The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-24 00:00:00

LORD BYRON

(From the Morning Chronicle.)
We have hitherto let our Contemporaries battle it out among
themselves on the question, whether it be or be not fit that
the bust of Lord Byron by Thorcvaldsen ought or ought not
to be allowed a place in Westn inster Abbey? As a work of
art, of course, it merits a place anywhere, but we doubt whe-
ther a church be the best place for the exhibition of works of
art, and whether in the abstract there be not an objection in
a sacred edifice to anything which may divert the mind from
the purpose for which the sacred edifice was erected and ought
to be visited. Tombs, shrines, and monuments afford lessons
of mortality; but when the proposal is to construct a memo-
rial to a man who was certainly great for his genius, but re-
markable for the manner in which he perverted it, the subject
is reduced to very narrow limits, and the point to be settled
merely is, whether abilities alone, without reference to
the mode in which they are directed, give a man a
claim to the distinction ? We are by no means sure
that the most unfavourable representation of the charac-
ter and conduct of Lord Byron is not that given by
himself ; he was a man full of affectation of various kinds, and
one of his affectations was that of representing himself worse
than he was in reality • but, take what account you will of his
opinions and actions, they must be admitted to be in general
anything but commendable. If, therefore, his bust be erected
in Westminster Abbey, not only the effect of example would
be wanting, but it would be worse than lost, for it would seem
to show that private virtue was of little consequence in the
distribution of posthumous honours.

We are not persuaded that Lord Byron was a poet of the
highest order of genius ; on the contrary, we think he was
not. There, perhaps, never was a man of true arid exalted
genius, who was not possessed of that simplicity of character
and singleness of heart in which Lord Byron seems to us
to have been especially deficient. This, we are are aware,
is no answer to the claim to have his bust deposited in
Westminster Abbey, because the busts and statues of many
men of small or of no talents have been placed there ; but
it tends to show that if his claim depend upon his talents
only, as we submit it does, he has not even that recommend-
ation in the highest degree. Lord Byron was a selfish man,
not only in his habits of life, but in his writings : in everything
he produced, whether satirical, didactic, dramatic, lyrical, or
narrative, he had always himself before his eyes ; and the ex-
istence of selfishness proves a narrowness of mind, we appre-
hend, inconsistent with great genius. His extreme cleverness,
whether writing severely, gravely, or jocosely, we do not for an
instant dispute ; but we do deny that his genius (using the
term to express the very loftiest gift of a poet) was of the
highest order. That be wrote more attractively and popularly
than many men of great genius have done is quite true, but
this does not necessarily establish that he was a man of first-rate
powers as regards the imaginative faculty.
It is not enough to point to Poets'-corner and say,—
" Here is a monument to Shadwell ' • here is a bust of
Spratt ; and here Prior laid out 5001. on his own effigy."
Neither will it be sufficient to mention the names of poets
there recorded who debased their art by impiety or
licentiousness. Chaucer, who stood alone for more than a
century, and even Shakspeare, who will stand alone for many
centuries, might be excluded on this account. Bad precedents
ought not to he followed merely because they are precedents.
We say broadly that poets, as poets, have no right to monu-
ments in churches ; and when, as in the instance before ns, it
can be shown incontrovertibly that the tendency of nearly all
the writings of an individual poet has been to bring religion
and morality into disrepute, his memorial is most of all to be
shut out from a sacred edifice.

It is. observed by Sir Thomas Browne that the oldest fami-
lies, let them carry back their pedigree, if they will, to the
Conquest or the Heptarchy, " survive not three oaks ;" and
urns and monuments are but of perishable materials com-
pared with the productions of a great man's intellect as
recorded in writing, and rendered indestructible by print-
ing. These " monuments of vanished minds," as Da-
venant happily terms books, live only just as long
as they deserve. Other monuments put all men upon
an equality. Prior's ostentatious tomb will last as long as
Milton's modest bust; but the time may come, and not be
far distant, when people will ask, what did Prior write to de-
serve to occupy so large a space on the walls of Poets'-corner?
Milton is secure against any such interrogatory. When the
Duke of Buckinghamshire, according to Pope,
" Help'd to bury him he help'd to starve,"
it was a futile effort by a monument in Westminster Abbey
to recompense personal injuries to Dryden ; but those per-
sonal injuries were public benefits. Had Dryden not been
poor he would have wanted at least one of the great incite-
ments to authorship.
To what, then, do our remarks lead ? They serve to show
that as Churches are not proper depositories for memorials
to our great men, and as it is abundantly necessary that their
services to the world should thus be acknowledged, it is fit
that we should possess some national edifice into which
their busts or statues shall be admitted without vio-
lence to the pious and conscientious scruples of those who
are trustees of places of public worship. Such a structure
might have been made part of our National Gallery ; and
even now, notwithstanding the defects of that building, we do
not see that the object might not be accomplished. These
may not be, and certainly are not, times for extravagance ; but
there arc no times for penury, when a purpose of such exten-
sive utility is to be carried into effect. it would at once give
patronage to our sculptors, afford youth its incentive, man-
hood its motive, and age its consolation.

We are anxious, at the same time, to rescue both the Church
and the relations of those for whose monuments a place is
claimed in it, on the ground of genius and talent, the invi-
diousness of such discussions as the refusal of Dean Ireland
in this case has originated. The dignitaries of the Church
assert the right to sit in judgment on the lives of all for
whom claims are advanced to the honour of a monument, and
the immoral tendency of actions, having once been made the
ground of exclusion, the principle must hereafter be adhered
to, or a charge of partiality may justly be preferred against
these sacred functionaries. But this power of stigma_
tizing individuals is of too much importance to be safely
committed to a Dean and Chapter. Tbis is not a Popish
country, and it is not in accordance with the spirit of the times
that any Church shall " deal damnation round the land" after
the fashion of Dean Ireland. There is a broad distinction be-
tween the possession of talents and the tendency of the mode
in which they have been displayed. The claims of the late
late Dr. Doyle and Doctors Lingard and Wiseman to the pos-
session of great talents and learning will be disputed by few ;
but Dr. Ireland, as a Churchman of the Protestant Church of
England, would consistently refuse a place to men who have
distinguished themselves by hostility to that Church. Ac.
cordance with his principles as a Churchman of the Church of
England is Dr. Ireland's test ; but a receptacle of monuments
commemorative of talent and genius ought to be national and
not sectarian. They who are ambitious of the reputation of
Church •f England orthodoxy may still claim admiPion among
the select whom Dean Ireland, as a good Churchman, deems
entitled to the honour.

The Cologne Gazette publishes the report of a
meeting of the Directors of the Rhenish Railway to the Bel-
gian frontier, held at Cologne on the 7th of the present
month. The principal object of this meeting was, it appears,
that of confirming certain contracts for supplies which bad
been entered into on the part of the Company by the Com-
mittee. The labour, says the report, of preparing the founda-
tion is proceeding with great activity at the first, second, and
fourth sections of the line, a commencement not having yet
been made at the third on account of the want of earth, and
the retention of the engineers at the other sections. Men are
working night and day at the pass near Mungersdorf.
Besides the great bridges on the Roer, the Erft, the Inde,
and over the valley of Barrette, eighty more smaller ones
had to be erected. Nine are already finished, and the
foundations of many others laid or prepared. The bridge
which has to pass over the valley of Barrette will rest upon
sixteen arches, each of forty feet span. Great progress has
been made in sinking the shafts requisite for the Kcenigsdorf
tunnel. In order that there may be as little delay as possible,
permission has been given by the Church authorities to the
men to work on Sundays and fast days, the necessary time
being afforded for the performance of their religious duties.
The number of labourers employed on the various works is
stated to be 1,841, but this will be augmented considerably
after the termination of the harvest. Of one thousand tons
of rail, of which Messrs. Hoesch, of Duren, have the finishing,
348 are already accepted, and they are placed, for the most part,
near Cologne, Duren, Mungersdorf, and Terre-Rouge, by Aix-
la- Chapelle. Two hundred tons ordered from England had ar-
rived, and one of the three locomotives to be furnished by the
house of Longridge, Starbuck, and Co , during the year, had
also come to hand. The latter is the largest. It had been
proved on the English railroads, where it had drawn fifty
waggons, each loaded with 53 cwt. of goods, at the rate of
twenty English, or four German miles per hour. It is at
present employed in the conveyance of earth. A saving of
11,537 tbalers has, it appears, been thus far effected upon the
valuations of the land works. The direction express a hope
that the portions of the line near Cologne and Aix-la-Cha•
polio may be completed by the spring of 1840, that the entire
distance from Cologne to Aix-la- Chapelle may open to the
public in the beginning of 1841, and that in 1842, or possibly
sooner, it may be extended to the Belgian frontier.-Morning
Paper.
According to the T?eznce des Deux Mondes, the
following is the list of stamps issued to each French journal :-
The average daily in July, 1837. Ditto in July, 1838.
Siecle
La Presse 13,631
Debats
Constitutionnel
Moniteur Parisien
Gazette de France
Quotidienne
National
Commerce
Le Temps
Journal de Campagnes... 3,628
Gazette des Tribunuax 3,075
Estafette
Journal General
Echo Francais
France
Journal de Paris ...... ... 2,014
Bon Sens 730
The Constitutionnel contradicts the veracity of this list, and
aids, the property of the Constitutionnel is divided into fifteen
shares ; in the month of February last one of these shares was
sold to the highest bidder for 130,000 francs : the entire of
the fifteen shares, at the price of the bidders, was 1,930,000
francs; two other shares were told. a few days after, at the
same price : and since the administration has been renewed by
these changes a half share was given two months ago for
70,000 francs, which made on the price of the share an increase
I of 10,000 francs, and which gave to the proprietors of the jour-
-0 pal a sum of more than two million francs.
i'.. .