Two desires toss about
The poet's feverish blood;
One drives him to the world without,
And one to solitude.
Of Byron's two contemporary rivals, Wordsworth had no feverish blood; nothing drove him to the world without; consequently his "eyes avert their ken from half of human fate," and his influence, though perennial, will always be limited. He conquered England from his hills and lakes; but his spirit has never crossed the Straits which he thought too narrow. The other, with a fever in his veins, calmed it in the sea and in the cloud, and, in some degree because of his very excellencies, has failed as yet to mark the world at large. The poets' poet, the cynosure of enthusiasts, he bore the banner of the forlorn hope; but Byron, with his feet of clay, led the ranks. Shelley, as pure a philanthropist as St. Francis or Howard, could forget mankind, and, like his Adonaïs, become one with nature. Byron, who professed to hate his fellows, was of them even more than for them, and so appealed to them through a broader sympathy, and held them with a firmer hand. By virtue of his passion, as well as his power, he was enabled to represent the human tragedy in which he played so many parts, and to which his external universe of cloudless moons, and vales of evergreen, and lightning-riven peaks, are but the various background. He set the "anguish, doubt, desire," the whole chaos of his age, to a music whose thunder-roll seems to have inspired the opera of Lohengrin—a music not designed to teach or to satisfy "the budge doctors of the Stoic fur," but which will continue to arouse and delight the sons and daughters of men.
Madame de Staël said to Byron, at Ouchy, "It does not do to war with the world: the world is too strong for the individual." Goethe only gives a more philosophic form to this counsel when he remarks of the poet, "He put himself into a false position by his assaults on Church and State. His discontent ends in negation…. If I call bad bad, what do I gain? But if I call good bad, I do mischief." The answer is obvious: as long as men call bad good, there is a call for iconoclasts: half the reforms of the world have begun in negation. Such comments also point to the common error of trying to make men other than they are by lecturing them. This scion of a long line of lawless bloods—a Scandinavian Berserker, if there ever was one—the literary heir of the Eddas—was specially created to wage that war—to smite the conventionality which is the tyrant of England with the hammer of Thor, and to sear with the sarcasm of Mephistopheles the hollow hypocrisy—sham taste, sham morals, sham religion—of the society by which he was surrounded and infected, and which all but succeeded in seducing him. But for the ethereal essence,—
The fount of fiery life
Which served for that Titanic strife,
Byron would have been merely a more melodious Moore and a more accomplished Brummell. But the caged lion was only half tamed, and his continual growls were his redemption. His restlessness was the sign of a yet unbroken will. He fell and rose, and fell again; but never gave up the struggle that keeps alive, if it does not save, the soul. His greatness as well as his weakness lay, in the fact that from boyhood battle was the breath of his being. To tell him not to fight, was like telling Wordsworth not to reflect, or Shelley not to sing. His instrument is a trumpet of challenge; and he lived, as he appropriately died, in the progress of an unaccomplished campaign. His work is neither perfect architecture nor fine mosaic; but, like that of his intellectual ancestors, the elder Elizabethans whom he perversely maligned, it is all animated by the spirit of action and of enterprise.
In good portraits his head has a lurid look, as if it had been at a higher temperature than that of other men. That high temperature was the source of his inspiration, and the secret of a spell which, during his life, commanded homage and drew forth love. Mere artists are often mannikins. Byron's brilliant though unequal genius was subordinate to the power of his personality; he
Had the elements
So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world—"This was a man."
We may learn much from him still, when we have ceased to disparage, as our fathers ceased to idolize, a name in which there is so much warning and so much example.
INDEX.
Abydos, Bride of
Adeline (Lady), analysis of female character
Albrizzi (Countess), salon of
Ali Pasha, his reception of Byron
Allegra, Byron's daughter
Athenians, character of
Athens
Aurora Raby, La Guiccioli idealised
Becher's, Rev. J.T., influence on Byron Beppo Blackwood's Magazine Blessington, Lady Blues, The Boatswain (Byron's dog) Bologna Boston's Fourfold State Bowers, Byron's tutor Bowles, controversy about Pope Bozzaris, Marco, death of Brandes, Prof., criticism of Byron's bust British Review, To the Editor of the Bronze, The Age of Brougham's, Lord, criticism of Hours of Idleness Brown, Hamilton Bruno, Dr. Brydges, Sir Egerton, criticism of Cain Burns Burun, an ancestor of Byron Butler, Dr., master of Harrow Byron, Augusta Ada (the poet's daughter) Byron, George Gordon, 6th Lord genealogy; birth; residence at Ballater; school-life; early loves; "first dash into poetry"; accession to peerage; Baillie, Dr., medical adviser; at Harrow; coming of age; writes review on Wordsworth; Annesley, residence at; at Cambridge; takes seat in House of Lords; travels; studies Romaic; Armenian; attacks of fever; speeches in House of Lords; writes address on re-opening of Drury Lane Theatre; publishes the Giaour; friendship with Sir Walter Scott; marriage; separation from wife; departure from England; friendship with Shelley; in Switzerland; in Italy; life in Venice completes Childe Harold life at Ravenna at Pisa relations with Leigh Hunt life in Albaro joins conspiracy in Italy joins movement for liberation of Greece leaves Italy life in Greece last illness and death last words funeral honours Byron, Lord allusions in his poetry to his training appreciation of aristocratic sentiments Austria, hatred of, characteristics characteristics of literature in Byron's age cleverness comparison with Shelley and Wordsworth contemporary admiration debts defects of character defects of his poetry descriptive power dislike of professional littérateurs dissipations dogmatism early friends financial affairs follower of Pope garrulity idleness knowledge of languages knowledge of Scripture in London society lameness love of mountains melancholy pecuniary profits personal appearance physical endurance poetic character politics reading relations to female sex scholarship Scotch superstition social views solitude sources of Byron's work swimming, feats of tame bear temper theological views verse-romances women estimate of works translated Byron, John, Admiral Byron, John, of Clayton Byron, John (father) Byron, Lady (wife) Byron, Mrs. (mother) Byron, Richard (2nd Lord) Byron, Robert de Byron, Sir John (1st Lord) Byron, Sir Nicholas Byron, William (3rd Lord) Byron, William (4th Lord) Byron, William (5th Lord)
Cadiz, estimate of
Cain
Cambridge
Campbell, Thomas
Carbonari, a secret society
Carlisle, Lord
Carlyle
Castelar
Cenci
Charlotte, Princess
Chasles, criticism by
Chatterton
Chaucer
Chaworth, Mary Ann
Chaworth, Mr.
Chaworth, Viscount
Cheltenham
Childe Harold
criticism of
Chillon, Prisoner of
Christabel
Churchill's Grave
Civil Wars
Clairmont, Miss, intimacy with
Clare, Lord, friendship with
Clermont, Mrs., Lady Byron's maid
Cogni, Margarita, intimacy with
Coleridge
Colocatroni, the brigand
Constantinople
Corinth, Siege of
Corsair
Could I remount the River of my Years
Cowley
Cowper
Crabbe
Curse of Minerva
Dallas, R.C. Dante D'Arcy, Amelia (Countess Conyers) Darkness Davies, Scrope Davy, Sir H. Deformed Transformed Don Juan criticism of Doomsday Book Dramas (Byron's) Dream, The Drury, Dr. Joseph Drury, Henry Drury Lane Theatre Drury, Mark Dryden Duff, Mary, intimacy with Dulwich
Eddlestone, the chorister
Edinburgh Review
Ekenhead, Lieutenant
Eldon, Lord
Elgin, Lord
Elze
England's vice of hypocrisy
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
English character
English literature
Faery Queene (Spenser's) Falkland, Lord Faust, influence of, on Byron Ferrara Fletcher (valet) Florence Foscari, The Two Francesca of Rimini Frere
Galt
Gamba
Gell
Geneva
Genoa
George, Prince of Denmark
George III.
Giaour
Gibbon
Gibraltar
Gifford
Glenarvon (Lady Caroline Lamb's novel)
Glennie, Dr.
Goethe
Gray, May, her influence over Byron
Gray (poet)
Greece
Grindelwald
Guiccioli
Hailstone, Prof.
Hanson, Mr., solicitor
Harness, a school-fellow
Harrogate, trip to
Harrow
Hawthorne
Heaven and Earth
Heber, Bishop
Hebrew Melodies
Hints from Horace
Hiron, a Cambridge tradesman
Hobhouse
Hodgson, Rev. F.
Holderness, Earl of
Holland, Lord
Hoppner
Hours of Idleness
Howard, Hon. F.
Howitt, William
Hucknall Torkard, church
Hudibras
Hunt, John
Hunt, Leigh
Ilissus
Ilium
Island, The
Italy
Ithaca
Jackson, Mr., a pugilist
Janina
Jeffrey
Jones (tutor)
Journal (Byron's)
Juliet, story of
Jungfrau
Juvenilia
Keats
Kemble, Frances Ann, memoirs of
Kennedy, Dr.
Kharyati
Kinnaird, Douglas
Kirkby Mallory
Lalla Rookh
Lamb, Lady Caroline
La Mira
Landlord, Tales of a
Landor
Lanfranchi
Lara
Lausanne
Lavender, a quack
Lee, Harriet
Leeds, Duke of
Leghorn
Leigh, Colonel
Leigh, Mrs. (poet's sister Augusta)
Loman, Lake
Lepanto
Lewis
Liberal, the
Lido
Lion (pet dog)
Lisbon
Lisle, Rouget de
Loch Leven
Locke
Lockhart
London
Londonderry, Lord
Long, Edward Noel
Longman
Loughborough
Lucca
Lucifer
Lushington, Dr.
Macaulay
Mackenzie (the Man of Feeling)
Mafra
Magellan, Straits of
Mallet
Malta
Mandeville, Sir John
Manfred
criticism of
Mansel, Dr. Lort
Marathon
Marilyn, Mrs.
Marina Faliero
criticism of
Marius
Marlowe
Martineau, Miss
Matlock
Matthews, C.S.
Mavrocordatos, Prince Alexander
Mayor, Dr.
Mazeppa
Mazzini
Medora (daughter of Mrs. Leigh)
Medwin, Captain
Meister, Wilhelm
Melbourne
Memoirs (Byron's)
Mesolonghi
Milan
Milbanke, Sir Ralph
Milligen (a physician)
Milton
Moore
Morea
Morgan, Lady
Morgantc Maggiore
Murray, Joe (butler)
Murray, John
Musters
Napier, Colonel
Naples
Napoleon
Newark
Newbury, battle of
Nowstead
Noel, Lady
Norton, Mrs.
Nottingham
Odysseus
Ossington
Oxford
Paganini
Parisina
Parker, Margaret, intimacy with
Parr, Dr.
Parry (engineer)
Parthenon
Paterson (a tutor)
Patras
Peel, Sir Robert
Peloponnesus
Pentelicus
Persia
Petrarch
Philopoemen
Pigot
Pisa
Plato's Glaucus
Pleasures of Hope
Po (river)
Polidori
Pope
Porson, 39
Power, Miss
Prometheus
Pulci
Quarterly Review
Rambler
Raphael
Ravenna
Regent, the
Regillus
Reid, Dr.
Rejected Addresses
Revolution, the French
Rhine
Rhoetian hill
Richter
Robinson, Crabb
Rochdale
Rochester
Rogers, Samuel, (poet)
Rogers (tutor)
Roman Catholic Emancipation, speech on behalf of
Roman Catholic religion
Rome
Ross (a tutor)
Rossina
Rousseau
Rubens
Rushton, Robert
Ruskin
Russell, Lord John
Russia
Ruthyn, Lord Grey de
Sainte Beuve
Santa Croce
Saragassa, Maid of
Sardanapalus
Saturday Review
Schlegel, F.
Scotland, allusions to
Scott, Sir Walter
Seaham
Segati, Mariana, intimacy with
Seville
Shakespeare
Shelley
Shelley, Mrs.
Shepherd, Mrs., letter of
Sheridan
Siddons, Mrs.
Sinclair, George, friend of Byron
Sligo, Marquis of
Smith, Mrs. Spencer ("Florence")
Smith, Sir Henry
Smyrna
Socrates
Soraete
Southey
Southwell
Spain
Spectator
Spencer, Earl
Spenser
Spielberg
Spinoza
Stael, Madame de
Stanhope, Colonel
Stanhope, Lady Hester
Staubbach
Stendhal
Stephen, Leslie
Stromboli
Suliotes
Swift
Swinstead
Switzerland
Taafe
Taine
Tasso
Tavell (a tutor)
Telegrapho(newspaper)
Tennant
Tennyson
Tepaleni
Thackeray
Thebes
Theresa (Maid of Athens)
Thorwaldsen
Tickhill
Titian
Trelawny
Turkey
Tusculum
University training
Vampire, The
Vanessa
Vathi
Venice
Verona
"Victory," the
Vision of Judgment
Voltaire
"Wager," the
Waltz, The,
Washington
Waterloo
Watkins, Dr. John
Wellington
Wengern
Werner
West (artist)
Westminster Abbey
Wildman
Williams, Captain
Wingfield, John
Woodhouselee, Lord
Wordsworth
World
Wycliffe
York
Yussuf Pasha
Zante
Zitza