 fected ; 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 others 
 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 
 teach^ 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 tlie recur- 
 rence of sucli powers; but their rarity is 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 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 neglect cannot extinguish : a being, 
 whose spells cannot be effaced by faults, 
 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- 
 ! dustry, is one made by himself; and, 
 therefore, such as others may also make 
 
 H 
 
98 LETTERS ON 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. Nothing 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 public 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 LORD BYRON. 99 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 June 2. 
 
 When we arrive at a certain age, we 
 begin to doubt whether fame is 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 of the emptiness of fame, we 
 are to abandon the pursuit by which we 
 had hoped to have gained it. That pur- 
 suit may give intrinsic 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 invention, 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 ^ 
 
100 LETTERS ON THE. 
 
 they occupy, elevate, and thrill both liis 
 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 be- 
 stowed on him, or denied him, in riglit 
 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 
 
 1 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 101 
 
 of false pretensions, which fashion may 
 set 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 fixed 
 in what constitutes the test of genius 
 and merit of poetry. If there be nothing 
 fixed, if it be really only matter of opi- 
 nion, then fame is all! then appeal is 
 useless, 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- 
 quivocal requisites, if there be essentials 
 without which true poetry cannot exist, 
 and of which the exhibition constitutes 
 the character of true poetry, — then what 
 can prejudice and malignity do, finally 
 to depress the estimation which the work 
 will obtain ? 
 
 Yet so it is, that in the change from one 
 sort of false admiration to another, the 
 
 H 3 
 
10^ LETTERS ON THE 
 
 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 intensitij 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 de- 
 " light ;" his rapturous and profound 
 imaginings of female beauty ; the dark 
 creations of his gloomy sj)irit, when he 
 in(hilgcd tlic bitterness of liis discontent ; 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 103 
 
 as all these were genuine, unforced emo- 
 tions, unmingled with artifice, and unde- 
 based by exaggeration, stand beyond the 
 reach of the assaults, the sappings, 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 
 intensely as Lord Byron felt : very inte- 
 rior minds often feel more correctly and 
 purely. But absence of faults 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 \ 
 they may succeed in the latter^ but their 
 mimickry of thejbrme?^ 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 
 
 H 4 
 
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 ofverisi- 
 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." lie deals with human 
 beings ; and though he sometimes in. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 105 
 
 cUilges a wild and mysterious imagin- 
 ation, it is the imagination which in ac- 
 tual life associates itself with our material 
 nature ; which is really experienced by 
 man, when he is gifted with particular 
 qualities of mind, and cherishes particular 
 habits, and is roused by particular pas- 
 sions and emotions. 
 
 Lord Bvron, therefore, never uses false 
 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 thought w^hich 
 is at the bottom of his words, makes the 
 reader surrender himself up to his sin- 
 cerity. 
 
 All secondary poetry is a sort of de- 
 parture from life into a region of insipid 
 fairy-land, in which the reader yields 
 himself voluntarily to a pretended illu- 
 sion 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 minds 
 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 stern, 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 lan- 
 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. 
 
 Tliis is a sort of praise to which \cvy 
 few indeed of our poets can hiy claim. 
 
GENIUS 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 
 
 faintly. He who thinks for himself, and 
 
 thinks differently from others, is long 
 
 before he can be conjident of his own 
 
 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 laboured 
 
 under this disadvantage. 
 
 Lord Byron drew from nature ; but he 
 may sometimes have made use 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 so. His mind appears to have been 
 scarcely ever stagnant : it was always at 
 
108 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 work, and always 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 
 eniiid to his 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 thought 
 as in action. Lord Byron, therefore, in a 
 Ufe brief, in years lived long, 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 lie 
 who looks upon nature with a poetical 
 eye may not find something to observe 
 and to describe ; some emotion with whicli 
 to associate it; some reflection with which 
 to enricli it ; something not sought, but 
 which involuntarily forces itself on sensi- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 109 
 
 bility and intellect. If it be only such 
 as the 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 mav 
 abuse or improve himself; but he adds 
 no wealth to the stores of intellect im- 
 partible to others. 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that 
 Lord Byron's feelings or ideas received 
 dictation from any objects, except from 
 those alleged 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 artifice and aifectation ; 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- 
 plusage, and the naked parts set off' to 
 double advantage those where orna- 
 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 ///;// 
 produced such effects, — confirms the 
 confidence of the reader in his sincerity. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. Ill 
 
 and pleases him by the coincidence of 
 fact^ with the S'peculative tests assigned by 
 sound criticism. 
 
 Ordinary poets have nothing marked 
 in their personal characters. They are 
 tame in their feehngs, 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 sympathy. It is an ignis fatuus which 
 they follow : they embrace a cloud, 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 generally felt, and by 
 common characters,) is not true poetry. 
 If it be whimsical, far-sought, over-re- 
 fined, technical, ostentatious, or pretend- 
 
11^ LETTERS ON THE 
 
 ed, it cannot suit a simple and sound 
 taste : it cannot please except those who 
 study to be pleased, and delight m false 
 excitement. 
 
 When a stern, morose, plain-minded 
 man 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 the 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 reciured to as 
 developments of some of the strange 
 secrets of the human character ; as pic- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 113 
 
 tures of the tumults of a mighty, but 
 frail, spirit ; as an admission to the inner 
 shrine of a magnificent, but gloomy, 
 poetical soul ! 
 
114 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 June 5. 
 
 It may be remarked, that I have here 
 dwelt on the merits of Lord Byron's 
 fancy, rather than of his imagination ; — 
 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 fancy 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 tlio 
 pictures which he presents as those ol 
 imagination are made up of such as liis 
 mind's eye has actually seen, and tlio 
 emotions attributed to them such as his 
 bosom has actually experienced from 
 them. There is, therefore, a tnitti in 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 115 
 
 his imagination, which constitutes one of 
 the grand essentials of perfect poetry. 
 
 He who \i2i^ fancy, has not always im- 
 agination : but if he has imagiiiation, it 
 will almost necessarily follow the charac- 
 ter of his fancy. And we are content 
 with occasional exhibitions of vaevefancy 
 in him, whom we know capable at other 
 times to put forth imagination. 
 
 The power of conveying a picture to 
 others, though it be no invention, is a 
 minor exercise of 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 
 qualities, and ingredients of poetical 
 power. And he, who has these in a 
 strong degree, almost always has imagin- 
 ation also. In CMlde Harold, the faculty 
 exercised is principally fancy : in Man- 
 fred, it is imagination ; in the Lament of 
 Tasso, it is a mixture ; in The Corsair, 
 
 I 2 
 
116 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 and almost all the Tales, it is decided 
 imagijiation ; 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 poetry ; 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, far- 
 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 j)laced on the 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. II7 
 
 dress, on the charm of ornamented lan- 
 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 
 the mind upon the chosen means, rather 
 than upon the end. 
 
 So it, in fact, always is. Common 
 poetry is almost always constructed in 
 this cold and artificial way. The author 
 measures its merit by the pains it has 
 cost him ; by the ingenuity he has ex- 
 erted in fmdimg. substitutes for real emo- 
 tion, and for the native and forcible 
 eloquence which flows from it. He es- 
 timates by the quantity of artifice put 
 forth ; and this tells well, because artifice 
 can always be measured. 
 
 Strong impressions, therefore, strong 
 feelings to furnish the fancy, and give 
 
 I 3 
 
118 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 glow to the imagination which supplies 
 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 proportion 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 to an- 
 other. Many 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 OF LORD BYRON. 119 
 
 Many of these habits are probably 
 contracted m our childhood, before our 
 reason and our will have much influence ; 
 we must attribute them, therefore, at 
 least in part, to a predisposition, or pro- 
 pensity ; Dr. Johnson would say, acci' 
 denty — but I cannot think so. 
 
 It seems strange, that if Lord Byron \j 
 had an impure mind, he should so much 
 delight in the scenery of nature. That he 
 did intensely delight in it, all his poetry 
 most unequivocally proves. The grandeur 
 and beauty of nature are apt to reproach 
 a foul conscience. The dictates of the 
 heart are awakened in solitude ; the 
 sensibility becomes more keen ; and the 
 memory acts with greater vividness. 
 There is no false applause ; no flattery 
 from the interested or the servile ; no 
 distracting noise of conversation, or of 
 music ; no petty occupation of cere- 
 monies, or little social duties : the 
 thoughts are left to take their natural, un- 
 
 I 4 
 
1^0 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 expanse, 
 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 rneUing mood. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 121 
 
 He was fierce, — and roused rather than 
 discouraged by opposition. It may be 
 presumed, that in early childhood some 
 terror, disappointment, or disgust, took 
 deep and inefFacible hold of his sombre 
 imagination. There are certain sorts of 
 honour which enchain our faculties ; 
 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 faculties of Lord 
 Byron. It is possible, that what an 
 irresistible impulse led him to describe 
 sprung rather from horror than pleasure. 
 It eased his mind to give vent to the 
 image that haunted it, and he thus threw 
 it off. 
 
 Some faculties 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 fascin- 
 ation, he who has contracted it occupies 
 
122 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 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 j 
 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 than 
 better, than he was; — as if lie should ex- 
 claim, " Ye hypocrites ! I make no pre- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 123 
 
 ** tence to the virtue which you accuse 
 " me of wanting. I will clothe myself 
 " in crimes far darker than those of which 
 " you accuse me, and yet hold my head 
 " in proud defiance above you, and 
 ** laugh you to scorn !" 
 
 This supposition may be deemed a 
 little too 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 intrinsic value, without re- 
 ference to the character or conduct of its 
 author. What is immoral in itself, cannot 
 be defended ; and whatever interests us 
 in favour of characters stained with great 
 
124f LETTERS ON THE 
 
 crimes must be immoral. The Giaour, 
 The Corsair, Lara, the hero in the 
 Bride ofAhydos, ho,., 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 such an 
 union of great qualities with violent 
 crimes is seldom found, — and where it 
 is found, it is 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 })assions, 
 and gives a colour to the indulgences 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 125 
 
 they wish to pursue : there is a general 
 hatred to hypocrisy 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 faculties 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 general grow better, though we may 
 
126 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 grow more 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 liard 
 and unjust fate. 
 
 If it be answered, that Lord Byron did 
 not foresee this tendency, — that he merely 
 indulged himself in characters and pic- 
 tures which displayed the gloomy colours 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 1^7 
 
 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 
 hound to look beyond^ — that public cri- 
 ticism perpetually called his attention to 
 it, — and that it betrayed a hardihood not 
 very pardonable, still to go on in tlie 
 same career. 
 
 I am at a loss what rejoinder to make 
 to this reply: I would find one, if I 
 eould. 
 
1S8 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 June 4. 
 
 We have to examine, firsts 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 BYRON. 129 
 
 It is also certain that in such images, so 
 expressed, he does deal. 
 
 Are these poetry, then ? Or are they 
 not ? And, 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, 
 they 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 degree of 
 warmth in which the objects appeared to 
 Lord Byron? Did this outrage proba- 
 bility or verisimility ? 
 
 Still these powers, so exhibited, thougli 
 entitled to a distinguished place in the 
 poetical scale, are not entitled to the 
 
 K 
 
130 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 highest, because they do not constitute 
 invejition. 
 
 We are glad to have the scenes which 
 we- have viewed, or may view, in nature 
 itself, drawn by a poet's hand, and asso- 
 ciated with a poet's feelings : he aids oin- 
 eye to select ; and he gives impulse to our 
 hearts, and light to our understandings. 
 But it is the business of the highest 
 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 iiivention 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 fi'om na- 
 ture. This degree of invention at least 
 is necessary to constitute pure poetry. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYKON. 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 o^ fancy. Their native im- 
 pressions are not strong and distinct ; and 
 they endeavour to supply the imperfec- 
 tion, 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 ifivention, it is still more 
 extravagant : all attempt at verisimility 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- 
 emotion, were so decisive, that they im- 
 
 K 2 
 
132 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 parted themselves to the reader. He 
 always understood himself, and, there- 
 fore, made the reader understand him. 
 
 When poetical powers are so rare ; 
 when native force of fancy ^ and still 
 more, when native force of imagination 
 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 de- 
 tached parts, but only in the examina- 
 tion of his poems as a w/tolcy — 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 oi' all that 
 the very strict principles of poetry have 
 made requisite, he will often be wanting, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON, 133 
 
 because he will be wanting in moral 
 truth and wisdom ; and, no doubt, this is 
 a main defect, which will always preclude 
 him from occupying a seat in the highest 
 class. But as every thing human is im- 
 perfect, so perhaps he may be entitled to 
 a high place in the second class. 
 
 I say this hesitatingly, because his in- 
 vention has not been extended to any 
 long heroic poem, — and his dramatic in- 
 vention is not great. It is true, that 
 poetry must be tried by quality rather 
 than quantity ; but a certain degree of 
 space is necessary to try invention, and 
 give scope to its powers. 
 
 Lord Byron, in confining himself to 
 that with which his disposition and 
 I habits had made him conversant, was 
 I always fresh, vigorous, and full of the 
 breath of life. In all invention, con- 
 ducted as a task, and under the guidance 
 j of a cold judgment, there is always some- 
 I thing faint, dull, vague, and even uncer- 
 
 K 3 
 
134 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 I 
 
 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 shoukl not 
 have been made still greater, by a little 
 more of that management, which would 
 not have been difficult. ^ 
 
 Passion for solitude, 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 i 
 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 feelings : but Lord Byron's 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 136 
 
 were too animated, and his words were 
 too burning, to be suspected of being 
 feigned, even if the history of his hfe 
 had not proved that he w^as in reahty 
 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 feehngs, as a 
 charm to captivate the reader ? Have 
 their feehngs 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 generality of them w^ere 
 endow^ed with any extraordinary inten- 
 sity of feeling. Grai/ and Cowper had 
 both excessive feeling ; but then their 
 timidity made them shrink from exposing 
 it to the world ; and the feeling of both 
 was rather tender and contemplative, 
 than impetuous : they had much sensi- 
 bility, but little passion ; they neither 
 mingled with the world, nor invigorated 
 
 K 4 
 
136 LETTERS 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 public taste at the aera of Gray 
 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 deli- 
 cate fears, demanded impassioned views 
 of things, and an indulgence of the re- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 137 
 
 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 him 
 they were intrinsic 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 
 
188 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 native impetuosity would ha\e been 
 damped, and the fire of his writings 
 would have been much less ardent. But 
 as he loved soUtude, so also he loved the 
 open ah', 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 whicli 
 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. 139 
 
 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 view breaks itself into clearness, 
 we see with more precision the harmony 
 of all the parts. All this is apparent in 
 the progressive compositions of Lord 
 Byron. The energy of his spirit made 
 him still persevere, amid distractions and 
 disappointments, and the gloom of an 
 embittered temper. 
 
140 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 June 6. 
 
 I DO not undertake to avoid repetitions 
 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 wliich 
 Lord Byron displayed in mixed society, 
 at that period before his departure from 
 England when he lived at all in the world, 
 made him very offensive, and sometimes 
 very ridiculous. It is probable that the 
 consciousness and shame of tliis was 
 among the causes which made him seek 
 and love solitude. 
 
 This irritability is an unfortunate tiling 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 141 
 
 for genius, but it is very common : 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- 
 Hng, " 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- 
 " ment ! 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 andoffen- 
 " sive pride ? What is there in Lord 
 " Byron's poems which can repay this ?" 
 
 There are two replies to this : — first ^ 
 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 OF LOUD BYRON. 143 
 
 seeming evils, which we lamented as 
 associating themselves with good, some- 
 times become in fact aids 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 the imagi- 
 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 5 but there are some to 
 whom the evil of it outweighs the 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 the Quar- 
 
144 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 lerly Review, No.lix., Apnl,\^'^ZA<, p. 40., 
 (in the article on Rose's translation 
 of Ariosto's Orlando Fiirioso,') 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 : Phcebi nondum 'patient es, 
 " It is for after ages to force those to be 
 " poets, by artificial excitements, whom 
 " nature never endowed with the re- 
 " quisite gifts. No one can read either 
 ** the Orlando^ or the Infer7io, without ad- 
 " miring the freshness, the vigour, the 
 " originality of the poetry. 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 LORD BYRON. 14.5 
 
 " Dante and Ariosto were ambitious of 
 " conveying to the minds of others the 
 *' impressions on their own, with force, 
 ** perspicuity, and exactness; and to effect 
 " this, they cared not to stoop to the 
 " meanest images," &c. 
 
 It is clear that Lord Byron also pos- 
 sessed these characteristics, in common 
 with the early poets, and with Dante and 
 Ariosto. I cannot feel certain that he 
 would not have possessed them, if he had 
 mixed more witli 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 of indifference 
 and languor over hearts naturally ardent 
 and enthusiastic. Thus minds, like stones 
 on the sea-shore rolled smooth by the 
 perpetual working of the waves, lose all 
 prominence of shape and form. 
 
 It is by lonely musings, by fearless and 
 unrecalled excursions in unbeaten paths, 
 
 L 
 
146 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 that the vigour and novelty of greatness 
 and individual undamped feeUng 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 and true lights on the objects of their 
 thoughts, is apt to fall into obliquity, and 
 brino; 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 poems ; 
 which rouses the attention, and gives 
 him a mastery over his reader, so unlike 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 147 
 
 the effect of minor poetry, that always 
 has more or less the character of affect- 
 ation and emptiness, and always seems 
 something 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 susceptibility may exist, 
 without the power of expressing its 
 effects ; but I do not think that it often 
 does^ at least in this high degree. We do 
 not see such violence, such irritation, 
 such active passion, as in Lord Byron. 
 
 There seems to be implanted in human 
 beings, in a sort of mixed result of the 
 head and heart, an instinct of moral con- 
 
 L 2 
 
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. But 
 this varies in different persons, as much 
 as any other quaUties 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 impressions ; 
 and if it had softened and mellowed many 
 features of his poetry, it would have 
 damped and weakened others. Perha])s 
 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 the 
 excellences and all the niceties of poetry, 
 such a fondness for meditation, sucli an 
 acuteness of intellect, such a profound 
 penetration into the recesses of the human 
 mind and human bosom. 
 
 Providence, for its own inscrutable 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 149 
 
 purposes, suffers these strange contradic- 
 tions in our frail being ; but it has scarcely 
 ever exhibited them in so striking a 
 degree as in Lord Byron. The moral re- 
 sult of this extraordinary union would 
 seem, to our bounded minds, calculated 
 to produce prejudicial and pernicious ef- 
 fects. 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 fierce and destructive pas- 
 sions ; a defiance of the happiness of 
 others, and a gratification of self, without 
 any regard to the consequences to society. 
 It is impossible that this appalling coun- 
 terpoise 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 oftence, 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 OF LORD BYRON. 151 
 
 it in spite of the price. But was this coun- 
 terbalance inseparable ? I am afraid, 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. There 
 is a responsibility which enchains vigour, 
 and sits heavy upon hope. No being loves 
 liberty like the Muse : but it may be said, 
 that she ought not to love licentioiLsness ! 
 She must, 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 Don Juan, 
 and the Vision of Judgment, 
 
 There is a fervour in some minds, 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 
 
15^ LETTERS ON THE 
 
 All combinations which the imagina- 
 tion makes by rule and force ; all which 
 do not rise of themselves, and thus 
 become actual experiences ; are more or 
 less fantastic, and partake of the cha- 
 racter of pretension or simulation. And 
 this always diminishes their 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 
 belief. 
 
 If there be any improbability in the 
 stories of the Corsaivy Lara, the Giaour, 
 &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. 
 They, therefore, breathe all animation 
 and Hfe, as if he was describing real- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 153 
 
 ities. What an author feigns by arti- 
 fice and effort cannot either burn or 
 breathe : it must be form and matter 
 without soul. 
 
 But there may be Hfe, — yet a sickly 
 sort of hfe, — 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 it- 
 self in that which will not so well mix 
 with the impurities of earth. 
 
GENIUS OF LOUD BYRON. 155 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 June 7. 
 
 1 WILL here endeavour to make a sum- 
 mary of the poetical character of Lord 
 Byron. 
 
 I must take poetry to be that which 
 Edward Phillips (the nephew of Milton) 
 takes it to be ; viz. a7i illustration or em- 
 bodiment of some important moral trutkj 
 not drawn from individuality^ hut created 
 hy the imagination, by combining, with 
 taste and judgment^ ingredients selected 
 from the stores of the fancy, 
 
 A strict fulfilment of the whole of this 
 definition would constitute the highest 
 sort of poetry. There is certainly very 
 beaut if id poetry which in one or two 
 points may fall short of this : such, for 
 instance, 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 ^Mr/ia/ 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 \ fancy 
 to collect the materials ; sensibility of 
 heart to supply the requisite emotions 
 which ought to be associated with them ; 
 observation of life to show the course of 
 human actions j understanding ^nii judg- 
 ment to trace things to their conse- 
 quences, and teach final results; imagi- 
 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 judginent which 
 penetrated to final consequences. Lord 
 Ryron seems to have possessed in an 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 157 
 
 't 
 
 eminent degree : his defect is, that his 
 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 
 well, therefore, that our passions should 
 be virtuous and pure : otherwise, imagi- 
 nation under their influence will Qvn- 
 he^i^h falsehood rather than truth. 
 
 Lord Byron represented things in 
 those glowing natural colours, in which 
 they always appear to a rich imagination 
 placed in similar circumstances, operating 
 on a similar sensibility. And these were 
 inventio7is, 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 he did, • therefore, he ap- 
 
1.58 LETTERS ON 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 brilUant, 
 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 wliich will not combine, 
 according to the wliim whicli induces 
 them to prefer one to another separ- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 159 
 
 ately, — and thus there is no unity, no Hfe, 
 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 
 fully 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 degree 
 of animation, and in the dignified choice 
 of objects, more strongly than any other j 
 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 loftiest place amid the 
 fruits of the human intellect. 
 
 As this is the most simple, so it is the 
 
160 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 most easy for those who have the genuine 
 endowments j while they who have not 
 the genuine endowments ought never to 
 touch the lyre. 
 
 I cannot forget that one of Lord 
 Byron's longest and most celebrated 
 poems is a delineation of local and parti- 
 cular scenery : I mean Childe Harold, 
 It is quite impossible, that, with any re- 
 gard to principles, this poem can contend 
 in rank with his poetical inventions, I 
 am aware that the public does not seem 
 inclined to make this distinction. It 
 seems solely to consider the brilliancy of 
 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 tlie 
 image be equally brilliant and equally 
 beautiful ; but it imports nuich, as far as 
 regards the power of the })oet. It may, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYKON. l6l 
 
 however, be observed, that this proviso is 
 scarcely 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 of ser- 
 vility and constraint. This is apparent 
 in several of the local descriptions in 
 the Childe Harold of Lord Byron. They 
 have not the freedom and fire of the de- 
 scriptions in the Corsair, Maiifred, &c. 
 
 It will be contended, that they have 
 moi^e truth ; but this is not the case ; 
 they have not more general truth, nor 
 even so much. What is accidentally and 
 individually true, is often the reverse of a 
 general truth. 
 
 In some respects, the same kind of 
 poetical faculty is requisite to describe 
 both these qualities of objects : the same 
 skill in selection of circumstances is ne- 
 cessary in painting what actually exists, 
 as in painting what is imagined 5 the 
 same nicety of lights and shades ; the 
 
 M 
 
162 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 same distinctness of impression » and the 
 same elegance, force, and harmony of 
 language ; the same pathos or beauty of 
 sentiment, and the same strength and 
 energy of thought and reflection. 
 
 It commonly happens, that he who 
 has a bright and poetic fancy has also 
 more or less of a bright poetic imagina- 
 tion ; so that we are accustomed to ex- 
 pect the fruit of the latter power from 
 him who has shown that of the Jirst ; but 
 we often expect in vain : either from 
 deficiency of strength, from timidity, or 
 want of exertion, no such fruit appears. 
 
 Sometimes where the fancy is not very 
 distinct and faithful, it happens that the 
 imagination is very powerful. This is 
 occasionally exhibited in that sort of 
 grandeur which deals in the indefinite^ 
 and of which all the spell would be lost 
 by minute and precise details. This is 
 the sort of imagination, which deals in 
 worlds of its own ; which delights in 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. l63 
 
 shadows that serve only as a veil for 
 ideas of magnificence and wonder. 
 
 The innumerable set-offs from grand- 
 eur, beauty, and purity, which Provi- 
 dence permits in the actual scenery of 
 nature, and in the actual occurrences of 
 life, are such as a poet's imagination 
 ought to take no notice of; but the know- 
 ledge that these in fact exist, destroys the 
 illusion necessary to high poetical delight, 
 when we read poetical descriptions pro- 
 fessing to represent actual scenes and 
 actual events. Nor can the poet's own 
 mind ever detach itself entirely from the 
 effects of them. It never, therefore, is 
 under the same degree of inspiration and 
 ideal possession, when it is describing 
 realities. 
 
 We must estimate Lord Byron then by 
 his fictions, not by his poetical descrip- 
 tions of his own travels, and the feelings 
 and observations to which they gave rise. 
 And we must estimate these fictions, 
 
 M 2 
 
164 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 first, according to the quality of their 
 matter ; and, secondly, according to 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 
 self-illusion at the moment of describing- 
 it. Standing thus detached and separ- 
 ated from the incidents with whicli it is 
 elsewhere involved, and which tend to 
 lead the mind into a dangerous acqui- 
 escence in the union of imcompatible 
 qualities, this imagery is beautifully or 
 magnificently perfect ; for thus j^artialhf 
 viewed, it has truth, in addition to all its 
 other poetical excellences. To doubt the 
 poetical genius of such 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 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. l65 
 
 impurities and crimes, could not efface 
 I these breathing and inspired beauties. 
 I Lord Byron's imagination was more 
 noble, more beautiful, more pure, than 
 the observations of his understanding 
 were generous, kind, and correct, or 
 his passions towards society amiable 
 or virtuous. In the lisions of imagina- 
 I tion he beheld and felt what was grand, 
 benevolent, fair, and tender : when he 
 ' looked upon life he saw with a jaundiced 
 I eye ; he saw and felt bitterness, injustice, 
 I and wrong, and yielded to the dominion 
 * of vice, rather than of goodness. This 
 i may account for the opposition which 
 i there is between the beauties and the 
 faults of his poetry : a struggle between 
 his pure imagination, and his other im- 
 agination, which drew its ingredients 
 from the stores of his observation and 
 experience among mankind. 
 I If there be a disposition to be vision- 
 ary, the same disposition very commonly 
 
 M 3 
 
l66 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 poet'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 allege that 
 poetry is but the irritator of the passions, 
 and the handmaid of those delusions 
 whicli it is the business of wisdom to tear 
 away. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. Idj 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 June 8. 
 
 1 HERE has prevailed in poetry, at various 
 periods, a fashion, which commenced 
 many centuries ago, of illustrating or em- 
 bodying moral truths by an allegorical 
 perso7iification of abstract ideas. This, 
 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 
 
 M 4 
 
168 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 Fear^ to Pi/j/, 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 happi- | 
 ness, the force, and the harmony of the 
 language ; but still we want a little more 
 of the purple stream of material life, tlie 
 glow of veins, the breath of human exist- 
 ence, the grace of visible form, and the 
 energy of passion operating on substan- 
 tial imagery. 
 
 I think these are requisites which may 
 fairly be demanded by the most highly- 
 gifted and highly-polished taste ; but it 
 cannot be wonderfid that they should be 
 demanded by the multitude : — iiis won- 
 derful that the multitude could ever have 
 relislied these allegorical descriptions, for 
 which a preparation of speculative and 
 almost metaphysical thouglit, not at all 
 adapted to common capacities and com- 
 mon pursuits, would seem necessary. In 
 fact, 1 do not believe that \\\{} nuiltitude 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. l69 
 
 ever did relish them : it echoed what 
 it was the fashion 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 
 think, 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 fashion in poetry that soon follow- 
 ed. Some of the chains that were then 
 unloosed were H'ell unloosed ; but in set- 
 ting free those who ought not to be bound, 
 it also set free great numbers who required 
 bonds. Liberty soon grew into licen- 
 tiousness ; and all sorts of absurdities 
 were committed by those who had not the 
 qualities to be trusted to their own wills. 
 To go from one extreme to another, its 
 opposite, seems to be a frailty to which 
 the imperfection of humanity is invari- 
 ably destined. From that^ therefore, 
 
170 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 which was too abstract, over-refined, and 
 spiritual, the writers and readers of poetry 
 now phmged into the very thick of coarse 
 and rude society, and drank at the cup of 
 inspiration furnished by the 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 of 
 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 i7i- 
 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 the energies of savage life we 
 might find the best subjects of poetry. " 
 But Providence has ordained that we 
 should do much for ourselves ; and that 
 as man is to get his bread by the sweat of 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. I7I 
 
 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 him. But he 
 seems to have chosen well a line fitted to 
 escape from these contending obstacles. 
 In the subjects he adopted, taken from 
 countries remote from our own ; of man- 
 ners wild and free, yet associated with all 
 our ideas of early refinement and clas- 
 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 
 
172 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 which, the more we reflect upon it, will 
 the more excite our surprise and admira- 
 tion. In him are to be found 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 con- 
 ceptions, reached only by the profundity 
 of thought, led on by the light of the 
 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 exercise 
 the understanding as well as the imagina- 
 tion. In truth, I have never yet found 
 a poet of deep interest, whose imagina- 
 tion was not enriched, directed, and con- 
 trouled, by a powerful ynderstauding, 
 and wliere the understanding did not 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 173 
 
 form an important ingredient in the qua- 
 lity of his inventions, 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 
 have 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 
 him into a display 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 tlie 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- 
 neous, they still had many of the tints of 
 truth, and all its earnestness and free- 
 dom from affectation. No false ingre- 
 dient ever enters into them ; though some 
 true ones may be wanting to produce the 
 just result. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 175 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 June 9. 
 
 Man is born with a capacity which en- 
 ables him and impels him to form out of 
 the materials presented to his senses 
 something more beautiful tlian 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 tjiem to weaker minds 
 in more palpable shapes, and more glow- 
 ing colours ; and to assist them in the 
 birth of those sentiments and reflections 
 to which they 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 
 the false poet are artificial j they are the 
 fabrics of his own hand, made to imitate 
 
170 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 the growth of nature, but without life 
 or fragrance. 
 
 Lord Byron was never known to pro- 
 duce artificial flowers instead of real 
 ones : he sometimes produced weeds, and 
 now and then flowers and fruits which 
 were poisonous, but always the vigorous 
 growth of nature. 
 
 There is something very grand in that 
 faculty, which can thus form to itself a rich 
 creation of its own ; yet still preserving 
 verisimility to nature, — and therefore 
 calling forth the sympathy of all highly 
 endowed minds. 
 
 Lord Byron enjoyed with an inexpres- 
 sible fervour the magnificent and ever- 
 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 liis feelings, always enriched 
 
GENrUS OF LORD BYRON. 177 
 
 material appearances with powerful in- 
 tellectual associations. 
 
 Such a perpetual tumult of* violent 
 emotions as that in which Lord Byron 
 lived 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 very 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 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 fection and pride the intellectual and 
 more dignified part of our being. He 
 who is himself feeble in intellect is yet 
 commonly conscious of its value ; he ad- 
 mires and views with awe the high in 
 talent ; he envies, and would desire to 
 possess what is thus denied to him ; he 
 may not adequately admire the brilliancy 
 of the prospect, when the sun lights it 
 up ; but he feels a deep chill and loss of 
 pleasure when the sun retires, and leaves 
 all before him an indistinct mass of 
 darkness. Lord Byron was often, in trutli, 
 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 dispensation of 
 Providence, and humbles the pride of 
 man's ambition, and of his self-estima- 
 tion. In the eye of Providence those 
 powers we estimate so loftily must be as 
 notliing, or we cannot persuade ourselves 
 
 i 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 179 
 
 they would be thus suddenly cut off be- 
 fore their time. 
 
 But to our narrow ken, the splendid 
 genius of Lord Byron must still be con- 
 sidered of mighty import. Yet it is the 
 inseparable lot of man " not to know 
 " the full value of a treasure till it is 
 " taken from us." Highly as we admired 
 Lord Byron in his life, w^e shall admire 
 him, if possible, infinitely more, now that 
 he is gone. Variety will not make 
 amends for intenseness in particular 
 paths : but Lord Byron had both un- 
 equalled variety and intenseness in all, 
 I He had not only the supremacy of a sub- 
 ' lime, sombre, melancholy, mysterious 
 i imagination ^ but he had an inexhaustible 
 I fund of wit and humour, and a most pre- 
 I cise and minute knowledge of all the 
 details of common life ; a familiarity with 
 I all its habits and expressions ; a lively 
 and perfect insight into all its absurdi- 
 ties ; and a talent of exposing them, so 
 
 N 2 
 
180 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 practised, so easy, and so happy, that it 
 might be supposed he had never wan- 
 dered into the visionary, and never oc- 
 cupied himself with any thing but the 
 study of the folHes of man in famiUar 
 society. The alternate and opposite 
 ability of throwing off th^ incumbrance 
 of all degrading circumstances from 
 imagery, which is the characteristic of 
 the higher poetry, and that of bringing 
 forth those very set-offs 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 peison. 
 Nor is it much less extraordinary, tliat 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 witli admirable ex- 
 actness ; nay, the surprising likeness is 
 one of the great attractions of this comic 
 painting. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 181 
 
 This exquisite keenness in the survey 
 of the human character must have con- 
 tributed, as well as Lord Byron's fiercer 
 passions, to make mixed society often 
 uneasy to him. He must have seen too 
 much of what was veiled to common 
 eyes ; he must have seen too plainly the 
 workings of envy, jealousy, hate, mean- 
 ness, and folly ; he must have pierced dis- 
 guises in a moment, and lost all interest 
 in what appeared attractive to others, but 
 hoUoxjo to ] 11711. 
 
 He who can thus have things at his 
 command, and can in solitude wield them 
 at hisVili, may well prefer the mode of 
 life in w^hich his genius may work most 
 freelv. Such faculties 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 a 
 
 N 3 
 
182 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 certain rank to live in solitude in his 
 own country : he cannot do so without 
 being liable to mortifications 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 choice 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, Switzer- 
 land, Italy, and Greece. I cainiot doubt 
 that a genial sun and sublime scenery 
 contribute to the warmth 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 antl clouded by 
 dulncss : it requires an energy of spuit, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 183 
 
 a freshness of impulse, a beam of hope, 
 and 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 
 ke})t sound by the variety of his facul- 
 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 
 celebrity : he would not have written 
 with the daring and happy 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 
 
 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 lie did sometimes re- 
 venge them by a licentious use of his 
 genius. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 185 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 June 10. 
 
 I HAVE made an allusion to Don Juariy 
 in pp. 239, 240. of Coningshy (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- 
 jectionable 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 cliarac- 
 teristic in which the superiority of I^ord 
 Byron is always uninterruptedly display- 
 
186 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 ing itself: — this is, i\\e genuineness of his 
 imaghiation, 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 in 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 j)ower of the 
 brilliant poet to create all the best enjoy- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 187 
 
 ments of our terrestrial abode ; to mul- 
 tiply, to refine, and to change the very 
 nature of our pleasures here. To what- 
 ever 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 some to whom it may be dan- 
 gerous or pernicious food ; some who, 
 destined to perform mean functions and 
 low corporeal labours, would be ren- 
 dered unhappy by more sensibility of 
 fancy or expanse of intellect. But it 
 might as well be contended that all ranks 
 of society should have the hard hand and 
 muscular arm of a day-labourer, as that 
 they should have his coarse thoughts, and 
 his material understanding. 
 
 Tt) hQ fantastic is as mischievous as it 
 is foolish ; but true imagination can 
 
188 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 always be infallibly distinguished by the 
 test of the sympathy it excites. We 
 i£07i(ler at what is fantastic ; we embrace 
 as an intiynate what is just ; we persuade 
 ourselv^es that we have perceived and felt 
 the same ; and we are elevated in our 
 own estimation at these kindred impres- 
 sions with genius. Affectation always 
 relies on its singularitij : genuine 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 jnemor^y, — 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 left 
 totally uncultivated and untouclicd. 
 
 Lord Byron brings his vigorous powers 
 into the field ; and wherever he throws his 
 magic hand, rich flowers and fruits of 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 189 
 
 fresh flavour spring up in inexhaustible 
 abundance. The reader wonders that 
 fields of such fertility have never been 
 pierced before ; and begins to think it is 
 tlie magician's spell, that can turn every 
 thing it handles into gold. In truth, 
 what cannot genius, thus energetic and 
 strong, and thus practised, perform ? 
 Knowledge, deep thought, and glowing 
 sentiment, hang on every trifle, and 
 swarm round the leaves of every tree, 
 shrub, and flower. 
 
 Wherever Lord Byron has gi\en any 
 images, sentiments, or thoughts as his 
 own, there is no reason to suspect that 
 he has imputed to them more force than 
 his own mind and bosom bore witness to. 
 li\ 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 the inmates of 
 his own soul and heart. They show 
 
190 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 themselv'es by their freshness and nature 
 never to be put on, — never worn as a 
 dress. 
 
 Lord Byron was himself the being of 
 imagination, whose character breaks out 
 in all his waitings : his life was that of 
 the wild magical spirit, of which the 
 feelings, the adventures, and the eccen- 
 tricities, astonish and enchant us in his 
 inveiitions. The public notoriety of this 
 makes us receive much from htm, 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 full of power, but it 
 would not have been the same sort of 
 power: — it might have had more so- 
 briety and regidarity; 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 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 191 
 
 Lord Byron has shown most genius and 
 most novelty, and upon which no one is 
 likely to follow him. If he has done 
 wrong, if the evil parts overbalance the 
 good, so much the worse for the value 
 of his genius. But do they overbalance 
 the good ? It is not evil to detect and 
 expose hypocrisy ; it is not evil to pierce 
 the disguise of meretricious love ; and 
 the picture which renders it ridiculous 
 will avail beyond a thousand thundering 
 sermons ! 
 
 But they who are angry with the foul- 
 ness 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 
 may corrupt some innocent minds, while 
 they may check in their course of vice 
 others already corrupted. But this is a 
 great set-olF 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. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 193 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 June 1 1. 
 
 If I could believe that the sentiment^* 
 which a poet had expressed in his writings, 
 and which fonned 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- 
 ceritv. But thou^^h I hate affectation, I 
 would prefer that the ridicule should be 
 affected, rather than the sentiments af- 
 fected. 
 
 There are men who would be good, if 
 they had the firmness to withstand the 
 infection of the example of others; — men 
 who cannot 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 afraid of being 
 thought more pure and scrupulous than 
 others, and, therefore, 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 affected. 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 
 
 himself 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 
 sentiment and thought, and as a subject 
 of admiration ? Does he justify himself 
 by such arguments as the following : — " I 
 *' 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- 
 " nehcial 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 o^ swindling ! The heart must be 
 in a similar state of corruption with that 
 of the swindler ! The face must always 
 
 o 2 
 
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 1 know that such characters 
 are very common ; but I persuade myself 
 that there are always marks of the de- 
 ception in their very UTitings, 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. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 197 
 
 in what is sincere : the sentiment and 
 thought completely predominate over the 
 language, — and words break out which 
 identify themselves with the peculiar cha- 
 racter of the writer. 
 
 There are mechanical artists and false 
 conjurers in poetry, as in every thing 
 else, who operate their wonders on the 
 public mind by mere ingenious trick: but 
 the trickery and the reputation of such 
 persons explode with time ; they catch a 
 short-lived attention, and then grow flat 
 and wearisome : — the colours of nature 
 only never fade nor lose their charm. 
 
 I consider these artists to do more in- 
 jury to the cause of true poetry than all 
 its other numerous andvehement 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 3 
 
198 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 views of life, and assuming feelings which 
 are 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 poet's 
 occasional coincidence with another great 
 poet, or an occasional imitation of such 
 other, or even use of his words, is a 
 decisive proof of tlie 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, unwilUng, 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 OF LORD BYRON. 199 
 
 and take nothing from the character of 
 him, 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 w^hich 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 numerous walks of 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- 
 decessors and contemporaries. It was this, 
 perhaps, that sometimes gave him the ap- 
 peai^ance of imitation, and tempted him 
 actually 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 
 
J 
 
 200 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 imitator, but 2i plagiarist, I think that he 
 began as an imitator before he felt his 
 own strength j and that, for the reason I 
 have given, it was always easy to him to 
 imitate ; and that he was sometimes in- 
 clined to indulge in it, even to the last. 
 Perhaps he is almost the only wiiter of 
 whom the occasional habit of imitation 
 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 S/iakspeare, in 1 
 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 witli his own eyes, 
 rather than ** through the spectacle of 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 201 
 
 ** books," and having felt from the un- 
 borrowed impulses of his own bosom, 
 and described from what was within 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 observation. He had no necessity 
 to seek for stimulants in factitious and 
 feigned ardours ; he wanted no provoca- 
 tives in the array of gorgeous language, 
 or exaggerated images ; his conceptions 
 were always still more active and more 
 energetic than his words, and his mind 
 was in a state of fervid emotion which 
 required no aid from without. 
 
20'2 LETTEllS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 June 12. 
 
 He who spends much tmie in society at 
 that early period of Hfe when manners 
 are best formed, and pohsh is easiest 
 gained, is hkely to break in upon those 
 habits of study and reflection by wliich 
 alone genius is cherished, and abihties 
 are rendered useful. Such society, espe- 
 cially fashmiable society, at that im- 
 portant period of existence, when fancy 
 ought to be laying in her stores, is ahiiost 
 sure to chill and eradicate the enthusiasm 
 necessary for high poetry. 
 
 I cannot think tliat if Lord Byron, 
 instead of ado})ting the eccentric course 
 which he embraced, liad passed mucli of 
 his time in the lii<>'li circles of London, 
 from the age of ti^lilccn to Ihirtij, tliat 
 he wouhl have written or attempted one 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 203 
 
 of his loftier or more brilliant poems : he 
 would, perhaps, have been a sarcastic and 
 witty satirist, and would have written 
 epigrams and sprnghtlij songs : — caustic 
 poison, which sinks the energy and era- 
 dicates the spirit of the human mind ! 
 
 I take nothing to be more injurious to 
 the 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 fol- 
 lowing. The nil 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 
 is so very generally resorted to, by the 
 base-minded of the higher ranks. The 
 intention is to raise the belief that they 
 have not excelled in what is set up as the 
 object of admiration solely because they 
 
W4i LETTERS ON THE 
 
 have considered it not worth attaining ! 
 and that the admiration conferred is the 
 effect of an ignorance which they despise 
 and pity ! 
 
 But these contemptible contemnei^s are 
 not aware how little a way such negative 
 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 " coiild- 
 if 'they -would* ^ 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 
 iriven 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, or 
 trite, when put uj)on paper. If it j)retend 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYROX. QOS) 
 
 to ?iovellf/y it is merel}' new as regards 
 the person addressed ; and so little ori- 
 ginates from the addresser, that it may be 
 found better said in a thousand books, 
 and from 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 : they ad- 
 mire themselves for the facihty and 
 fluency with which they utter them, and 
 foro'etthat in utter'niis they do not create ; 
 that all the trouble and all the merit 
 belongs to those who preceded tliem in 
 the work ; that they add nothino; im- 
 prove nothing, correct nothing ; tliat they 
 only go with the stream, and are as likely 
 to aid error as spread truth. 
 
 It is the lot of very few to think ori- 
 ginallj/, and to think with truth and 
 force ; — the generality, 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 their 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 
 secondare/ part. I do not think that he 
 would have been ready in repeating the 
 common-place ideas of others: he woukl 
 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 OF LORD BYRON. '207 
 
 But these people, who talk with such 
 au's of superiority, wish it to be believed, 
 that if they are not ivriters as well as 
 talkers, it is because they disclaim to 
 make their powers in this way known. To 
 these may be applied what Edward Phil- 
 lips 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 clial- 
 ^' lenge to themselves a place among tlie 
 " poetical writers, except upon the testi- 
 '* mony of some very authentic author." 
 
 How often do we recollect men who 
 have continued to raise a high opinion 
 
208 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 of themselves by management and mys- 
 tery ; and who at length coming before 
 the world in propria persona, by some 
 published work, have put an end to the 
 charm, and shown that their pretensions 
 were all vapour. 
 
 We meet with thousands of men who 
 can talk well, for one who can write 
 well : the scrutiny which the litera scripta 
 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 borrowed, never expires, — 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 209 
 
 SO that there is no limitation, which gives 
 a title by lapse of time. 
 
 The faculty, which is thus subject to 
 tests so much more severe than others are 
 exposed to, must be necessarily of a far 
 higher order. 
 
210 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XXII, 
 
 June 13. 
 
 Having said so much about Lord 
 Byron's gloom, and the bitterness of soul 
 which attended the course of his life, 
 the question may still be raised, whether, 
 on a balance of his pleasures and his pains, 
 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 heightens 
 our joys ! 
 
 The fervor of Lord Byron's impres- 
 sions, the fertility, and brilliancy, and ex- 
 panse of his imaginings, could not but 
 bring with them enjoyment which mayac- 
 
 I 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 211 
 
 curately be called inexpressible. Labour, 
 and effort, and art, are painful and ex- 
 hausting ; but the freedom with which 
 Lord Byron wrote must have enabled 
 him to derive great pleasure from com- 
 position. 
 
 That sort of life which there is in Lord 
 Byron's images and sentiments could 
 only have emanated from his own expe- 
 rience ; and we can estimate the intense- 
 ness of that life by the sympathetic 
 lano^uaoe which describes it. When once 
 we can come to describe woe itself, part 
 of its sting has lost its poison. 
 
 Let us recollect how large a portion 
 of Lord Byron's days must have passed 
 in this sort of composition ; and if this 
 portion was happy, then, could sorrow 
 and suffering be justly said to predominate 
 with him? 
 
 I suspect ennui, languor, and indiffer- 
 ence, to be the condition least easy to 
 endure. Activity and energy of mind 
 
 p 2 
 
212 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 always furnish resources and gleams of 
 hope in the midst of difficulties, dangers, 
 vexations, and even torments. The ex- 
 haustion which follows energy makes 
 repose luxury. Lord 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 
 
 that they had ever been ! Perhaps even 
 he himself is not fully conscious of them 
 in the rapidity of their actual appear- 
 ance : it is in the ingredients which they 
 furnish to the fancy ; it is in the visionary 
 and spiritual revival, when all that is 
 material is removed, that their fullest 
 force and splendour 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 
 fulness and splendour of his delight lies. 
 It is in solitude, when imagination is his 
 only companion, and when he is veiled 
 from all mankind, that his true enjoy- 
 ments 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 affronts, 
 putting his breast against the sword of 
 
 p 3 
 
214 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 his enemy by his incautious impetuosity, 
 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 absiudity, and so 
 " mucli offensiveness, as we see in the 
 ** poet ?" 
 
 But these tmkUiig y^Jijjmes, these idle 
 pldijs of words, are the spells tliat not 
 only turn the })oct's own existence into 
 pleasure, but elevate the qualities and 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 215 
 
 capacities of the doubtful and change- 
 able being of human nature ; that light 
 up the flame of a higher state of enjoy- 
 ment infused into us, which, if we neglect 
 it, will expire in darkness, and be as if it 
 had never been imparted. 
 
 p 4 
 
216 LETTERS ON THK 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 June 14. 
 
 In diiferent humours or different days, 
 we do not always see things in exactly 
 the same aspect. Objects viewed on 
 contrary sides have often a very dissi- 
 milar appearance. Lord 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 imagination 
 and the passiojis 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 inoral 
 character of the passion on which ima- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 217 
 
 gination operates, or which operates on 
 imagination, before we 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 brilUancy of 
 imagination which is sufficient, w^ithout 
 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 w^ll always feel delight in 
 
218 LETTERS ON 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, 2i^ genei^al positions. How far they 
 apply to Lord Byron's poetry, is another 
 question. If he represents worldly plea- 
 sures in those detached points of view, 
 in whicli all their attractions, and none 
 of their attendant evils, are displayed, he 
 abuses the vast faculties of genius con- 
 ferred on him by nature. The e7id of all 
 literature is tvisdorn and trut/i ; and 
 therefore these must especially be the 
 end of poetry^ if poetry be the highest 
 species of literature, — and pleasure can 
 only be the means, li\ therefore, plea- 
 sure be the sole end effected, the poetry 
 cannot be legitimate, because it will not 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 219 
 
 have produced a legitimate end. The 
 proof, then, that it gives Hvely and even 
 intense pleasure to a fine imagination 
 is not a conclusive proof that it is perfect 
 poetry. 
 
 But we must not lightly assume that 
 Lord Byron's compositions have offended 
 against these principles, — at least in their 
 general character, and upon a balance 
 of what constitutes their strength. It 
 can scarcely be denied that they some- 
 times incur this charge. If the detached 
 virtues w^hicli the poet sometimes ascribes 
 to his heroes are painted naturally, as 
 well as forcibly, he does not always 
 bring forward duly the revolting horrors 
 and frightful consequences of the crimes 
 which he chooses to unite to these vir- 
 tues. On the other hand, he is a little 
 too much inclined to bring into broad 
 display the counteracting errors, defects, 
 and crimes, bv which illustrious cha- 
 racters, on whom the world has con- 
 
2^0 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 f erred admiration, have been sometimes 
 debased. 
 
 These are extremes into which he has 
 been sometimes led by a course of senti- 
 ment and thougiit, and a Hne of fiction, 
 wliich, on deep consideration, will not be 
 found to have the tendency, or deserve 
 the character that superficial readers and 
 critics have assigned to them. One of 
 the grand faults of mankind, which Lord 
 Byron's temper, the impulses of his Iicart, 
 and the vigour of his faculties, prompted 
 him to combat and expose, was hypocrisy 
 and false pretensioii. He saw with in- 
 dignation the unjust estimate of character 
 the world was accustomed to make, and 
 the flagrant wrong with which it was 
 accustomed to distribute admiration, 
 honours, and rewards. IJe bent, tliere- 
 fore, the whole force of his mighty facul- 
 ties to expose these absurdities in striking 
 colours; to throw a broader light on 
 their real features; and to draw the veil 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 221 
 
 from the cloven foot, and the sat ante 
 qualities which had hitherto been con- 
 cealed. 
 
 He would plead, that, in detecting r/'ce 
 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 cloak 
 of disguise should be torn from them ! 
 
 But has he not, in the effort to pull down 
 liypocrisy, set up naked and audacious 
 crime? This is the charge against him ; and 
 it is, indeed, a charge which has some- 
 times a strong appearance of being well 
 founded. All powers of great energy 
 will occasionally overshoot the mark : the 
 decision must be made according to the 
 predominance of good or evil. We must 
 estimate by the comparative mischief of 
 the character elevated^ and the character 
 depressed, by these exhibitions. Now 
 daring and open crime always brings 
 
S2^ LETTERS ON THE 
 
 with it its own antidote ; but concealed 
 rottenness works under ground, covered 
 with flowers, and spreads diseases and 
 pestilence, without a suspicion whence 
 the sufferings and the destructions come, 
 — and, therefore, continues to prostrate 
 its victims, unchecked by its success, and 
 uncorrected by time. 
 
 It has been said that Lord 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 which he 
 employed the tones of indignant sorrow. 
 And here again, perhaps, he may be en- 
 titled to a similar defence ao-ainst the 
 attacks which have been made u})on him, 
 to that which has been already suggested. 
 
 He has been accused of jesting at ail 
 female virtue, of painting women in tlie 
 most dissolute colours, — and yet of 
 employing the wliole force of his brilHant 
 imagination to make hcentious pleasures 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 223 
 
 attractive and seducing. On a superficial 
 view, at least, this charge lias a plausible 
 basis. But many ingenious things may 
 be said on the other side ; and I am 
 not sure that they are not as solid as 
 ingenious, though some may think them 
 too far-fetched. 
 
 Against those vices which fashion sanc- 
 tions, grave and vehement indignation 
 goes for nothing. Happy and poignant 
 ridicule alone can touch them. But the 
 women who give themselves up to open 
 indulgences, and open disregard of cha- 
 racter, are not those w^hose example is 
 mischievous, and who corrupt society. 
 The poison is spread by those who wear 
 the veil of delicacy, propriety, tenderness, 
 affection, beauty, and all the charms of 
 female loveliness. It is thus that the 
 most dangerous corruption works under 
 the mask of the most affecting virtue. 
 Nothing less than the touch of the magical 
 spear of ridicule can pierce this spell. 
 
224 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 Ridicule is like the light of the morning 
 on that which appeared beautiful under 
 the shadowing beams of the moon, but 
 which cannot bear the stronger rays of 
 the sun. The delusive charm vanishes, 
 and the spots come forth in their ugliness ; 
 the hope of deception expires, — and the 
 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 whicli 
 grows stronger by direct and equal re- 
 sistance. 
 
 Poems might be named, which have 
 all the mischief attributed to these de- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 225 
 
 scriptions of Lord Byron, but cannot 
 pretend to any of these merits ; which 
 struggle to render more attractive those 
 sentimental flowers under which vice is 
 veiled, instead of exposing them ; which 
 leave the poison in full force, but pro- 
 duce nothing of the antidote ; in which 
 all the artifices of poetical ornament are 
 expended to give to sensual enjoyments 
 the outward character of amiable tender- 
 ness, — instead of calling forth ridicule 
 to set before them the guard of shame. 
 
'226 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 June 15. 
 
 Ihey who have not paid attention to 
 the effects of perseverance and practice 
 on native ability, in any branch of in- 
 tellectual pursuits, can have no concep- 
 tion of the increased power which, in the 
 lapse of a short time ,is 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, because the persev^erance in study, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. ^^7 
 
 by those who are born without talent, 
 often only overloads the mind ; and by 
 those who are superficial, makes a memory, 
 already too officious, still more delusive to 
 themselves, and wearisome to others. 
 
 Native ability, and still more, native 
 genius, has always an impulse to think 
 for itself, and to judge by its own 
 observation and feelings. But when it 
 commences to develope its internal move- 
 ments, and to reduce into shape and 
 form the ideas which yet only show 
 themselves by glimpses, the task is found 
 difficult, and the weak and unsuccessful 
 effi^rt produces discouragement. A sen- 
 • sitive and timid mind sometimes quits the 
 field 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 
 Q 2 
 
228 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 sometimes begun in this diffident manner. 
 When there is a capacity of deep and 
 intense thought, the intellect is not 
 always as ready as it is deep, but requires 
 a longer time to perform its functions. 
 That which is only fit to skim the surface 
 soon arrives at the extent of its strength. 
 
 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 force, — 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 future 
 compositions, evinced a most extraordi- 
 nary force of native genius. This could 
 only have arisen from want of confidence 
 in his own resources ; from fear to trust 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 229 
 
 himself in the management of his own 
 ideas ; or from actua] inability, at this 
 early stage, to digest and express them. 
 
 In the first and second cantos of his 
 Childe Harold, he began to deal very 
 liberally with those images and senti- 
 ments which were more congenial with 
 his own ; but still he used much of the 
 tone and very words of others. 
 
 As soon as he had gained the applause 
 of the public, and thus confirmed himself 
 in a due estimate of his own strength, he 
 commenced to deal with his own ideas 
 in his own words ; but even then he did 
 not do it at once. He broke out in 
 powerful, splendid, and original pas- 
 sages, In which the very extraordinary 
 shapes and colours of his imagination 
 were clothed in congenial and equally 
 unborrowed language. Yet it required 
 long practice and perseverance before 
 these efforts could be sustained through 
 a composition of any length. Even 
 
 Q 3 
 
280 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 Lord Byron's genius was not equal to 
 master and express at once so many new 
 and powerful expressions and reflections 
 as now crowded on his very fertile and 
 splendid brain. 
 
 Had he haunted more beaten paths, 
 and dwelt more on prospects with which 
 the common eye is conversant, his task 
 would have been much easier; all the parts 
 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 
 everyday 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 light 
 into whatever quarter he chose to direct 
 its rays. 
 
 Perhaps there is not much genius or 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 231 
 
 merit in that singularity and novelty 
 of invention which cannot carry along 
 with it the reader ; who, instead of ac- 
 companying, gazes after its devious ex- 
 cursions with distant wonder. 
 
 Lord Byron, on the contrary, bears 
 with him the yielding, overwhelmed, and 
 astonished reader into the thickest of the 
 gloomy and tremendous forests of dire- 
 ful enchantment into wliich human foot- 
 steps had never yet entered : — the spell is 
 pronounced, the witch-song is sung; — the 
 reader listens, trembles, admires, dreads, 
 condemns; — in vain he would be exor- 
 cised: — 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 # 
 
232 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 art has for ages been at work, and which 
 have lost their freshness and their charms 
 in proportion to the increase of their 
 polish. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. ^33 
 
 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- 
 ment, fit only for women and boys, 
 and think the merits of one who has 
 done no more than write what they call 
 empty verses 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- 
 cessary, 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 
 this art ? 
 
 Notwithstanding all which has been 
 said as his advocate in these letters, much 
 
^234: LETTERS ON THE 
 
 rational doubt will still remain with a 
 large portion ot" sound minds, whether 
 the charcje of hnmoi^al 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 ef- 
 fects by which his descriptions and his 
 poignant ridicule have been attempted to 
 be justilied will be deemed too uncertain, 
 too remote, and too dependent on reflec- 
 tion and reasoning, to be looked for from 
 the hasty and superflcial minds of the 
 mass of the public. 
 
 I admit it to be a question; but I am 
 not convinced by this anszcer to the de- 
 fence. I do not like to rely on far- 
 fetched and abstruse defences ; but still I 
 think that that which is here suggested has 
 a firm root. T/iis 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- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 235 
 
 gLilarly through such of the grand doc- 
 trines of religion and morals as Lord 
 Byron'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 criticism. On the 
 first subject it would be idle not to aban- 
 don his defence. His attacks on our re- 
 ligious faith are too positive and too re- 
 volting to be palHated. 
 
 There are parts of his writings which 
 must be equally given up on moral 
 grounds. Some of his perso7ial attacks 
 are malignant, low, and mean, and could 
 only have sprung from base and ungene- 
 rous passions ; while some of his praises 
 are as fulsome and unfounded as his cen- 
 sures ! It could be easily shown that he 
 has bitterly, foully, 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 language ! 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 fate ; to 
 cover it with its proper opprobrium ; and 
 to lament the mingled blots and corrup- 
 tions of a noble nature ! 
 
 There are other blots of a similar 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, 
 to which poor humanity is subject ? And 
 all this from poUticaly not personal, anti- 
 pathy ! Are political antipathies to breed 
 personal hatred, which shall insult the 
 grave ? — The grave, too, of the most gentle- 
 manly, the mildest-mannered, the boldest- 
 hearted man in Europe. These are traits, 
 which, whenever I would feel admiration 
 for the genius and the poetry of Lord 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. QSJ 
 
 Byron, I am necessitated to efface from 
 my recollection. To me no words of re- 
 probation 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- 
 ture the union of such frightful darkness 
 with so much gigantic splendour ! 
 
 I must escape from this painful discus- 
 sion to more congenial enquiries. It is a 
 grave 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 w^hicli last this censure has 
 been more especially directed. There is 
 exquisite intensity offeree, and grace, and 
 brilliancy, in both. So much subtle and 
 pointed irony, so much arch humour, so 
 much surprising knowledge of the most 
 secret and evanescent movements of the 
 
238 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 human heart, were never before united 1 
 with such a grave, dreaming, sombre, 
 visionary, enthusiastic imagination ! Never 
 before were smiles and tears, and comic 
 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 ! 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 239 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 June 17. 
 
 Notwithstanding the consolations to be 
 derived from poetry and the imaginative 
 faculty, 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 j but, in 
 defiance of their scepticism, I avow it to 
 be true. The delusions of poetical inven- 
 tion may soften our own personal and 
 selfish pains either of mind or body ; but 
 they cannot have any control over our 
 sympathy for the actual sufferings of 
 others, for whom w^e are interested, when 
 we see them in positive operation. We 
 know our own power of self-escape from 
 our own pains, because the beams of im- 
 agination which encircle us are visible to 
 our 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 balm. To them 
 the woes and pangs of Hfe 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 to 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 efficacy : they may even be- 
 come a delusion, of which the indulgence 
 may border upon immorality ; because 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 241 
 
 they may tend to weaken those 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 delight, 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 
 otherwise be in our power. 
 
 Gray^ in his Progress of Poesy y has 
 
 i 
 
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 second 
 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 doubtful, creed. In 
 this clouded and tempestuous w^orld we 
 are more likely to be liardened by melan- 
 clioly and despair than by the luxury of 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Whatever softens and refines the 
 heart increases tlie nicety and purity of 
 its sensitiveness : it teaches us to notice 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 243 
 
 and appreciate those delicate sources of 
 internal pleasure or pain in the bosoms 
 of others, which the rude understanding, 
 conversant only with outward and mate- 
 rial experiences, insults, outrages, and 
 tortures. To proscribe poetry, as an 
 indulgence which extinguishes or dimi- 
 nishes our moral sympathy, is rigid, harsh, 
 and, for the most part, even unreasonable 
 and unjust. 
 
 It may be abused. What may not be 
 
 abused ? But the abuse will be so rare, 
 
 and so improbable, — while the use is so 
 
 exquisite, so dignified, and so general, — 
 
 I that it would argue but little wisdom to 
 
 ' let an objection so subtle, and of such rare 
 
 , occurrence, prevail. 
 
 i There is an inclination in mankind to 
 j- exact of poets a little more than frail 
 \ humanity can perform. They are called 
 I upon to imagine all that is tender, mag- 
 nificent, and beautiful ; to lose them- 
 selves in visions of a purer existence ; to 
 
 R 2 
 
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 ethereal 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 connnon beings. 
 
 Genius is sometimes whimsical, and 
 sometimes gives immoderate indulgence 
 to its eccentricities. An attention to the 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 245 
 
 history of mankind, and the lessons of bio- 
 graphy, ought to impress on it a warning 
 against these excesses. The world w^ill 
 not spare them .; nor will the severity and 
 malignity of criticism spare them. The 
 fondness of panegyric, 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 MiU 
 ton or Shakspeare to be joined to the dry 
 scientific genius of Nexvton, 
 
 I do not say that all Lord Byron's ec- 
 centricities were venial : some were na- 
 turally connected with the character of 
 
 R 3 
 
246 
 
 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 his genius ; others were too much the 
 humours of a violent and unrestrained 
 temper. Where we cannot excuse, we 
 must pit i/ and Jo f^give ; and never forget 
 those splendid beauties by which they 
 were in some degree redeemed. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. ^47 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 June 18. 
 
 1 HE Pleasures of Imagination have 
 been explained and justified by Addison 
 in prose, and by Akenside in verse : but 
 there are moments of real life when its 
 miseries and its necessities seem to over- 
 power and destroy them. The history 
 of mankind, however, furnishes proofs 
 that 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 Tasso, They who have seen 
 the dark, horror-striking dungeon-hole at 
 Ferrara, in which he was confined seven 
 vears under the imputation of madness, 
 will have had this truth impressed upon 
 
 R 4 
 
248 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 their hearts in a manner never to be 
 erased. In this vault, of v^hich the sight 
 makes the hardest heart shudder, the 
 poet employed himself in finishing and 
 correcting his immortal epic poem. 
 
 Lord Byron's Lament on 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 whicli is 
 not warmed, the understanding which is 
 not enlightened and exalted by it, is not 
 fit for human intercourse. If Loid Byron 
 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 of 
 mankind to each otlicr, which are so 
 inexpressibly liightful as to surpass belief^ 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 249 
 
 were not the historical evidence of them 
 indisputable. There was, I think, a 
 Prince of Milan, 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 
 beast, and left to perish in that state. 
 Could imagination visit and cheer this 
 victim ? Yet if Tasso could be clieered 
 in his forlorn condition, even this was 
 possible. 
 
 Imagination is as much a part of our 
 nature as the limbs with which we are 
 tbrmed and the breath we draw. The 
 degree and quality of it is partly a gift, 
 and partly the effect of culture. Man is 
 answerable morally for the manner in 
 which he uses this endowment. It is 
 the mediator between our fallen condi- 
 tion and that higher state of existence 
 to which all great and good minds are 
 destined to aspire. Vl is only in imagin. 
 
250 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 ation that our nobler hopes and desires 
 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 situations 
 in this chequered life, so many beings 
 involved in adverse circumstances, that 
 the riches of the mind alone are their 
 only prop and solace ; and I always read 
 with an extreme glow of delight Love- 
 lace^^ most exquisite song from his pri- 
 son, in which he says, 
 
 I" 
 
 " 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 glory, 
 or the pile of siiame and destruction. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 251 
 
 There were moments, unluckily, when 
 Lord Byron invoked her flames to the 
 poisonous 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- 
 son, and the tests of actual life. For the 
 sobriety of wisdom, for that preservation 
 of verisimility which is absolutely essential 
 to a sound imagination, a perpetual re- 
 ference to man as he is, and to the scenery 
 and existences of the material world, is 
 indispensable. Mere undisciplined ima- 
 gination, which pays no attention to 
 probability, and creates without any re- 
 gard to the laws and principles of nature, 
 is insanity. If it be applied to com- 
 position, 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, compound- 
 ed as it is of mind and matter, more deep 
 
^5^Z 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 which 
 the outward eye cannot enter ; and 
 furnishes data which the reason may use, 
 but cannot discover. 
 
 Why is a well-written tale ofjictio?i of 
 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 hopCvS, 
 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 tlicse are told of an in- 
 dividual who has really existed, our in- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. ^253 
 
 credulity destroys our pleasure iu the 
 relation : we ask ourselves how they 
 coidd be known to the relater; and if w^e 
 suspect that he invents when he ought 
 merely to record, we are disgusted with 
 his 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 
 character of mankind ; by its moral 
 wisdom, the beauty of its scenery, and 
 the force of its conceptions, and the ani- 
 mation of its portraits. Such an author 
 deals 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. The 
 test of the power and virtue of that ima- 
 
254 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 gination lies in the degree of sympathij 
 which it awakens ; while that sympathy 
 much depends on the faculty of verisi- 
 mility. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. ^55 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 June 19. 
 
 IT may be difficult to assign a satisfac- 
 tory reason, but it is surely a fact, tliat 
 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 discovery 
 " of pccult 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 
 wit, 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- 
 timate with it, and because, therefore, 
 we have no guide to enable us to guess 
 what will be its next movement. A man 
 of ^vit will sacrifice any thing to his jest. 
 
 * Life of Cowley. 
 
^5d LETTERS ON THE 
 
 For this reason a man of wit has scarce 
 ever appeared to be 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. The 
 purpose of Burke's wit was illustratto7iy 
 not ridicule. 
 
 Ridicule produces a feeling not con- 
 s^enial 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 exeu 
 than hatred, because hatred is at least 
 energetic. 
 
 Humour does not deal so nuicli in 
 ridicule: there is ofitener much gravity in 
 humour. 
 
/ 
 
 GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 557 
 
 Lord Byron had both wit and humour ; 
 and it seems to me, notwithstanding a 
 few instances may be found which may 
 seem to contradict me, that these quaU- 
 ties had in him more of gravity and ear- 
 I nestness than of ridicule and laughter ; 
 J and I think that, notwithstanding all his 
 affected gaiety, we can discover that the 
 I same sombre and deep emotions as belong 
 j to his more serious poetry, give rise to 
 ' the colours of scorn or absurdity in which 
 I he paints his comic subjects. To me this 
 i is an attraction, not a fault ; it rouses 
 sympathy, not fear and distrust. It is 
 stranoje that there are some who con- 
 I found naivete with wit ; it is, of course, 
 I the very opposite. A great deal of Lord 
 Byron's comic poetry pleases from its 
 naivete ; from the frank and fearless sin- 
 cerity and artlessness with which it 
 describes some of the foUies of temporary 
 manners, and records the phraseology of 
 the silly fashions of the day. It is a 
 
^58 ' LETTERS ON THE « 
 
 laugh ; but the poet " laughs the heart's 
 " laugh :" still, not as if the comic was 
 his original and predominant talent, Lord 
 Byron, in these poems of humour, has a 
 great deal which would not have been 
 borne but from one of established reput- 
 ation, and would not have been attempted 
 by any other. 
 
 The ridicule which arises from Jidelity 
 of descri'ptio7i is quite different from that 
 which arises from wit, and it is different 
 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 lefl 
 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 tliis function has 
 always been considered a subordinate 
 department of it, because it is less dig- 
 nified and less generous to awaken dis- 
 
^ GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 259 
 
 like than admiration. But satire need 
 not necessarily use the weapon of 
 ridicule. 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 from that assertion : but, because 
 it is irresistible, I do not think it should 
 be used; at least the ridicule of wit should 
 not be used, where milder instruments 
 will effect a cure : it is a cruel and veno- 
 mous 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 
 distinctions, and I do not expect to find 
 a general concurrence in them : it will be 
 well, if I obtain the concurrence even of 
 a few readers. It may be said that Lord 
 Byron's ridicule depends as much on the 
 discordia concors as that of any other witty 
 composition ; and it would require a very 
 minute scrutiny of his comic poems to 
 decide this point with perfectly weighed 
 
 s 2 
 
260 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-collected, 
 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 factitious 
 combination for the sake of exciting 
 wonder or contempt ; except it be, as I 
 have already said, for the pure purpose 
 of illustration, which, when the concor^d- 
 ance of the discor^d is not only apt, but 
 when each part is beautiful in itself^ is 
 not mere wit, but most exquisite poetry : 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 261 
 
 "i isuch as when Burke, speaking of Crqfl^s 
 imitation ofjohison's style, said, *' It had 
 " all the contortions of the sybil without 
 " the inspiration !" 
 
 The comic effect which is produced 
 by the fidelity of natural description de- 
 
 j pends upon a very different talent from 
 Itt'i/ : it depends upon the selection of 
 comic 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 
 this talent, the impropriety or absurdity 
 must actually exist : but it is not so with 
 iclt ; wit can make any thing ridiculous, 
 which is not intrinsically so, because it 
 creates the combination to which the 
 ridicule attaches. Wit, therefore, com- 
 monly wants principle and integrity, as 
 well as heart ; even if these wants are not 
 necessarily included in heartlessness, 
 
 s 3 
 
262 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 After all, Don Juan^ 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 disgust- 
 ing ; but it has, also, almost every sort of 
 poetical merit : there are in it some of 
 the finest passages which Lord Byron 
 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 pronij)t 
 and most richly-stored memory. Tlie 
 invention is lively and poetical ; the 
 descriptions are brilliant and glowing, 
 yet not over-wrouglit, but fresh fioni 
 nature, and faithful to her colours ; anil 
 the prevalent character of the whole, 
 (bating too many dark spots,) not dispi- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 263 
 
 riting, though gloomy ; not misanthropic, 
 though bitter ; and not repulsive to the 
 visions of poetical enthusiasm, though 
 indignant and resentful. 
 
 s 4 
 
264 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 June 20. 
 
 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 will confess, that I know 
 not how to speak of it properly, yet 
 something must be said of it. — Cai?i is a 
 poem much too striking to be passed in 
 silence. But its impiety is so frightful 
 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 tJie 
 very futile defence which has been made 
 for it, against the charge of its attack on 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. Qij5 
 
 the goodness of Providence. It must be 
 obvious to every intelligent reader that 
 the example of Milton does not apply to 
 the manner in which Lord Byron has 
 executed his poem of Cain. Milton puts 
 rebellious and blasphemous speeches into 
 the mouth of Satan ; but Milton never 
 leaves those speeches unanswered : on 
 the contrary, he always brings forward 
 a good angel to controvert triumpliantly 
 all the daring assertions and arguments 
 of the EVIL SPIRIT. Lord Byron leaves 
 all which he ascribes to Cain and Lucifer 
 in their full force on the reader's mind, 
 without even an attempt to repel them. 
 
 It seems to me, that of all Lord Bv- 
 ron's poems this is that of which the ill 
 tendency is most unequivocal, and for 
 which no plausible excuse can be made; — 
 and it is the more dangerous, because it 
 is one of the best written. 
 
 And now I am come to a summarv of 
 Lord Byron's character as a poet ; — and 
 how is it possible for me to pronounce 
 
^266 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 but one jiulgment ? I take the definition 
 of poetry to be but 07ie ; to be simple 
 and indisputable ; and by that must the 
 decision be pronounced. 
 
 That Lord Byron has imaginative in- 
 vention is proved by his Ma7ifred, his 
 Corsair, Lara, Sardanajpalus, &c., and 
 even by his Don Juan ; and that these 
 fictions possess another primary essential, 
 may, I think, be fairly asserted : — this is 
 verisimility , — if the meaning of that word 
 be taken in its enlarged and liberal sense. 
 Only two requisites remain : — the quality 
 of these inventions must be sublime, or 
 pathetic, or beautiful ; and the quality of 
 the language must be congenial to that 
 of the design and feigned circumstances 
 in imagery, force, tenderness, elegance, 
 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 1 assert that that 
 answer nuist be in the affirmative. 
 
 Lord Byron, then, must be admitted to 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. ^(j? 
 
 be a great poet, because he has fulfilled 
 ail the requisites of high poetry. We 
 are bound to try him, as we are bound 
 to try every man of genius, by what he 
 lias done xcelly not by what he has done 
 ill. Mighty powers do not exist the less, 
 because they are not always exerted, or 
 are sometimes abused. 
 
 No genius has taken a greater variety 
 of characters than that of Lord Byron. 
 Sometimes it is all splendour ; sometimes 
 it is all storm, and darkness, and diseased 
 vapour ; sometimes it is a surprising 
 minglement of radiance and cloudiness, 
 where the brilliancy at one moment 
 emerges in broad unveiled effulgence, 
 the next is utterly hidden, and then 
 again just pierces and breaks in faint 
 struggles and light golden spots through 
 the billowy mantle. Such w^as this fiery 
 and portentous meteor ; or will he not 
 rather be 2ijijced star, which will shine 
 for ever in the heaven of poetry ? The 
 
^2(38 LETT E us ON THE 
 
 flame of his imagination was fed by fuel 
 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 the 
 heart and intellectual nature of man ; 
 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'sy 
 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 offend 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 ami black, and tiie 
 rolling tiiunder aggravates the iiorror, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BVRON. Q69 
 
 beams of lightning open to us for a 
 moment a glimpse of the mantled scenery 
 around us. 
 
 Lord Byron, indeed, is the poet, not of 
 imagination only, but especially of ijitel- 
 lect, — I dare not say of reason. No per- 
 son of common judgment will venture to 
 deny, that his poems almost always afford 
 food for thought, even for the severest 
 mind. There are few poets (I scarcely 
 k\\o\wfour^ whose writings are not some- 
 times a little too delicate, too tender, toa 
 refined, to face the rude air of the world 
 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 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 flowers ofpoeti'ij. Lord Byron unitbrmly 
 rejected and disdained these flowers. 
 They are what make the great mass of 
 poetical compositions disgusting to all 
 men of solid 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 
 thousrht 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 imagina- 
 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 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. S?! 
 
 indistinct, so inconceivable, and so mon- 
 strous, that it may be suspected to be 
 little else than a pretence for a set of 
 mysterious 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 
 mind was full ; or, at least, when he 
 fixed on a subject, tlie fertihty 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, always 
 gave a strength and nature to all his intel- 
 lectual acts. Nothing was weak, equivo- 
 cal, affected, or the result of accidental 
 or unintelligible associations. Many of his 
 
27^ 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 painttJig the dif- 
 ference between a picture copied from 
 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 tlie most true and 
 lively representation of general nature. 
 This is distinctly conceived in painting, 
 because it is addressed to the senses, — 
 oculis sulyjecta 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 all 
 the requisites united are so extraordinarily 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. *27S 
 
 rare, tliat in all Europe, in six centuries, 
 the number of those who have exhibited 
 it in a legitimate manner, and in any 
 very 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 equal its fruits, either in delight or 
 in utility? In no other way can the most 
 precious of mere human wisdom, the 
 wisdom which lies in the 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 
 Byron has entirely fulfilled all these high 
 essentials of mighty genius duly exerted. 
 I fear, or rather hope, that he has some- 
 
 T 
 
274f LETTERS ON THE 
 
 times failed in the grandest essential, — 
 truth itself: for to believe that all his 
 representations, and the conclusions re- 
 sulting from all his fictions, are true ; 
 and that 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 Iiaving dwelt for nine-and- 
 twenty days on the same subject, I am 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 275 
 
 not sure that I have not worked myself 
 mto a temperament, on which the heat 
 of my imagination may have overcome 
 the sobriety of my judgment. 
 
 T 2 
 
27^ LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 July 3. 
 
 I HAVE allowed an interval of thirteen 
 days to pass since my last letter, that it' 
 my judgment had become heated, it miglit 
 have time to calm. The result is that 
 I see no reason to change my opinions. 
 I have since conversed intimately witli 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 tlie characters 
 of persons whom we liave not known 
 personally seems to many minds too 
 baseless an attenij)!. Hut sometimes we 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 277 
 
 vsee more perfectly at a distance, thaii 
 when we are very near. There are in- 
 trinsic 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- 
 sofial knowledgey as the only intelligence 
 
 T 8 
 
278 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 to be relied on, and the corrector of fan- 
 ciful speculations and empty guesses, 
 solid thinkers feel assured that they must 
 always be received with caution, and that 
 much depends on the sort of capacity 
 for observation with which tlie relater is 
 endowed. I have had the advantage of try- 
 ing my speculative opinions on Lord Byron 
 by the test of the personal intimacy of one, 
 whose qualifications to observe with sound- 
 ness and comprehension have appeared 
 to me quite indisputable. I have always 
 thought, that Horace Walpole (^Lord 
 OrforcT)y witty and ingenious as he was, 
 relied too much on little anecdotes to 
 pourtray and pull down great characters. 
 And long-memoried but light-minded 
 Antliony Woody in his silly attempt to 
 disparage Lord Clarendon, is to me an 
 apt illustration of my theory. 
 
 An author may liave as much simu- 
 lation in his writings as in his manners ; 
 but a sagacious reader can always detect 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. ^79 
 
 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 obsei'vance," and sometimes soli- 
 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 severe," 
 
 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; how 
 
 T 4 
 
^80 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 lie could see all its petty details, all its 
 trifling absurdities, with such a micros- 
 copic eye ; how he could treasure up in 
 his grand memory, — in a memory filled 
 with such sublime and gigantic images, 
 — such a copiousness of humorous vul- 
 garisms, (and I am afraid I must add, 
 of very slang,") is to me among the nu- 
 merous inconceivable incidents of his 
 inimitable gifts of genius. It would not, 
 indeed, be so wonderful, if we did not 
 compare it with the history of his life. 
 But how small were his opportunities in 
 these walks of observance! After leaving 
 college, he spent scarcely more than three 
 years in England, and of that how little 
 could have been spent in mij:ed society ! 
 When my friend's Anecdotes and Re- 
 cords of the Conversation of this extra- 
 ordinary man shall appear, (as I trust 
 they soon will,) it will be seen how much 
 he shunned mixed society abroad, and how 
 little it could ever have been to his taste 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 281 
 
 in England. As to liis occasional seve- 
 rity and bitterness; his anger and indig- 
 nation at the common characters ^vhich 
 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 maxim of the world. Lord Byron's 
 was the direct reverse : " Wear not a 
 *' mask, whatever you may do or think ! 
 '' I hate a mask : it turns a venial offence 
 " into an odious and irredeemable crime." 
 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 less mischievous, and much more 
 noble, than the contrary. 
 
282 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 The various ways in wliich 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 wliich lie, 
 who undertakes to instruct us, has him- 
 self come. To free men of ordinary 
 talents from timidity and restraint in 
 laying oj)en their mental movements, 
 feelings, and opinions, may prothice no 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 283 
 
 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 w^anted no veiling ; 
 (I speak generally; — every thing is 
 liable to exceptions;) — he wanted no 
 veiling ; the more clearly and less dis- 
 guisedly he was seen, the more rich and 
 magnificent he appeared. 
 
 His powers grew to the last : — the 
 two last cantos of Don Juan (xv, xvi.) 
 were perhaps the best written of any of 
 that 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 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 discovers, the smiles and good humour 
 with which he dehneates and exposes, 
 and the irresistible fidelity and truth with 
 which he marks out the features of his 
 innumerable i)ersonce 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, affords 
 a greater novelty, as well as freedom, in 
 the combination of words, tlian 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 tlic reader by 
 an inexhaustible charm. 
 
I 
 
 GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 285 
 
 There is a sort of genius so abstract 
 and remote, that though we admire its 
 spirituaUty, we have not an entire and in- 
 timate sympathy wdth it, because it seems 
 out of our reach : — too good for us, or 
 too lofiy 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 
 
S8G LETTERS ON THE 
 
 rather than a sensitive being (as poets 
 generally are) demanding our protection ! 
 
 Were not Lord Byron's endowments 
 of the intrinsic merit which belongs to 
 them, yet their extreme rarity, at least, 
 in union, ought alone to secure not 
 only our wonder but our esteem. He 
 stands alone in our poetical biography, 
 unlike all other poets in his endowments, 
 his literary boldness and ease, his per- 
 sonal habits, the extraordinary incidents 
 of his adventurous life, the novelty of 
 his poetical career, and the splendour 
 of his original imagination. I have 
 said our poetical biography, — I ouglit 
 to have said the poetical biograpliy of 
 Europe, 
 
 He had his glories while alive ; but he 
 had also his deep mortifications and 
 insults, even in his poetical cliaracter. 
 He was sometimes criticised in the most 
 foul and treacherous manner ; and it 
 will hereafter be proved that some ol' 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 287 
 
 the charges of bitterness and gross abuse 
 which have been heaped most heavily on 
 his name were justly provoked by out- 
 rageous aggression. 
 
S88 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 July 4. 
 
 Since it has been finally resolved to print 
 these Letters, a little retrospect and more 
 precise guard of some of the opinions ex- 
 pressed in them becomes prudent. Lord 
 Byron, when alive, kept his numerous 
 enemies intimidated and checked by the 
 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 take 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 OF LORD BYRON. 289 
 
 ought to be very explicit, both for Lord 
 Byron's sake and for his own. Were the 
 reprobation and obloquy with which Lord 
 Byron was pursued, from his entrance at 
 Cambridge till his death, just or unjust? 
 Had he not reason for complaint 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 
 desire to receive him with open arms, in 
 spite of errors and faults, — by defiance, 
 outrage of all decorum, avoidance of 
 society, 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 
 his dazzling genius. To me this view of 
 
 u 
 
^90 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 him seems not merely a gross caricature, 
 but a most wicked falsehood. It is not 
 necessary for me to rest my defence on 
 the principle that we ought to limit our 
 consideration to the merits or demerits of 
 an author's writings, and have no con- 
 cern with his private and personal charac- 
 ter, except so far as it affects his writings ; 
 though a great deal might be urged for 
 this principle, especially after an author's 
 death. It seems to me that Lord Byron's 
 personal character has been frightfully 
 misrepresented and misunderstood. 
 
 There is in the world, very generally 
 prevalent, a strange perversion of mind 
 and heart, which forgives to young men 
 who have 7io redeeming virtues or talents 
 that, as the venial folly of early life, which 
 is branded with infamy in Jiim who has 
 genius and a thousand brilliant qualities 
 of heart, and a thousand brilliant actions, 
 which ought to efface even great irregu- 
 larities aud faults. It would be well. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 291 
 
 if genius could always bring with it all 
 virtue, wisdom, prudence, complacency, 
 and self-command, — if high sensibility, or 
 susceptibility, was akcai/s impressible by 
 good^ and Jiever by evil ; — but such is not 
 human nature ; such is not the state in 
 which Providence has sent us into the 
 world ! Lord Byron has been tried by 
 rules not applied to others ; not appli- 
 cable to the qualities of our frail being ; 
 and, what is worse still, very often upon 
 assumed and invented facts ! 
 
 I w^ill run rapidly over such of the ge- 
 nerally-mentioned incidents of his life as 
 I have every reason to believe cannot be 
 contradicted, or, at least, not disproved. 
 I pretend to no personal knowledge, nor 
 to intelligence peculiar to myself. 
 
 It is said that at Cambridge Lord 
 Byron endeavoured to distinguish himself 
 by eccentricities unworthy a man endowed 
 with talents which might command ho- 
 nourable fame. I admit the choice of a 
 
 u 2 
 
LETTERS ON THE 
 
 hear 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 an \ 
 excess of pride, but a good deal of \ 
 vanity, which is not always united with it. ! 
 The truth is, that there was implanted 
 in him that strong love of distinction^ 
 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 I believe) the mortifica- 
 tion of a fortune inadequate to his rank, 
 exposed him to a reception there which 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYllON. ^QS 
 
 dwelt upon his haughty and meditative 
 spirit, soured a temper naturally fierce, 
 and drove his active feelings into extra- 
 vagances in mere despair. This might 
 be regretted ; 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 
 splendid mind was working in him, in his 
 better and more congenial hours, even 
 ?iow. At this crisis he wrote those poems 
 •which were published under the title of 
 Hours of Idleness ! And mark, too, 
 how this effort of a grand spirit emerging 
 from a cloud was met ! — It was turned 
 into the most offensive mockery and in- 
 sult ! ! — The author of that mischievous 
 article has been named to me, but I am 
 not at liberty to repeat it. 1 do not think 
 
 u 8 
 
294 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 critics, 
 and gained an advantage whicli must in 
 some degree have consoled him ; but the 
 wound still rankled : 
 
 — hceret lateri lethalis arundo ! 
 
 The first two cantos of Childe Harold 
 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, may, 
 perhaps, have been indulged during these 
 wanderings ; but it is clear, that they 
 were never suftered to overlay his genius, 
 or break down the energies of his mind 
 or heart. 1 know not whether, if he did 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. ^29«5 
 
 not resist to join in the youthful follies 
 by wliich the more common beings of 
 his age, and rank, and sphere of life en- 
 deavour to render themselves remark- 
 able, the flame which could still burn so 
 brightly in the midst of such an enfeeb- 
 ling and extinguishing atmosphere, did 
 not thus prove its vigour and its virtue 
 more decidedly, than if carefully culti- 
 vated, and kept from all perils and coun- 
 teractions. — It is a sickly flame which 
 never makes the cauldi'on boil over, 
 and cannot live amid winds and tempests, 
 even at the expence of sometimes taking 
 a wrong and dangerous direction. 
 
 At the age of twenty-four, after three 
 years of absence, Lord Byron returned 
 from his first travels. The publication 
 of the first part of Childe Harold 
 (181*2) brought him into immediate 
 fashion. But this sort of fashion, this 
 quick pass from one extreme to another, 
 is almost as dangerous and oversetting in 
 
 u 4 
 
296 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 tlieni- 
 selves tlie xvorlcl, as if these few inni- 
 dreds of silly j)eople formed the exclu- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 297 
 
 sively-important 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 themselv-es for the 
 most part aloof; and when these ea:- 
 clusionalists 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, w^ho 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 the costs of expensive en- 
 tertainments paid ! 
 
^98 LETTERS 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 fairly 
 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 tliese 
 o})erate 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 OF LORD BYRON. ^99 
 
 assembled in large numbers is to mortify 
 each other. I learned many years ago, 
 from good intelligence, that Lord Byron 
 was especially subjected to these effects. 
 I think, therefore, that candour ought to 
 make some allowance, ii\ 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 have 
 had. 
 
 I say tempoy^ary ; — I shall presently 
 show that he emancipated himself from it 
 to a degree and in a manner which has 
 been made an offensive charge against 
 him, but w^hich appears to nie a proof of 
 his radical magnanimity and rectitude. 
 
 But in the midst of this burst of 
 fashionable idolatry his enemies and Iiis 
 traducers never left him. Not only w^ere 
 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 diaboHcal mahgnity. 
 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 he 
 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. 1 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 otlier foreign biogra})hies of our 
 poet. It cannot, however, but strike us, 
 that many a youth of rank has been guihy 
 of a hundred jokes ecpially objectionable, 
 yet against whom sucli acts, if lie hap- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 301 
 
 pened to be stupid, and never to have 
 done a good tiling to covmterbalance 
 them, were never brought forward as 
 objections to his amiableness or respect- 
 abihty. 
 
 Four eventful years (1812 to 1815) 
 passed 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 will- 
 ingly avoid. All the world knows that it 
 was not happy, and that, wherever the 
 fault lay, it embittered the remainder of 
 his days. 
 
 The charge against Lord Byron is, — 
 not that he fell a victim to excessive 
 temptations, and a combination of cir- 
 cumstances which it required a very rare 
 and extraordinary degree of virtue, wis- 
 dom, prudence, and steadiness to sur- 
 mount, — but that he abandoned a situa- 
 tion of uncommon advantages, and fell 
 
30"2 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 weakly, piisillanimously, and selfislily, 
 when victory would have been easy, and 
 when defeat was ignominious. I have 
 anticipated much of the answer to this 
 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 lischtlv the ffift 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 collateral circum- 
 stances in which he was placed. His in- 
 come was very narrow : his Nexvstcad 
 property left him a very small disposable 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYUON. 303 
 
 surplus : his Lancashire property was, in 
 its condition, &c. unproductive. A pro- 
 fession, — such as the army, — might have 
 lessened, or almost annihilated, the dif- 
 ficulties of his peculiar position, — but 
 probably his lameness rendered this im- 
 possible. He seems to have had a love 
 of independence, which was noble, and, 
 probably, 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, witli- 
 out a single good quality of head or 
 heart, might have managed it much 
 better. He might have made himself 
 subservient to government, and wormed 
 himself into some lucrative place ; or he 
 might have lived meanly, conformed him- 
 self stupidly or cringingly to all humours, 
 and been borne onward on the wings of 
 society with little personal expence. 
 
 Lord Byron was of another quality and 
 temperament : if the world would not 
 
304 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 conform to him, still less would he con- 
 form to them. He had all the manly 
 
 ft/ 
 
 baronial pride of his ancestors, though he 
 had not all their wealth, and their means 
 of generosity, hospitality, and patron- 
 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, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. S05 
 
 it wonkl have been admirable it' lie had 
 been an angel, and not a man ! 
 
 Unhappily, the outrages he received, 
 the gross calumnies which were heaped 
 upon him, even in the time of his highest 
 favour with the public, turned the de- 
 liglits of his very days of triumph to 
 poison, and gave him a sort of moody, 
 tierce, and violent despair, which led to 
 humours, acts, and words, that mutu- 
 allv accu'ravated the ill will and the of- 
 fences between him and his assailants. 
 There was a daring spirit in his temper 
 and his talents which was alwavs inflamed 
 rather than corrected by opposition. 
 
 In this most unpropitious state of 
 things, every thing that xce?it wrong was 
 attributed to Lord Byron ; and, when 
 once attributed, was assumed and argued 
 upon as an undeniabley^c/. Yet to mi/ 
 mind it is quite clear, — quite unattended 
 by a particle of doubt, — that in many 
 things in which he has been the most 
 
306 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 blamed he was the absolute victim of 
 imsfortune ; that impropitioiis trains ol' 
 events (for I do not wish to shij} 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 society 
 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 
 to be the to?i, — the lioi, — they may have 
 endured him without opening their 
 mouths, because he had a fiown and a 
 lash which they were not willing to on- 
 counter; but when his back was turned, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYROX. 307 
 
 md they thought 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 monopoHse 
 iistinction, his dislike of all hobbies but 
 his own. 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 the pro- 
 vocations given him ; — sly hints, cui'\'e of 
 the lip, side looks, treacherous smiles, 
 flings at poetry, shrugs at noble authors, 
 slang jokes, ideotic bets, enigmatical 
 appointments, and boasts of being sense- 
 less brutes ! We do not hear repeated 
 the jest of the glory of the Jew, that buys 
 the 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 contract ; and the famous good match 
 
 X Q 
 
1 
 
 308 LETTERS ON THE i 
 
 that the Duke's 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 whisperecj 
 
 round the table by Mr. , eldest sort 
 
 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 and i 
 legislative knowledge of the kingdom, ; 
 and that a poet and a bellman are only : 
 fit to be yoked together ! 
 
 Thus, then, was this ilhistrious and 
 mighty poet driven into exile I Yes, 
 driven! Who would live in a country 
 in which he liad been so used, even 
 though it was the land of his nativity, , 
 the land of a thousand noble ancestors, 
 the land of fieedom, the land where hisf 
 head had been crowned with laurels, — ^ 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 309 
 
 but where his heart had been tortured, 
 where all his most generous and most 
 noble thoughts had been distorted and 
 rendered ugly, and where his slightest 
 errors and indiscretions had been mag- 
 nified into hideous crimes ? 
 
 X S 
 
510 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 July 5,' 
 
 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 injustice, 
 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 tlian others who were 
 less guilty, and might therefore be 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 311 
 
 entitled to scorn, and endeavour to elevate 
 the littleness of their inferiors. 
 
 Yet if the tongue of obloquy and foul 
 accusation was ever busy with Lord By- 
 ron, at every moment and in every direc- 
 tion, the general voice was and will be, 
 that he brought it on himself, and that 
 it was no more than he deserved. The 
 more one thinks on this strange mixture 
 of excessive admiration and excessive 
 hatred that followed him, the more one 
 is astonished and puzzled. The common 
 effect of great admiration, — at least in 
 the public, — is to render the admirers 
 blind to faults. It is especially the habit 
 of those foolish triflers called the world 
 of fashion. But in Lord Byron's case 
 the hate and calumny uniformly aug- 
 mented with the praise and the adulation. 
 Had ally or almost all, the scandalous 
 stories told of him be£n true, (instead 
 of a twentieth part of them, which is the 
 iit77iost,) the same candour, the same 
 
 x 4 
 
31^2 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 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 wliicli I will give 
 them all the benefit; — they have no genius 
 or talent to raise envy, they have no 
 feeling, no heart, and their eccentrici- 
 ties are all mere affectation^ and, wliat is 
 more, the affectation sj^ringing from ig- 
 norance, stupidity, and babyism. 
 
 I know not what Iiarm many of the 
 singularities attributed to Lord Byron, 
 and accomj)anied by so nnich odious 
 censure, would ha\e done if true. If 
 he turnetl nitihl iii((» dav, it was his 
 
GEf^IUS OF LORD BYRON. 313 
 
 own affair : if he was irregular in his 
 meals, and peculiar in his diet, it was his 
 own affair : 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 
 sarcastic, is this imputed to otJiers as a 
 crime ? 
 
 If Lord Byron had been the monster 
 which detestable rumour represented 
 him, then there was nothing which his 
 genius had at that time put forth at all 
 adequate to the redemption of his name, 
 and to render the charm of his writings 
 paramount to the disgust which ought to 
 have been raised by his character. The 
 fact is, that his writings were mainly the 
 r^eflections of his character ; and consist- 
 ency required that they who admired 
 one should admire the other. I suspect, 
 then, that the hatred was sincere ; the 
 admiration hollow, feigned, and the 
 
314 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 mere unexamined echo of a few leadinir 
 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 dis])osition to divert 
 the attention from the points where his 
 strength and his merit lay, to throw it 
 where the praise could not be su})portod, 
 and invidiously to select features that 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 315 
 
 were the ebullitions of those humours, 
 which, though he could not control, he in 
 his hours of more sober thought regretted; 
 and this, too, for the double purpose of 
 connecting them with all his personal er- 
 rors, and giving exaggerated strength to 
 his 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 being, what 
 virtue, what superiority to vulgar good- 
 ness, there was in those happier fits of 
 exertion, when the more sublime or more 
 pathetic inspirations of his Muse broke 
 into utterance, and were embodied in his 
 most eloquent and enchanting language ! 
 Yet these, he found, were taken as vain 
 words which availed his moral character 
 nothing in the estimation of mankind ; 
 while all his ribaldry, all of his lower or 
 more evil nature, were solely taken as 
 
31() LETTERS ON THE 
 
 part of himself! ** But what," cries the 
 arch-censLirer, ** 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- 
 sary to produce perfection ; but is there 
 no virtue in the grand and beautiful 
 speculations of the mind, w^hen they are 
 sincere ? We are not mere material 
 beings ; nor will the rectitude of our 
 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 grand, 
 tender, beautiful, and just sentiments, 
 who is not virtuous at the moment of 
 their impression. The reverse of this, 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 OF LORD BYRON. 317 
 
 a public, not equally nice on other oc- 
 casions, than strictly and fairly belong' 
 to it. 
 
 So far, then, Lord Byron had much 
 stronger reason for his bitterness, his 
 discontent, and his misanthropy, than 
 has been granted to him. It was not all 
 sunshine with him, as has been repre- 
 sented : the situation he is said to have 
 thrown away did not afford so much 
 ground for gratitude, rather than gloom 
 and hatred. He perceived that, 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 his great intellect, the mel- 
 lowness and sobriety of added years, 
 
318 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 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 fame 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 affairs 
 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 wliom the blow has fallen 
 liave not been responsible. It may be 
 said that we ouirht to calcuhite all our 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 319 
 
 means, and conform ourselves to the 
 abridgment of them, from whatever 
 cause it may have arisen. This position 
 may be abstractly correct ; but never yet 
 to any individual was it applied in all its 
 severity. Any censure, therefore, as re- 
 sponsible for this cause, is not worth re- 
 futing, because I know not that any one 
 has expressed it. 
 
 It seems, in fact, that Lord Byron was 
 one whose pride and independence were 
 maddened 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 
 deserved 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 
 
320 LETIEHS ON THE 
 
 could dictate on one side was heard ; 
 when all of malignant tendency was swal- 
 lowed on that side, in defiance of the 
 most repelling improbabilities ; when 
 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 bv the llJibie at 
 Geneva, in June, 181G. He has given a 
 most rich and eloquent account of his 
 jouyiieij to this city, and his residence 
 here during the remaining months of 
 181(), in the third canto of Ch'ildc Ha- 
 rold. Whoever reads that cantOy and is 
 not im])ressed with the many grand 
 virtues as well as gigantic })owers of the 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 321 
 
 mind that wrote it, seems to me to afford 
 a proof both of insensibility of heart and 
 great stupidity of intellect. It required 
 a soul of very extraordinary fortitude 
 and grandeur not to be broken down 
 and rendered lifeless by such trials and 
 oppressions 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 
 faculties 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- 
 j lery, could it have been an indulgence 
 1 of passion and of vengeance, which 
 '; (though it might have been regretted) 
 could have been either wondered at or 
 
 Y 
 
S^^ LETTERS ON THE f 
 
 thought unpardonable ? — But, no ! ho 
 surmounts this unamiable, though na- 
 tural, passion ; never was his heart more 
 tender ; never was his love of nature 
 more intense ; never were his thoughts 
 more magnificent, or his images more 
 brilliant ! He threw away painful recol- 
 lections by gazing on the gigantic scener\ 
 around him ; he cultivated a solitude 
 which I will not believe that guilt can i 
 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 Diodati: a name rendered sacred by MU- 
 toid friendship. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 
 
 of water appears magnificently spread 
 before it ; and beyond, the Jura moun- 
 tains ; to the west, Geneva ghttering be- 
 neath at a mile distant ; to the east, at 
 the top of the lake, Lausanne, 
 
 I doubt not that he had sometimes his 
 fill of meditation here till he w^as sick ; 
 and that the cup of bitterness could not 
 always be kept from his lips. He was 
 not happy : but as Charlotte Smith ex- 
 claimed in one of her beautiful poems : 
 
 « 
 
 " Ah ! who is happy ?" 
 
 Let the reader turn to his description 
 of Rousseau ; and of the scenery of 
 Clarens ; and say, whether the fountain 
 of tender love in Lord Byron's heart was 
 extinguished, or chilled. 
 
 Milt07i says in Comus : 
 
 " When lost 
 
 By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, 
 But most by lewd and lavish act of sin. 
 Lets in defilement to the inward parts, 
 
 Y ^ 
 
324 - LETTERS ON THE 
 
 The soul grows clotted by contagion, 
 Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose 
 The divine property of her first being." 
 
 Could Lord Byron's soul, when he 
 wrote this cantOy be imbodied and im- 
 bruted ? 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 3^5 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 July 6. 
 
 IT is said that the crime of disseminat- 
 ing evil opinions is greater than the crime 
 of evil acts ; ^rst, because it is more 
 deUberate ; secondly, 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 strictly 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 j much less 
 to those which are doubtful ; and least of 
 aU, where the general spirit of the com- 
 position counterbalances, or goes far to 
 counterbalance, the mischief. 
 
 Whatever contains that which awakens 
 the reader's imagination to grand con- 
 
 Y 3 
 
326 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 ceptions or grand emotions ; whatever 
 softens and refines the heart, and gives 
 hght, vigour, and impulse to the under- 
 standing; is an unquestionable preparative 
 to virtue, even if it be not virtue itself 
 It will be answered, that men who have 
 produced such fruits have been often 
 vicious. I doubt it : men who have 
 written the turgid, the affected, the false- 
 pathetic, have often been so, because 
 they were pretenders, and only acted a 
 part. 
 
 In all our attempts to improve human 
 nature, we ought always to have regard 
 to its frailties, its dispositions, and the 
 tendency of its passions : all excessive 
 puritanism leads to hypocrisy, and breeds 
 more mischiefs than it cures. It may be 
 admitted tliat Lord Byron not unfre- 
 quently pushed this principle too far ; 
 but it may fairly be supposed that he 
 acted u})on it, and that it will often 
 justify him in cases where he lias been 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 327 
 
 most unsparingly blamed. It cannot be 
 solidly and enduringly beneficial to 
 society, that pretence and disguise should 
 take the place 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, — and ther^ rest con- 
 tent. To pierce the veil, and show things 
 in their true light, is a mortal oftence, 
 and always confounded (wilfully con- 
 founded) with an attack on virtue itself. 
 If truth were not thus unmantled and 
 brought to view, no sagacious mind nor 
 sound taste w^ould be pleased with it ; 
 and truth may surely be in general safely 
 spoken ; where it may not be spoken, the 
 onus probandi lies on the side of the ea:- 
 ception. There are, no doubt, cases, 
 where pictures, though faithful, are yet 
 pernicious or dangerous to morals. If 
 the preponderant quantity of Lord 
 Byron's works is of this cast, they ought 
 
 Y 4 
 
328 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 to sink. I, for one, most strenuously 
 deny that 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 stiJl worse, to 
 gain money, which shall feed his own 
 love of lucre, reckless all the while 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 by. 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 otiiers, others need 
 not pay attention to what sliall result 
 to us. 
 
 There is, indeed, oiiten a bhndness, an 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 3^9 
 
 inebriety, a delirium in passion, which 
 hides these consequences from men, and 
 makes them flatter themselves that they 
 may be exempted from general rules, 
 and enjoy the pleasures without being 
 subjected to the day of retribution ; who 
 go on with the charm as long as it will 
 work ; and care not who suffers, while 
 their own ears can be tickled with flattery 
 and applause. 
 
 There are parts in almost all Lord 
 Byron's poems, and incidents in almost 
 every part of his life, which refute the 
 application of this character to him/ 
 His enemies and defamers have applied 
 it to him : but much of the venom by 
 which he has suffered has probably risen 
 from the reverse of it ; from the bitter- 
 ness or ridicule with which he has attacked 
 common passions and common follies ; 
 from the nobler impulses which he has 
 striven to substitute for them ; from the 
 attempt to turn the tide of impetuous 
 
590 
 
 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 passion, which the evil condition of 
 hiinuin nature will engender, into grander 
 vices, and delights more intense, more 
 heart- felt, and spiritu:d ! So it is that all 
 the finer parts of Lord Byron's poetry ^ 
 would have made no impression either 
 on the fashionable world or the mob of 
 society, if they had come from a saini : 
 it is an universal feeliuix that the reader 
 prefers Lovelace with idl his profligacy 
 to the cold, tame, formal, unnatural Sir 
 Charles Grandison. Lord Byron had all 
 tlie attractions of Loreiace, with the ad- 
 dition of a splendid, elevating, and ro- 
 mantic genius ! As cold, tame, rule-bound 
 \'irtue is the least beneficial to society, 
 so cautious, calculating, heartless Nice 
 does the most unqualified ill : it is a creep- 
 ing, insidious poison, which wins its way 
 imperceptibly, and is not detected till 
 too late. 
 
(C;ifi!BlunQDS 4lilF HfllBTO KWlfiflffiSL -SSI 
 
 LETTER XXXIW 
 
 I jmr idialt wb^ DfOlttfar df' y e srito r di y 
 
 dfaMMorlt de«db|nnn^ Itftie iidleas it 
 
 .1 1tfi» doanre;^. I wjs jinnttiBF- 
 
 f^ amdl alt ltjl»e wauc tmtt I Idk way 
 
 .raoDitt df pmKw. I niBHlt lamn^ 
 
 iittsi i&dte'^ ijnwlrtri oiC icflnnnni^ oV^v^ sttali 
 
 '$ m«idks: iAm cr 
 
33^ LETTERS ON THE 
 
 not now, I believe, (nor perhaps ever 
 was,) any difference of opinion as to 
 conceding to him excellence in the 
 latle?^ : in the former 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, raillery, 
 defiance, ridicule of pretended virtue, 
 and unsparing attack on those on whom 
 the world confers its favours, which have 
 been deemed so unamiable, so ferocious, 
 and so unprincipled. Lord Byron had 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 333 
 
 seen mankind without a mask, partly 
 from sagacity, and partly from suffering ; 
 and he was provoked to represent them 
 with a rude and daring fidelity. He 
 sometimes caricatured : but then every 
 one must see that it was meant for a 
 caricature. 
 
 And now I have got back to the point 
 with which I ended my thirty -second 
 letter. I repeat, that much of that 
 gloom, and those bursts of indignation, 
 displayed by Lord Byron after his retire- 
 ment to the Continent in 1816, which 
 have been pursued with such tirades of 
 galling censure, had a natural and venial, 
 if not justifiable, cause; and not only do 
 not prove the heartless pride and selfish- 
 ness imputed to him, but prove, on the 
 contrary, that with all his outw^ard port 
 of haughty and reckless disregard, he 
 had at the bottom a bosom which was 
 the fountain of tenderness ; a deep, con- 
 siderate, contemplative mind, intensely 
 
334 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 sensitive of the sorrows of our nature ; a 
 conscience awake, full of regrets, and 
 ever pondering on our frailties ; a fancy 
 always conversant with beauty and gran- 
 deur ; and an imagination accustomed to 
 create not merely visions of material 
 splendour but of moral sublimity ! I re- 
 collect nothing in Lord Byron's poems, 
 which is purely and merely descriptive : 
 the strong feelings of humanity always in- 
 termix themselves with all his imagery. 
 
 Here, then, is the index of the moral 
 state of Lord Byron in the summer and 
 autumn of 1816. He who is conscious 
 to himself of thoughts, sentiments, and 
 powers vastly elevated above those who 
 insult and traduce him can scarcely avoid 
 to be agitated by strong emotions of 
 spleen, resentment, and scorn. If he 
 be not of a soft, feminine, sickly tem- 
 perament, he will not answer the in- 
 juries by winning complaints and cowardly 
 protestations of innocence ; but he will 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 335 
 
 jt 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 
 class — who will contend, that an author 
 ought not in his poetical fictions designed 
 for the public to intermix them wdth 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- 
 
 I louring, the7i 1 should have considered 
 it as an infallible test that he had no 
 heart or moral sensitiveness. It is on 
 this very fact, on which so much fright- 
 ful odium and calumny is built, that I 
 f found my conviction of his high sensi- 
 bilities, and moral elevation of intellect. 
 I speak this with reference to his com- 
 positions considered comprehensively : 
 I cannot but feel that his genius, like his 
 
SS6 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 self-control would, 
 in checking his excesses, have also tamed 
 and bhfjhted many of his beauties. His 
 fearlessness, his detiance, his very anger, 
 gave to liis 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 liis 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 unnecessar}- 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 him. 
 
 I 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 337 
 
 and none, I fear, will follow him. He 
 acted from his own humours ; he wrote 
 and spoke nothing merely because it was 
 plausible j he was himself, and none 
 but himself, — whether he differed from 
 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 thev 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 
 Bvron went onward to Venice, where, 
 I believe, he remained two or three years. 
 The fourth canto of Childe Harold gives 
 some account of his residence here, and 
 
 z 
 
338 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 of his visits to the south of Italij 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 Fisa, It was not, I think, 
 till 1823 that he quitted Italy for Greece. 
 In July, 1822, he was deprived of liis 
 friend Bysshe Shelley , who was lost in a 
 storm off 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 liis life, by his writings. 
 I pay little attention to the hundred silly 
 stories wliich folly and malignity have 
 busied themselves in circulatiug. Somany 
 liave been proved to be false, that com- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 839 
 
 mon candour ought to presume the rest 
 to be so. That his mind was never 
 idle, that his imagination exerted itself 
 in eloquent and splendid inventions, is 
 sufficiently attested. He has given an 
 account, in a note to one of his poems, 
 of the very few English he chose to 
 admit to his society when at Venice ; 
 and much 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 had not much reason to love 
 his countrymen ; and still less to love 
 their society. He was not, like Dmite^ 
 exiled by la.'w from the land of his nati- 
 vity : but he was exiled by circumstances 
 not less painful, and certainly more 
 inimical to private and personal attach- 
 ments. A much less irritable man, and 
 of more guarded habits and manners 
 than Lord Byron, might well have 
 avoided the flocks of his curious but ill- 
 
 z 2 
 
340 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 discriminating countrymen, who come to 
 stare and make wonders ; and to repeat, 
 without just observation, and even with- 
 out regard 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 
 far 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 point in 
 Jo/mso?i's Life of Dryden^ who was said 
 not at all to answer in this respect the 
 character of his uenius. I have ob- 
 served, that vulgar readers almost always 
 lose their veneration for the writings of 
 the genius with whom they have had j)er- 
 sonal intercourse. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 341 
 
 It has been supposed, that without a 
 constant exercise of observation, without 
 a constant famiharity with men and 
 manners, all opinions of life are merely 
 visionary, inexact, and empty. Lord 
 Byron is at any rate a contradiction to 
 this : his inexhaustible intimacy with 
 living manners is among his numerous 
 surprising superiorities. At tlie same 
 time, it may be justly questioned if ab- 
 solute solitude is good for man. All tlie 
 faculties of the mind are freshened and 
 invigorated by variety, by select convers- 
 ation, and the endearments of social 
 intercourse. From these Lord Byron 
 never withdrew himself: he was no 
 merely dreaming, merely ideal recluse : 
 he had a keen delight in the cheer which 
 generous spirits receive from hospitality ; 
 he loved all manly exercises. It might 
 be said by him, 
 
 " Tower*cl cities please us then. 
 And the busy hum of men, 
 
 z 3 
 
842 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 And throngs of knights, and barons bold, 
 With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
 
 Rain influence : 
 
 And pomp, and feast, and revelry, 
 With mask and antique pageantry." 
 
 And such, I suppose, was the Hfe lie 
 led at Ve?iice. He was not, howevci', 
 insensible to the manner in which liis 
 name was treated in England by very 
 powerful parties, tliough he rose above 
 it. His genius was praised, — some- 
 times fulsomely praised, — his poems 
 were bouglit and read, — liis assumed 
 merits and demerits were upon eveiy 
 tongue : criticism paid a sort of worsliip 
 to him ; but it was a worsliip such as is 
 paid to ihc devil : — a worship of feai', 
 intermingled with ill-suppressed horror. 
 There was a bitter tln'own into the cup 
 of every flattery, which turned it to 
 poison ; — and where there was not cour- 
 age to attack him under tlie criticism oi' 
 his own works, tlie most virulent flingj. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD LYRON. 3iS 
 
 were made at him sometimes by sinHc 
 passages, sometimes by whole pages in 
 articles wliich undertook to criticise tlie 
 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- 
 ties, 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 wdn its way, and that 
 the popular opinion is always just. 1 
 cannot conceive a position more absurd 
 in reason, and more disproved by facts 
 and the w^iole history of literature. In 
 theory and reason how can it be so ? — 
 What are taste and judgment but the 
 
344 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 result of native sensibility and talent, im- 
 proved by cultivation, experience, know- 
 lege, and extensive power and habit of 
 comparison ? Does a common mind like 
 Milton as well as Fomfret ? or Collins as 
 well as Ambrose Phillips or Gay ? And 
 how, if it were true, can poems be in 
 every one's hands for half a dozen 
 years, and then totally sink ? 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 innne- 
 diate fame, is partly the result of a com- 
 bination of lucky incidents, and partly of 
 management. Much depends upon a pub- 
 lisher ; much upon politics ; much upon 
 the influence of literary friends and ac- 
 
GENIUS OF LOUD BYRON. 345 
 
 qiiaiiitance, — 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 
 merit, then what has been thus acci- 
 dentally brought into notice will keep its 
 station. And thus, sometimes, these 
 accidents even produce the genius, as 
 well as bring it into notice ; because 
 there are occasions when encouraoement 
 and praise force into future bloom what 
 accident had only first shown in embryo. 
 Much of Lord Byron's fame was anterior 
 
SiiG LETTERS ON THE 
 
 to the works which have entitled him to 
 its continuance. 
 
 Bat the singularity of his character and 
 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 har- 
 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 biusts of short exult- 
 ation than of steady and complacent en- 
 joyment in the years of his intense yet 
 clouded glory, which must have been 
 
GEXIUS OF LORD BYRON. 347 
 
 accompanied by so much feverish and 
 variable tumult. But had he a tempera- 
 ment which would have been more happy 
 in an ordinary and sober course of events ? 
 Were not restlessness and tumult his ele- 
 ment ? Was he not born to ride on the 
 whirlwind, and battle with the tempest? 
 His energies would have gangrened, and 
 oppressed him to the earth, if they had 
 not found vent. He had a dominion 
 over the public mind, in spite of all its 
 rebellions and all its enmities against him, 
 which must have been an almost inebriat- 
 ing triumph to his aspiring and haughty 
 mind. 
 
 I have serious doubt, whether any 
 other 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 
 possibility of this, but I am entitled to 
 
 * z 8— A A 
 
348 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 deny the 'probability I 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. 
 
 Fruges consumere natum ! 
 
 He might have lived ! — but what is 
 life worth, to be consumed in sloth and 
 uselessness ? 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 349 
 
 LETTER XXXV. 
 
 July 8. 
 
 It is universally agreed that mediocrity 
 in poetry is not to be endured ; but the 
 greatest genius pays high for the few 
 liappy 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 fits 
 of intense delight. When alone, he 
 must have been deeply and incessantly 
 occupied : 
 
 " in sweet retired solitude 
 
 He plumed his feathers, and let grow his wings. 
 That in the various bustle of resort . 
 Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd." 
 
 A A 2 
 
350 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 Much has been said of his pecuUarities. 
 I never saw a real genius, or read the 
 account of one, who was not pecuHar, 
 who had not many eccentricities of feel- 
 ing, manner, and habit. I 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 writings 
 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 S/iakspearCy — for all his poetry 
 breathes of human life in its most ani- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 351 
 
 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. 
 
 After all, one cannot help suspecting, 
 on 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- 
 sair, Lara, The Giaour, The Bride ofAhy- 
 dos, Parisina, Manfred, &c., than belongs 
 to them. The incidents, liabits, &c., are 
 much too remote from modern and Euro- 
 pean life to act as mischievous examples 
 to others ; while under the given circum- 
 stances, 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 of the 
 
 A A 3 
 
35^ LETTERS ON THE 
 
 reader's mind an impulse which elevates, 
 refines, instructs, and enchants with the 
 noblest and purest of all pleasures. 
 
 At the 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 bo 
 displayed, with a strict adherence to the 
 actual appearances and actual course 
 of the human passions inider tiie situ- 
 ations and events assumed. I do not say 
 that this was exclusively with him a choice 
 of pure abstract judgment. Fortuitous 
 causes concurred in it ; for, no doubt, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 353 
 
 the course of his youthful travels, his 
 personal experiences, and the bent of 
 his own genius, had all a powerful in- 
 fluence. So far he was born under a 
 lucky planet ; for all united to raise him 
 to the rank of one of our greatest poets. 
 I have said nothing about Lord By- 
 ron's politics ; my concern with him has 
 been as a poet : in politics, I have always 
 entertained opinions very different from 
 his ; but never in my life did I allow my- 
 self, or even feel the inclination, to inter- 
 mix political prejudices with 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 is the canker- 
 worm, or rather the direct and rapid de- 
 stroyer, of our modern literature : it is 
 ruinous to both sides, though of course 
 the popular politicians have the ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 A A 4 
 
^54 LETTER^ ON 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 
 censured for their unbounded extrava- 
 gance and virulence ; 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 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 355 
 
 ruinous and deep-laid corruptions of 
 power, he might be entitled to use very 
 strong indignation, ridicule, and wit, in 
 favour of the principles he espoused, — 
 though still under the restraint of taste 
 and decency. And he could not be ex- 
 pected to contemplate even glorious vic- 
 tories, which went to re-establish power 
 he deemed dangerous to the happiness of 
 mankind, with the complacency, and, still 
 less, with the triumph, which they who 
 held revolutions, and the anarchy they 
 considered as attendant on them, in 
 horror, would necessarily feel. To me, 
 not all the cruelties of arbitrary power 
 which history records can equal in 
 horror the ferocities, the bloodshed, and 
 ruin of revolutionary anarchy ; — but 
 different minds may honestly make dif- 
 ferent calculations, and see things in 
 different lights. When once the atten- 
 tion is awakened to the evil conduct, the 
 follies, the mistakes, the intrigues, the 
 
356 LKTTEIIS ON rHK 
 
 treacheries, the corruptions of govern- 
 ments, it may find food for its denunci- 
 ations which will not easily be exhausted. 
 A mind of intuitive perception, like 
 Lord Byron's, a heart of quick and 
 strong emotion, and a frankness and 
 force of language to give vent to his 
 impressions, were almost inevitably led to 
 many of those scornful ebullitions 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 falls 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 itselfl The answer, imleeil. 
 
 A: 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYROX. 3,57 
 
 will be, that Lord Byron carries it to a 
 greater excess. If he does, is it not 
 principally because his powers are greater 
 than those of others ? Partly, 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 1*' 
 
 But I know^ not how to wish he had 
 never written Do7i 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 fii'st seemed to press hard 
 on this ii'reat man's brilliancv lessen and 
 lessen, and his "lories come out more and 
 
S5S LETTERS ON THE 
 
 more effulo-ent. Tlie refiectino; mind 
 gi'adually catches sometliing of his radi- 
 ance ; and then it iinds that its former 
 objections arose partly from its own nar- 
 ro\Miess and bhndness 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 
 Bvron's poetry, but upon its results to 
 societv, is Cai?h Yet, it must be confessed, 
 that there is no inconsiderable j)ortion of 
 that poem which is second only to por- 
 tions of similar import in Milton, — and 
 manv of them ?wt seco?id ; in a stvle 
 still sweeter and more eloquent, and with 
 equal force, grandeur, and purity of sen- 
 timent and conception ; such as the 
 most rio-idlv-relio'ious mind would have 
 read, if it had come from jVIilton, or any 
 other poet whose piety was not suspected, 
 as the effusion of something apj)roaching 
 to holy inspiiation. Let us then reconsider 
 
CEN'IUS OF LORD BYRON'. 359 
 
 this extraordinary' poem, which we have 
 abandoned a httle too hastilv : let us 
 task our candour afresh, and enquire of 
 oursehes, whether he who could write 
 such passages could mean wrong? Let 
 us recollect, that as the rebellious and 
 blasphemous speeches he has put into the 
 mouths of Lucifer and Cain are warrant- 
 ed by Milton's example, and the fact of 
 Cain'^ transgression recorded in the Bible, 
 the omission of the design and filling up 
 a character who should answer all those 
 speeches miglit be a mere defect in the 
 poet's judgment I He might think that 
 Lucifer's known character, as an Evil 
 Spirit, precluded his arguments from the 
 sanction of authority, and that Cain's 
 punishment, and the denunciations which 
 accompanied it, were a sufficient warning. 
 I know not that any objection has been 
 made to Heave?i and Earth, It has the 
 same cast of excellence as the more per- 
 
360 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 feet parts of Cain, but, perhaps, not quite 
 so intense in degree. 
 
 It seems as if Lord Byron persuaded 
 himself, with regard to his own being, 
 that he had always within him two con- 
 trary spirits of good and evil contending 
 for the dominion over him, and thus 
 reconciled those extraordinary flights of 
 intellectual elevation and purity with a 
 submission to the pride, the ferocity, the 
 worldly 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 
 
I 
 
 GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. S6l 
 
 him up on its wings into ethereal regions, 
 far above the gross and sensual enjoy- 
 ments of this grovelling earth. Did he 
 deal, as minor poets deal, in mere splen- 
 dour of words, his poetry would be no 
 proof of this ; but he 7ieve?^ does so : — 
 there is always a breathing soul beneath 
 his words, 
 
 " That o'er-informs the tenement of clay :" 
 
 it is like the fragrant vapour that rises 
 in incense from the earth through the 
 morning dew^ ; and w^hen we listen to 
 his lyre, 
 
 " Less than a God we think there cannot dwell 
 Within the hollow of that shell, 
 That sings so sweetly, and so well !" 
 
 If Lord Byron thought, that however 
 loudly noisy voices might salute him with 
 a rude and indiscriminate clamour of 
 applause, his poems were not received 
 with the taste and judgment they merit- 
 
36^ 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 genius without per- 
 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 ** faint 
 " praise" is " to damn ;" to confer praise 
 in a wrong place is to insult and pro- 
 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 tlie 
 energies of his Muse than a continued 
 abode in England would have been. The 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 363 
 
 poison 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- 
 tercourse 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 
 from these evils : he saw^ a few^ intimate 
 friends, and he corresponded with a few 
 others ; but such an intercourse does not 
 expose to similar effects. The necessary 
 knowledge and necessary hints may thus 
 be conveyed j but not all the pestilent 
 chills which general society is so officious 
 to unveil. 
 
 A high self-confidence is necessary 
 for the production of all vigorous fruit : 
 it of course is not the sole nor primary 
 
 B B 
 
364 LETTKHS OX THK 
 
 essential ; it cannot produce it, where 
 ffenius does not already exist : where 
 such does not exist, it will only expose 
 to failures and inanities. 
 
 It' Lord Byron had not had a mind 
 with a strong spring of virtue witiiin 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 i 
 sensual pleasures of his rank for the 
 remainder of his life. The liner parts 
 of iiis 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. 
 
\ 
 
 OKNHJS OI LORD UYUON. 3C)3 
 
 LE'i'I'KK XXXVI. 
 
 July 9. 
 
 IjORi) i5yR0\*.s style, like liis thoughts, 
 had every variety : it did not attempt 
 (as is the common practice) to make 
 poetry f)y the metaphorical and the 
 figurative ; it followed his thoughts, and 
 was a part of* thc^m : it did not fatigue 
 itself* to render clear hy illustration, or 
 important by ornament^ because the 
 thought was clear or important in itself: 
 if the thought be sufficient U) fill the 
 inind, the ornament is superfluous j if it 
 be not, the attention is drawn from the 
 principal to the secondary. J do not 
 mean to inveigh against occasional meta- 
 phors: there are figures which rise up with 
 the thoughts unsought and involuntarily 
 in particular moods of mind ; but a con- 
 stantly ornamented style is nauseous, 
 
 B B ^ 
 
3()6 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, Cai?i, 
 
 " 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 coming — 
 
 His setting indescribable, which fills 
 
 My eyes with pleasant teai's 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 voice — 
 
 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 n)y eyes and heart, 
 
 Like Adah's face : I turn from earth and heaven 
 
 To gaze on it." 
 
GENIUS OF LOUD BVUON. SGj 
 
 In another place, speaking of the 
 beauty of the sky, and tlie stars tliathght 
 it, Cain says, 
 
 « What 
 
 Is this blue wilderness of interminable 
 
 Air, where ye roll along as I have seen 
 
 The /eaves alotig the limpid streams of Eden ?" 
 
 Did iMilton ever write a more beautiful 
 line than the last ? It would be as easy 
 to persuade me that there is no splendour 
 or 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 whole poem 
 of Cain, from beginning to end, is com- 
 posed in a style as beautifid. I re- 
 member when \ first read Cain, I thought 
 it, as a composition, the most enchanting 
 B B 3 
 
368 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 and irresistible of all Lord Byron's works, 
 and I think so still. Some of the senti- 
 ments taken detachedly, and left un- 
 answered, are no doubt dangerous, and 
 therefore ought not to have been so left ; 
 — but the class of readers whom this poem 
 is likely to interest are of so very elevated 
 a cast, and the effect of the poetry is to 
 refine, spiritualise, and illumine the im- 
 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- 
 sisted 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 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYROX. 369 
 
 it ; the mere outward forms of things are 
 insipid and inert ; almost all the interest 
 is derived from what the poet associates 
 with them, or what he inspires them with. 
 But he must perform his task according 
 to certain laws of our nature, and in a 
 manner with which the bosoms of others 
 are formed to sympathise. Tlie same in- 
 visible shapes are about us all : many 
 cannot see them even when turned into 
 palpable form, unless reflected from the 
 fancies 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 as 
 are common to our nature. 
 
 I can perceive nothing in what vulgar 
 fashion or vulgar criticism calls poetry 
 but gaudy, superfluous, and tedious words. 
 Of all reading it is the least interesting 
 and the most unprofitable. The effect of 
 true poetry, on the contrary^, is like a 
 veil suddenly withdrawn, where all be- 
 
 B B 4 
 
370 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 tliousands 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 iEolian harp to the 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 liappy. I suspect that, like 
 vigour of body, tlie very strength witli- 
 out exercise will turn to disease. The 
 wonder is, how Lord Byron coukl do so 
 much : — not that lie did so little ! — so 
 young, too ; so i'ond of out-door plea- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. SJ i 
 
 sLires, 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 vh'tue 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 5 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 passions 
 to contend with ; he burned for distinc- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 373 
 
 tion, as all great minds ever burn ; — yet, 
 for many years, all his efforts were turned 
 to insult. The early death of his father, 
 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 
 affluence, notice, and rank, had intro- 
 duced a new set of purse-proud 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 manners of London began, 
 about the period of his birth, to turn all 
 the long-settled opinions and customs of 
 upper society topsy-turvy. Pitt, 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 
 preference of the 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, w^as 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 uj)on him, be- 
 cause he was not placid in the state of 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYliOX. 375 
 
 difficulty ill which lie was phiced. 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 
 related, with all the splendour of poetic 
 eloquence, the powerful sentiments and 
 enlightened observations to which those 
 enterprising travels 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 provokinglv 
 calumnious, came upon him, he retired 
 again to the Continent, gloomy, but 
 neither yet despondent, nor even abated 
 in his fire ; and then, for the remainder 
 of his short life, he seemed, by the fruits 
 he produced, as if he had only sat by 
 the fountain of Helicon, and drank its 
 waters, and dreamed its inspired dreams ! 
 
376 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XXXVII. 
 
 July 10. 
 
 1 PERCEIVE, since I wrote my last, that I 
 am quite in opposition to the periodical 
 critics on both sides in my judgment of 
 Cain, 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 lair a chance of 
 being right, as those from whom he dif- 
 fers. There is some advantage, indeed, 
 in wearing a mask, because onme ob- 
 scurum pro magiiifico est. Thus I quit 
 the subject, not at all inclined to retract, 
 because I am not supported by the au- 
 tliority of reviewers. 
 
 I come to a point not of so much im- 
 port to Lord Byron as a poet ; — I mean 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 877 
 
 his Letter^ regarding Bowleses Strictures 
 on Pope^ dated from Ravenna y ^th Feb. 
 1821. This was, probably, written hastily, 
 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 a 
 confused manner, and often expressed 
 with an aukwardness and even vulgarity 
 which quite surprises me. 
 
 Johnson has said in his Life of Gray^ 
 that " an epithet or metaphor drawn from 
 <' nature ennobles art ; an epithet 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. 
 
378 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 is founded Bowleses condemnation of 
 Pope's poetry and genius, and this is the 
 judgment which Lord Byron undertakes 
 to controvert ; and which it seems that 
 Mr. Botcles (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 slnjj^ 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 sholter 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 
 left nothin^if to be done bv man's own la- 
 hour and ingenuity: — we might as well 
 
GENIUS OF LOUD BYROX. 379 
 
 say that the flower and the plant which 
 cannot be reared witliout the assistance 
 of man's culture and care exhibit no 
 beauty which forms an image for pure 
 poetry. 
 p: Lord Byron 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 this earthly 
 creation, but all else of animate ex- 
 istence ; and that mere description of 
 scenery, where man formed no ingredient, 
 was comparatively unaffecting and im- 
 perfect. All this might have been safely 
 ventured as an abstract position, in- 
 stead of multiplying so many illustrations 
 to prove a truism. 
 
 Lord Byron then jumps to the conclu- 
 sion that moral truth is the primary object 
 and grand ingredient of poetry ; and that 
 Pope dedicated himself most to moral 
 
 c c 
 
380 LETTERS 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 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. S81 
 
 ** confusion of tongues, but never among 
 ** the envious destroyers of the classical 
 ** temple of our predecessor." Reason- 
 ing as Lord Byron 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 own splendid merit was 
 not inconsistent with Poj^e's splendid 
 merit. 
 
 It is not easy to pursue Lord Byron 
 through this letter on any plan, for all 
 his thoughts are thrown together with 
 strange irregularity, and form a perfect 
 maze. In one place he lays down the 
 strange assertion, that *' the poet is always 
 *' ranked according to his execution, and 
 *« not according to his branch of the art !" 
 "Why, then, the writer of the best epigram 
 is a better poet than Davenant, because 
 Gondihert is not a perfect epic. 
 
 But here follows Lord Byron's main 
 c c 2 
 
382 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 ; and 
 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 tluis been 
 led to confound the means with the end. 
 The end is moral truth ; but the means 
 ought to hejiction, — 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 
 
\ 
 
 GENIUS OF LORD BYJION. 383 
 
 ** give a local habitation and a name to 
 ** airy nothing." — This Pope in many of 
 liis ethical poems has not done ; so far, 
 then, Pope is deficient in the essentials 
 of poetry. In these compositions Pope is 
 a mere versifier for pages together. Now 
 and then he mixes in them grand bursts 
 of perfect poetry ; for Pope could write 
 not only beautiful but sublime poetry, 
 when he chose : beautiful and sublime in 
 matter^ 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- 
 tions are not purely picturesque (in the 
 technical sense), and confined to land- 
 scape-painting and rural scenery ; but 
 because he does not deal in any imagery 
 or sentiment j because he does not em- 
 hody ; because he does not create and 
 animate with life \ because his thoughts, 
 
 c c 3 
 
384 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 though just and true, 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 maze he 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. Imagination is so 
 far from being opposed to truth, that it 
 is by the light of imagination that the 
 purest and most perfect truths are rc])re- 
 
GENIUS OF LOKJ) BYRON. 385 
 
 sented. ** The poet's business," says 
 Edward Phillips, (Milton's nephew,) '* is 
 ** to enlarge by feigning of probable 
 ** circumstances, in which, and in proper 
 " allegory, invention principally 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 morally, though not his to - 
 ** rically, true," &c. 
 
 But Lord Byron having admitted into 
 his head this perverse idea of ^^fancif^ 
 (meaning ** imagination'^') as opposed to 
 truth, darts on without any regard to a 
 distinction which, if he had given himself 
 a moment to consider, he could not have 
 missed, and allows himself to write the 
 followuno; absurd sentence : — *' It is the 
 ** fashion of the day to lay great stress 
 " on what they call imagination and in- 
 <' VENTiON, the two commonest of quali- 
 " ties : — an Irish peasant, with a little 
 *' whiskey in his head, will imagine and 
 
 c c 4 
 
386 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 " invent more than would furnisli forth 
 ** a modern poem.'' He here takes 
 ** invention" and *' imagination" in the 
 narrow and vulgar sense of fabricated 
 falsehood : — not such as has regard to ve- 
 risimility, — 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 personifi/'mg 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 LORD BYRON. 58? 
 
 Pope's genius surmounted his theory, 
 and overturned his ordinary practice. 
 
 In another place, Lord Byron, with an 
 extraordinary inconsistency and confu- 
 sion of ideas, endeavours to prove that 
 art is superior to nature, by saying, that 
 ** the great landscape-painter does not 
 *' give you a literal copy of a country, 
 ** but he invents and -composes one." 
 Now this is the precise overturn of his 
 own position. It is hnag'mation, not 
 art ; it is the reverse of the truth (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 
 sentence, of w^iich the last part is such, 
 that I should have thought Lord Byron 
 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 artificial, 
 
388 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 ** perhaps, of all artists in liis very 
 ** essence." 
 
 Lord Byron says, that " Cowper is 
 " no poet," It is true he does not belong 
 to the highest class, because he wants 
 i7iventio7i. 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 effect of a 
 deeper enquiry 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 per})lex himself with such su- 
 perficial, detached, and conflicting ideas, 
 on the theory of that on wliich all his 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 389 
 
 own fame was to rest, and to which all 
 his labours and cares were turned. His 
 genius led him right ; but, liad he con- 
 sulted his own rules and theories, he 
 would have failed. What would he have 
 made of An Essaij on Criticism, or a set of 
 Mortal Essays, 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 those 
 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 very slight view of its mere surface. 
 He for a moment forgot that what comes 
 deeply home to men's bosoms goes far 
 beyond the ordinary concerns of the 
 
^fJO 
 
 a part of 
 
 -T » 
 
 Ike 
 
 InrdK^cv 
 
 p>rt«f «v 
 He dUaot ikm 
 
GENIUS OF LOHD BYHON*. •j9\ 
 
 the occasion the doctrine contained in 
 two line«i of Collins : 
 
 ** Yo>ath of the quick uncheat«d «f ht. 
 Thy paths Oh*CTTancc, more inrite.** 
 
 But they who w ilJ not otlen quit the 
 paths of obserxance for those of con- 
 templation and oijiction^ in its best sense, 
 must be content to belong to an inferior 
 order of intellectual beings ; notwitlj- 
 standing Collins ventured this position in 
 a fit of spleen, when he was tired of 
 ** reposing by Klysian wateiiklls," and, 
 perhaps, was under some momentary suf- 
 fering from a neglect of worldly wisdom 
 and caution. And if this theor)- of Lord 
 Byron be correct, what becomes of the 
 poetry of his favourites Dante and 
 l^asso ? I do not say what becomes of 
 his own Manfred ; his owrv Heaven and 
 Earthy he. \ for these, at the instant he 
 is under the dominion of such principles, 
 he very consistently and honourably 
 
592 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 gives lip, and talks of " his own paltry 
 " renown'' with a humility w^hich, 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 he 
 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, tlie fire, the inimital)le grace and 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYBON. 393 
 
 felicity of language, were all the fruits 
 of creative genius. This poem stands 
 alone in its kind, 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 high 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 imaginative 
 merit, instead of that o^ abstract morality 
 versijiecL 
 
 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 are tired of hearing him 
 " always called * The Just.' They are 
 ** also fighting for life j for if he main- 
 
S94« LETTERS ON THE 
 
 ** tains his station, they will reach their 
 " own by falling !" — " There can be no 
 ** w^orse sign for the taste of the times 
 ** than the 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 Q7ie of the signs, 
 — but only one of a thousand. No 
 former age was so fond of whim and 
 extravagance ; — oiWieJalselto ! Nor was 
 literature ever before under the do- 
 minion of such factions and intris^ues : 
 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 LORD BYROX. 395 
 
 then he adopts all the fashionable arts of 
 war, and carries on the tactics with a zeal 
 proportioned to his former dissatisfaction. 
 Persons who do not belong to one or 
 other of these cabals, have nothing to do 
 but to say to themselves, Med virtute me 
 involvo ; for self- consciousness of having 
 deserved well is all the reward they 
 wOl reap. But Lord Byron's dominion 
 was not one of diplomacy : his was not a 
 bloodless victory ; it was carried by the 
 fierceness of the onset, and the fear 
 that hovered over his banner. 
 
 " What terrors round him wait. 
 
 Amazement in his van, with Flight combined!" 
 
 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 friendship, 
 grasped the offered hand ; and gave his 
 heart with the grasp. Whether in some 
 of those thus received, fear still re- 
 
 D D 
 
396 LETTEUS OX THE 
 
 mained the operative tie, time will 
 show. 
 
 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 were 
 calculated to produce, even in a mind the 
 most remote from arrogant and vain. It 
 shows how much it is in tlie power of 
 wasps and hornets to disturb the peace 
 even of the noblest creatures ; and it 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 39? 
 
 affords a consolatory lesson to humble 
 faculties and obscure fates in life, and 
 warns them not to pine at their less 
 splendid destiny ; since supreme genius 
 and supreme celebrity are still haunted 
 by perplexities and failures of self-confi- 
 dence. 
 
 Lord Byron in this respect forms a 
 most extraordinary contrast with Milton. 
 Lord Byron was in the full blaze of his 
 fame, — 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 
 misgivings sufficient to cloud the joy of 
 the triumph. Milton brought forth 
 his Paradise Lost in darkness and ne- 
 glect ; and the following is JoJmson's 
 noble description of the effect he sup- 
 poses it to have had on him : — *« Fancy," 
 says he, ** can hardly forbear to conjec- 
 
 D D 2 
 
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 fiom the painful lan- 
 gour that follows extravagant expect- 
 ation and excessive excitement. 
 
 But if Lord Byron had an vnibounded 
 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 OF LORD BYRON. 399 
 
 had the same solaces and charms 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 
 " destrov 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. 
 
 D D 3 
 
400 LETTERS 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 very 
 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 species 
 of ea:clusiveness 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 nuist always have entered into it as 
 
GENIUS OF LOUD BYRON. 401 
 
 among its most interesting and grandest 
 images and figures. 
 
 Conceive for a moment this famous 
 line in Pope's Eloisa, 
 
 " The shrines all trembled, and the lamps grew pale," 
 
 to be denied the beauty of pure and high 
 poetry, because shrines and lamps are 
 works of art! I think it has been ob- 
 served in some criticism on this subject, 
 that a man may be a great poet who does 
 not know an oak from a sycamore or 
 poplar, 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 poetry, — much less images 
 merely drawn from nature : — whole 
 pages may 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 poetry into an artificial filla- 
 D D 4 
 
402 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 gree-work of effeminate ornament, began 
 to grow up a little before the death of 
 Pope ; 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. 
 
 IJr. Joseph Warton was a leader among 
 those who drew the pubHc taste from 
 poetry of matter to poetry of style ; — a 
 most unfortunate change, from the sub- 
 stance to the shadow! Hence ensued a 
 prevalence of artifice, formaHty, 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 disgust ! Nothing could be so 
 stupidly mechanical and senseless as an 
 Ode to Memory, or to Hope, or to Fancy, 
 or to Sculpture, or to Morniiig, Noon, or 
 Night, &c., with which all the antho- 
 logies were over-run. Even the splendid 
 imaginations of Collins and Gray began 
 to lose their charms when confounded 
 
404 LETTERS 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 of 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 Wartons, 
 and Hayley, continued to write as they 
 wrote before ; and when Conoper and 
 Bur7is 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 1789, 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 : — 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 405 
 
 I scarcely need name Wordsworth, Cole- 
 ridge, and Southey, as the poets alluded 
 to. 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 
 Goldsmith and Shenstone, became popular 
 soon after his first appearance in I786. 
 Crabbe has had the most singular fate. 
 His poems, describing familiar life and 
 the habits of pauperism, with a fidelity 
 which gained the applause of Burke, were 
 noticed for a year or two ; the author 
 then fell into silence and oblivion for 
 thirty years, and all at once emerged 
 again in his old age, and has received a 
 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. Scott, Moore, 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, — w ould make a 
 curious volume, or perhaps half-a-dozen 
 volumes, if accompanied by anecdotes 
 and biographical sketches. From Vale- 
 ria7ius de iiifelicitate Literaloriim to the 
 amusing volumes of D^ Israel}, the mate- 
 rials are abundant. 
 
 Tliere are those who say, that though 
 not every one who attains celebrity de- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 407 
 
 serves it, yet none miss it who are entitled 
 to it. Edward Phillips (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, though 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's 
 poetry w^as in the height of its renowm ; 
 but he did not form himself after this 
 model. His Hours of Idleness are more 
 in the manner of a preceding generation, 
 and Childe Harold^ if it had any proto- 
 type, w^as more in the mingled tone of 
 Beattie and of Middens Concubi7ie; and 
 I think it is probable that Lord Byron 
 was always a great reader of Pope, 
 
 There are parts of his Letter on 
 Bowles's Strictures which regard the 
 
408 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 attacks on Pope's moral character; — and 
 here his mdignation 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. 
 Itwas 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 w^as 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. lliomas Warton would 
 have performed the office nuich 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 many light anec- 
 dotes, and so many sprinklings of the 
 flowers of literature, as render Joseph War- 
 ton's Essay and his Notes so popularly 
 amusing ; for the Essay on Fope*s Genius 
 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 primwn inobile of England 
 " is cant ; — cant political, cant poetical, 
 ** cant religious, cant moral ; but always 
 ** cant, multiplied through all the varie- 
 ** ties of 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 traits of Lord Byron's character, 
 
410 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 scattered in this 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 Walter 
 " Scott, Moore, and Southey, perhaps, 
 ** who have been voyagers, I have savam 
 «* more miles than all the rest of them to- 
 " gether now living have ever sailed, 
 " and have lived for months and montlis 
 *< 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 myselfi and some officers, had 
 *' been up the Dardanelles to Abydos, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 411 
 
 * and were just returned in time. The 
 
 * aspect of a storm in the Archipelago 
 ' is as poetical as need be, the sea being 
 ' particularly short, dashing, and dan- 
 
 * gerous, and the navigation intricate 
 
 * and broken by the isles and currents. 
 
 * Cape Sigeum, the tumuli of the Troad, 
 
 * Lemnos, Tenedos, all added to the as- 
 
 * sociations of the time. But what 
 ' seemed the most poetical of all at the 
 
 * moment, were the numbers (about 
 
 * two hundred) of Greek and Turkish 
 
 * craft, 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 of night, with their peculiarly 
 
 * white sails, (the Levant sails not being 
 
 E E 
 
412 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 ** of coarse canvass, but of white cotton,) 
 " skimming along as quickly, but less 
 ** safelv, 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 tlie 
 *' 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 tlu'ows fine poetry 
 into his prose. The other passage is 
 this : — 
 
 " I have seen as many mountains as 
 ** most men, and more fleets tlian the 
 ** generality of hmdsmen ; and to my 
 ** mind a large convoy, with a few sail of 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 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, w^hich gave a 
 freshness and reality to his compositions 
 that goes through the w^hole frame of the 
 reader, and will never lose its power. 
 Many years ago, in a printed character of 
 Burns, I remarked the same thing oniim; 
 but the life of Burns w^as in no degree 
 so adventurous and varied. Spain, Por- 
 tugal, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, 
 Italy, and Greece again ! — what nume- 
 rous, grand, and gigantic forms of nature 
 and of art had Lord Byron's eye been 
 accustomed to gaze upon ! But, perhaps, 
 nothing is so grand as the ocean, and 
 this w^as his element. 
 
 E E 2 
 
414 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 " 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 wanton'd 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." 
 
 Again he exclaims, — 
 
 " There is a pleasure in the pathless woods ; 
 There is a rapture on the lonely shore ; 
 There is society, where none intioides. 
 By the deep sea; and music in its roar," &c. 
 
 These passages would, 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 unaffected 
 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 tern- 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 415 
 
 pestuous shores of Aberdeenshire. It 
 was a fearful and violent change at the 
 age of ten years to be separated from this 
 congenial solitude, — this independence so 
 suited to his haughty and contemplative 
 spirit, — this rude grandeur of nature, — 
 and thrown among the more worldly- 
 minded and selfish ferocity, the affected 
 polish, and repelling coxcombry of a great 
 public school ten miles from London, 
 where new-sprung lords filled their child- 
 ren's pockets with money and dandled 
 them with luxuries, and stock-jobbers, and 
 contractors, and manufacturers, clad their 
 boys in gold ; — where all was estimated 
 by Tattersair% and Almack's, 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 times did the moody, 
 sullen, and indignant boy wish himself 
 back to the keen air and boisterous billows 
 
 E E 3 
 
416 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 that broke lonely upon the simple and 
 soul-invigorating haunts of his childhood. 
 How did he prefer some ghost-story ; 
 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 fiiture 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 
 scholarsliip, but much less likely to 
 exhibit genius. Which of our modern 
 fashionable poets have been educated at 
 
 * See Collins's Ode on the Superstitions of the High- 
 lands. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 417 
 
 a public school ? 1 believe only Southey ! 
 I am aware that Cowley, Dryden, Collins, 
 and Gray, 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 crosses, 
 contrarieties, and mortifications, which 
 afflicted 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 
 different and more tranquil life might 
 not have produced a better sort. Cer- 
 tainly it is not impossible ! Better poetry 
 than Lord Byron's is yet possible : 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. 
 
 E E 4 
 
418 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XXXIX. 
 
 July 12. 
 
 Lord Byron belonged to no school of 
 poetry ; and I hope that he will not be 
 \he founder 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 every 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 degree 
 from his genius. Hurd luis written ^.v- 
 says on the Proq/s cf Poetical Imitation : 
 he was a dry, ineloquent writer ; but he 
 had a strong analytical liead, and was 
 ingenious in his own department : his 
 
GENIUS OF LOliD BYRON. 419 
 
 proofs, 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) whether 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 patches upon it, 
 the borrowing is no more than bor- 
 rowing any of the separate images of 
 nature to form a new landscape. The 
 greatest inventor must use materials 
 which separately are not new. This is 
 so clearly the use which Lord Byron 
 makes of his borrowings, that I cannot 
 suppose any sound-minded critic will 
 venture to deny it. 
 
 I have already said in these Letters, — 
 I suspect that I have repeatedly said it, 
 — that the great distinction of Lord 
 
420 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 Byron's poetry is that it lies in his matter 
 more especially than in his style. 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 particuhu' import or force in 
 the idea or fact itself I coukl instance 
 this even by a very splendid })ooni of a 
 very great poet, — Graj/s Bard, What 
 is there new in it of cliaracter, facts, 
 thoughts, or scenery ? The whole charm 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 421 
 
 is in the poetical language, the imagery, 
 the arrangement, the versification, and 
 the brilliant style ! Let me not be ac- 
 cused of invidiousness in sa}dng this ! I 
 hold Gray to be the second, if not the 
 first, lyric poet of our nation : I consider 
 the Fragment on Vicissitude 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 Elegy 
 will ever again be written. 
 
 But I resume, that Lord Byron was 
 pre-eminently a poet in substance, if I 
 may use the word substance for that of 
 which the essence is spirit. His poetry is 
 so much so in its ore, that its character 
 would remain even if told in coarse, rude, 
 bold language. Put Lara, or the Lament 
 of Tasso, into bad prose, yet their inte- 
 o-ral character and interest cannot be de- 
 stroyed. There is very little poetry of 
 any country or of any age which will 
 bear this transmutation. All common 
 
45^ LETTERS ON THE 
 
 poets are fanciful in the unfavourable 
 sense of that word, — Lord Byron is never 
 so. 
 
 The poetry of worlds 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 j let not a page 
 remain, nor any memory of a page, or a 
 line! — what 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 leisme when it wants to exercise a 
 petty ingenuity, but a world sucli as 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 423 
 
 those who have had a glimpse of it per- 
 ceive gives new energies to our nature, 
 new charms to our existence, and new 
 hght 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 wlio affected 
 the romantic school, he says, 
 
 " All was strange, yet nothing new." 
 
 It might be said of Lord Byron, that 
 
 " All was new, yet nothing strange." 
 
 In all his wild imaginations he was still 
 true to nature ; he still struck some chord 
 of the human bosom, that answered as if 
 
424 LETTERS 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, witliout 
 the aid of the lamp of genius, they can- 
 not be perceived by all. Lord Byron had 
 a lamp w^hich reflected multitudes of 
 them seen by none before ; though ac- 
 knowledged by all when thus shown in 
 palpable shape. 
 
 Like the ideas and intelligence con- 
 tained in an unknown language, wliich 
 are locked up till industry opens them by 
 acquiring a knowledge of the tongue in 
 whicli tliey are registered, Providence has 
 destined that the liighest riches of our 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 425 
 
 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-of-fact 
 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 them. They might 
 as well say that a buried inscription would 
 be read as well before the covering of 
 earth and moss should be cleared from it 
 by a skilful de cypher er. 
 
 But to be merely a master of expres- 
 sion and the art of WTiting is a compa- 
 ratively trifling endowment ; commonly 
 nothing more than dressing with a little 
 ornament, or exhibiting, in a more showy 
 point of view, what is already known to 
 others ! What that is new can be told of 
 pity^ or memory^ or /?ope, or despair^ envy. 
 
426 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 jealousy, malice, calumny, &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'\% a very uninterest- 
 ing person ; in the present, the reverse 
 was true. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 4^7 
 
 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 
 in travels, and in such as required great 
 exertion of bodily enterprise ; but, added 
 to this, not less is supposed to have been 
 spent in dissipation and the pursuit of 
 youthful pleasures. His habitual amuse- 
 ments were in the open air ; riding, swim- 
 ming, sailing, exploring countries. He 
 loved sociality with the chosen friends or 
 acquaintance whom he admitted to his 
 confidence, and half his evenings, even 
 till 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 
 state very well adapted to high poetical 
 
 F F 
 
4^8 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 o-enius was 
 formed. One modern instance, even of 
 our own time, of another brilliant star 
 occurs, whicli may be more nearly 
 applicable. The splendid powers of 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 429 
 
 Burns 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 
 difference. 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 ; — Burns 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 characters. 
 
 Each of them lived in the poetical 
 character which his works reflect: of 
 
 F F 2 
 
430 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 each, the poems were the representations 
 of existences, and not the mere skilful 
 artifice of words. 
 
 I do not think that Lord Byron could 
 ever have written exactly the kind of 
 song's which Burns has written. There 
 is something more supplicatory in Burns ; 
 — 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 tire 
 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'Shantcr, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 431 
 
 It is a singular coincidence that Col- 
 lins, 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 ; Burns heart- 
 broken ', and Lord Byron, though in the 
 midst of his glory, yet drenched in en- 
 venomed calumny, and writhing with the 
 poison of it in his heart ! 
 
 F F 3 
 
4<3^ LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XL. 
 
 July 15. 
 
 1 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 intelhtijence for 
 the despot of Turkey, or to yield to liis 
 misapprehensions, lest the disregard of 
 them should invohe us in a war with 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 43S 
 
 him. Because he chooses to consider 
 that the act of individuals of the British 
 nation, where they are free to act, is the 
 act of their government, 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 B}'ron's life than all his poetry. 
 He has indeed thus put the sincerity of 
 his politics beyond all question ; he has 
 showai himself, in action as well as in 
 thought^ a patriot of the highest and most 
 extended glory. And it is the more 
 fortunate for his poetical fame, and the 
 fame of all 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- 
 ments of the Muse. 
 
 And now I come to a more difficult 
 
 F F 4 
 
484 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 task than any which I have hitherto 
 encountered on this subject : — it may be 
 required that I should give a summary 
 of Lord Byron's character, and concen- 
 trate the scattered rays which have been 
 thrown so irregularly among so many 
 letters into one compact whole. But I 
 shall avoid this : — I have already given 
 my 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 Byron's genius. 
 
 Johnson, in liis Life of Pope, 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 1 
 liave said on the j)rinciples ol' poetry, 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 435 
 
 and then ask the same question with 
 regard to Lord Byron. 
 
 It is easy to frame principles which 
 shall meet the character of the object 
 selected for praise ; it is necessary, there- 
 fore, 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, always dangerous to 
 differ 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 Byron. This is one 
 of the questions on poets which I am 
 always inclined to resist. It is scarcely 
 possible in many cases to fix precedence 
 among those who have taken different 
 routes, and cannot, therefore, be strictly 
 compared. No one who has luidertaken 
 
436 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 to do this has 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 
 
 ft 
 
 begins with the next name. Fope and 
 Dryden are the two between whom it is 
 commonly supposed to lie : others have 
 named Chaucer, and others even Grmj 
 2iwdi 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 wot Jirst of 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 437 
 
 the list ; but he evidentl}' 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, 
 poHtical, classical, and fashionable. But 
 either those principles of poetry which 
 have been admitted from the time of 
 Homer to the close 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 Fope, that 
 no poet ever before exhibited so much of 
 the perfection of the art ; yet that in 
 
1<38 LETTERS 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 Byron which is not poetical : — at 
 east three-fburtlis of Pope's verses have 
 no poetry in them. Pope could be a 
 :)oet on great occasions, when his pas- 
 sions were roused to unwonted energies, 
 ind his ambition took a proper course. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 439 
 
 His habits were those of a j^^i^^osojyJncal 
 versifier, — a moralist, an observer of life 
 and manners, who put prosaic subjects 
 and a prosaic manner of treating them, 
 into excellent metre, terse expressions, 
 and pointed forms. He had good sense, 
 sober reason, and strong penetration into 
 the characters which bustle on the public 
 stage of life ; but he seldom indulged 
 himself in the higher flights of imagin- 
 ation, — in contemplating and painting 
 the more visionary beauties of ideal ex- 
 cellency, or in the intense feelings which 
 such ideal beauties excite. Wherever 
 poetry does only that which prose can 
 do ; — wherever its merit differs from a 
 rational and able book of prose only in 
 the metre, surely it cannot entitle its 
 author to a high place among poets : 
 such parts, therefore, of Pope's writings 
 as have no merits but these must never 
 be put into the scale when pre-eminence 
 is claimed for him. Had his style been 
 
44-0 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 alwai/s poeticaly (wliich it was not,) 1 can 
 never put the poetry of ea:pression in 
 competition with the poetry o^ 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 Dictioimaire de Tre- 
 voux be right. " EpiqUe, qui appartient 
 a la poesie heroique, on poeme qui decrit 
 quelque action, signalee d^un heros, Le 
 poeme epique est un discours invents 
 avec art pour former les mceurs par des 
 instructions deguisees sous les allegories 
 dhme actioii importante, racontee d'^une 
 maniere vraisemhlahle et merveilleuse, ha 
 difference qu^il y a entre la poeme epique 
 et la tragedicy c^est que dans la poeme 
 epique les personnes n^y sont point intro- 
 duites aux yeux des spectateurs agissant 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 441 
 
 par elles-memes comme dans la tr age die ; 
 mats V action est racontee par le poeteT 
 
 Yet under this definition, perhaps, 
 many would put The Corsair, And 
 some 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 wliich is 
 claimed for the epic. And in this sense 
 Lord Byron is ahnost always epic ; for 
 he is almost always narrative, except in 
 his dramas. And narrative -poetry 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 factitious tastes. Pope was scarce 
 ever a narrative-poet, except in his mock- 
 heroics and his translations. Drydeii*^ 
 fame must rest principally on his powers 
 as a narrative-poet ; for though he bor- 
 
442 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 rowed the outline of all his stories, 
 mucli 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 lijric pieces, yet they are still 
 more beautiful when intermingled in 
 tales, by which the reader has been pre- 
 viously worked up into a 2)roper 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 Troubadours, — the school of chivalry 
 and amorous 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; 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 443 
 
 the French school from the less enthu- 
 siastic and less imaginative character of 
 its people, and the prevalence of esprit 
 which maiks the French genius, early 
 came nearer to the classical model : (I do 
 not say 7iear, for it commonly wants 
 elevation Sindja/ici/ as well as inve?ition). 
 . Lord Byron was of 7io?ie of these 
 schools, but he took advantage of all, 
 which it is the very essence of genius to 
 do. He could compose in a classical 
 manner ; witness his Lament of Tasso : 
 if there be not, indeed, in that piece 
 more passion, more sentiment, more 
 depth of colouring 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 adapt- 
 ed to poetry w^hich time had furnished. 
 But he scorned to be an echo of chival- 
 rous tales, when the opinions, prejudices, 
 
 G G 
 
444 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 and attachments of chivalry had ceased : 
 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 characteiise 
 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. Affectation^ when it 
 prevails in any degree, is a vital sin, 
 totally inconsistent with eminent merit, 
 or with any merit which can secure a 
 permanent fame. 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 44.5 
 
 I say, then, that Lord Byron is neither 
 of the classical nor romantic school ; but 
 that he shows what poetry itself, which 
 is of no school, could do, under the di- 
 rection of a mighty genius, vast ener- 
 gies, deep sensibility, and intense pas- 
 sions, with the materials offered to it at 
 the commencement of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 It is said of Lord Byron, that he always 
 had some particle of reality, 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 occasion did he 
 ever attempt cold, sickly, flowery, arti- 
 ficial invention. 
 
 Let us see which we could spare of 
 Lord Byron's poems ! Three or four, 
 perhaps, and a great many particular 
 passages of Don Juan ; but what a chasm 
 we should make in the fruits of our na- 
 tional genius, if the rest were withdrawn. 
 
 G G 2 
 
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 modern 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, then it cannot be answered, 
 that he is only comparatively missed 
 among tlie twinkling lights of oiir days ! 
 Not that all are txvinkling ; 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 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 447 
 
 Lord Byron. And so I would have them 
 take ! — He who treads in the path of 
 another mocks his faults, but never 
 reaches his merits. 
 
 GG 3 
 
448 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 
 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 lai'ge party admit 
 very reluctantly, and rather in fear than 
 in conviction. I wish to leave the point 
 shortly put on grounds, wliich, 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 subrmWy 
 patlietic, or hcaulijul. Now 1 do not 
 contend that Childc Harold is poetical 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 149 
 
 invention ; neither the description of 
 particular scenery, nor the portraits of 
 particular persons, nor the relation of the 
 incidents of actual observation and ex- 
 perience, can be invention : they may 
 be reflected brilliantly by the faculty of 
 a splendid fancy. So far, then. Lord 
 Byron would not have been entitled to 
 sit on the upper seat of the Temple of 
 Parnassus. ^^ 
 
 But he has other poems which exhibit 
 this quality with so much certainty, and 
 in so very eminent a degree, as to give 
 him an undoubted claim to an upper 
 seat. The Corsair, Lara, Manfred, 
 Lament ofTasso, the Dramas, Frophecy 
 of Dante, Cain, Heaven and Earth, (not 
 to say Do7i Juan,) abound every where 
 with that poetical invention, which is 
 sublime, pathetic, or beautiful. It is not 
 inconsistent with the most perfect poe- 
 tical invention that the outline should be 
 historical, or founded in fact : '* some 
 G G 4 
 
450 LETTERS ON THE 
 
 " brief i 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 Ada, especially 
 regarding their child, which nothing in 
 
GENIUS OF LORD BYRON. 451 
 
 English poetry but the *' vvood-notes 
 " wild" of Shakspeare ever equalled. 
 
 And here I will leave this question, 
 without weakening it by more distinctions 
 and qualifications. Unless the positions 
 here laid down can be overturned, there 
 is no room for farther controversy. 
 
 " And now my task is smoothly done, 
 I can fly, or I can run, 
 Quickly to the green earth's end, 
 Where the bow'd welkin low doth bend ; 
 And from thence can soar as soon 
 To the corners of the moon. 
 
 Mortals, that would follow me. 
 Love Virtue ; she alone is free : 
 
 She can teach ye how to climb 
 
 Higher than the sphery chime : 
 
 Or if Virtue feeble were. 
 
 Heaven itself would stoop to her." • 
 
 * Comus. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 Gteorge Gordon Byron, sixth Lord Byron, 
 was born 22d January, 1788. He was only 
 son of John Byron, born 1756, by his second 
 wife, Catharine Gordon, of Aberdeenshire, who 
 died in August, 1811. He lost his father on 
 11th June, 1793, in his sixth year. His grand- 
 father, the well-known Commodore John Byron, 
 born 1723, died 1786, aged 63. The iV^^ra- 
 tive of his shipwreck on an uninhabited island 
 of the South Seas, when a midshipman of the 
 Wager, one of Lord Anson's squadron, long 
 remained a volume of extraordinary popularity. 
 It was published in 1 768. He was promoted to 
 the rank of admiral in 1775, and distinguished 
 himself in the American war. He was younger 
 brother of William, t^/'/^ Lord Byron, 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 College) Cambridge. In 1806, he pub- 
 lished his Hours of Idleness^ on which the very 
 extraordinary criticism in the Edinburgh Review^ 
 Vol. XL (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 Reviewers, 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 befjinninfj of 
 1812, when he gave to the world the first two 
 cantos of Childe Harold. He then published, 
 in rapid succession, 2. The Giaour. 3. The 
 Bride of Abi/dos. 4. Ihe Corsair (January, 
 1813). 5. L«7YZ (1814). 6. The Siege of Co- 
 rinth and Parisiria, 
 
NOTE, 4.55 
 
 On 2d January, 1815, he married An7ie Isa- 
 bella, only child of Sir Ralph MilbanJc, Bart., 
 by Judith, sister and co-heir (and heir of entail) 
 to Thomas Noel, second and last Viscount 
 Went worth, and by her had an only child, born 
 10th 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 Coligny, on the Savoy side of the Lake, with 
 the Alps behind him, and the Jura, cross the 
 Lake, in his front. At Geneva, he wrote, 7. 
 The third canto of Childe Harold. 8. Man- 
 fred, 9. The Prisoner of Chillon. 
 
 At the end of this year he passed on to Ve- 
 nice, 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, \\' Lament of Tasso. 
 12. Beppo. 13. Marino Faliero, 14. The 
 Tiw Foscari. 15. The earlier cantos of Do7i 
 Juan. 
 
45G ' NOTE. 
 
 About the end of 1819, lie removed to Ba- 
 venna, where he wrote, 16. The Prophecy of 
 Dante ; and, perhaps, 17. Cai)i. 18. Sar- 
 danapalns, 19. Other cantos of Don Juan. 
 20. His Strictures on Bowles. 
 
 In the latter end of 1821, he removed to 
 Pisa, in Tuscany. But, perhaps, he had al- 
 ready sent for publication, 21. His Heaven 
 and Earth. Here he wrote, 22. Werner. 
 23. The Deforrned Transformed . 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 1823, 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, aetat. se- 
 venty-four ; and whose elder brother, Sir John, 
 
NOTE. 457 
 
 was raised to the peerage, (with a collateral re- 
 mainder,) 24th October, 1643. William, third 
 peer, died 1695: — William, fourth peer, (the 
 poet's great grandfather) died 1736. 
 
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