Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-01-26
The Extraordinary Popularity bf Byron

The Extraordinary Popularity bf Byron
Tie HInnia for Poetic Misery in his Day.
In the course of Harriet Martineau's ar
ticle, in the Atlantic Monthly for February,
(from which we have already extracted), on
Lady Byron" occur the following remarks
about the early popularity of the author of
Childc Harold. The period was just before
his marriage with Miss Milbanke:
Byron was then the idol of much more
than the literary world. His poetry was
known by heart by multitudes of men and
women who read very little else; and one
meets, at this day, elderly men, who live
quite outside of the regions of literature,
who believe that there never could have
been such poet before, and would say, if
they dared, that there will never be such
another again. He appeared at the moment
when society was restless and miserable,
and discontented with the fates and the
universe, and all that it contained. The
general sensibility had not long found any
expression in poetry. Literature seemed
something quite apart from experience and
with which none but particular class had
any concern.
AT such a time, when Europe lay desolate
under the ravage and incesssnt menace of
the French Empire-when England had an
insane King, prohigate Regent, an afro
cous ministry, and corrupt Parliament
when the war drained the kingdom of its
youth and every class of its resources when
there was chronic discomfort in the manu-
featuring districts, and hunger among the
rural population, with perpetual extension
of pauperism, swallowing up the working
and even the middle classes-when every
body was full of anxiety, dread, or a reac-
tionary recklessness-there suddenly ap-
peared new strain of poetry which seemed
to express every mans mood.
Every man took up the song. Byrons
musical woe resounded through the land.
People who had not known exactly what was
the matter with them, now found that life
was what Byron said it was, and that they
were sick oft. l can well remember the en-
thusiasm-the better, perhaps, for never
having shared it. At first l was too young
and afterward found too much of mood:
and too little of matter to create any lasting
attachment to bis poetry. But the music o.
il rang in all ears, and the rush of its popu
laIity could not be resisted by any but down
right chuTlish persons. / remember how
ladies, in morning calls, recited passages oi
Byron to each other-and how gentlemen
in water-parties, whispered his short poem;
to their next neighbor.
If man was seen walking with his hest
down and his lips moving, he was revolving
Byron's last romance; and children who
began to keep albums wrote, in double line
on the first page, some staDza which caugh
them by its sound, if they were not up to it
sense. On some pane in every inn window
there was scrap of Byron; and in young
ladies' portfolios there were portraits of tht
poet recognizable through all bad drawing
and distortion, by the cast Of the beautiful
features of the Corsair style. Where popu
larity like this sprang up, there must be suf
fcient reason for it to cause it to involve
more or less all orders of minds; and the
wisest and most thoroughly trained scholars
fell into the general admiration, and keenly
enjoyed so melodious an expression of gen
eral state of feeling, without asking too per
tinaciously for higher views and deepe
meanings.
Old Quakers were troubled at detectin
hidden copies and secret studies of Byroi
among young men and maidens who were t.
be preserved from all stimulants to the pas
sions; and they were yet more troubled
when, looking to see what the charm wa
which so wrought upon the youth of thei
sect, they found themselves carried away BY
it, beyond all power to forget what the,
lad read. The idolatry of the poet, whicl
marked that time, was an inevitable conse
quence of the singular aptness of his utter
ance. His dress, manner, and hkings wer
adopted, so far as they could be ascertained
by hundreds of thousands of youth who wer
at once sated with life and ambitious O
fame, or at least of reputation for fastidiou
discomfort; young ladies declared that Byrol
was every thing that was great and good
and even our best literature of criticism
shows how respectful and admiring the hard
est reviewers grew, after the poet had be
come the pet and the idol of all England.