The Portage County Democrat. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1863-07-01
4 HRIEF sKErCH.
Portage eohntr pemocrst.

4 delivered, this year, by one OF the citizens OF
your place, Grew. T. c. Hartshorn,) and oc-
4 CURED the evening of the 18th ult. Although
the weather was quite sustry, a very COM
: mehdable and appresiating audiencs was con-
vered; and the address, though occupying a
full hour and half, was listened to with
marked attention and interest. The subject
4 itself was calculated to attract attention, if
I for no other reason than its novelty.
The theme was Lord Byron. We confess,
that in the outset, we were not little puz-
zled to know what could be said that should
be either entertaining orinstruetive upon such
theme; and We were especially perplexed
to know where the Morale of the address
would turn up; but the speaker gradually re-
lieved US of both anxiety and curiosity on
this point. Mr. e. commenced by saying
that the poetry and personal character of Lord
Byron were 50 interviewer with each other,
that correct analysis Of the one necessarily
involves, to considerable extent, knowl-
ledge of the secret springs and workings of
the other, at least so far as any Of its phases
fserved, in any degrees to give bent to his ear
Ily genius. =
The speaker referred to, and analysed Lord
Brougham's criticism published in the Edin-
burg Review in 1908, on Byron,s poetry, en-
tit ed Hours of Idleness; and the influence it
exerted in the enkindling the fires of his gen
ius, and rousirg his Intellectual energies to a
CONSCIOUSNESS of their own powers
He traced the connection between Byron,s
personal character and. social development,
and that of his. Intellectual mould and the
recipr cal influence of one upon the other
He referred to the strange compound of op-
posites and extremes both in his essential
character and the circumstances that surround
ed him. In his person were blended nobility
and pride of ancestral rank, with a morbid
sensibility to the most trivial defects in ma
ture, and the most trivial csprices in fortune;
he was born to all that men covet or admire;
but in every one of the advantages which he
possessed was mingled much. that was debas-
ing and humiliating, He was possessed of q
form of classic beauty; yet foot that the
beggars in the streets would deride; he had
spirit within him that could overleap every
barrier in the accomplishment of human pur-
poses, and yet that spirit would cover down
and writhe with intense agony, at the bare
mention of his defects. -
:. He was gifted with great intellectual pow
ers; yet his mind was unsound and unbalane-
: ed. He combined in his character all that
was humane and ennobling,, with all that is
debasing and inhuman; and seemed the very
embodiment of antitheses in every shading of
Z his character Mr.. II. further remarked that
these heterogeneous and discordant elements,
instructed BY an evil education and breathed
upon by the spirit of a chilling misanthropy.
stamped their indeIble impress upon all his
works. - . 20
~l9 The speaker remarked that poetry like
philosophy, had its schools, and that Byron
was the connecting link between two hostile
) sects or schools Of party; and by the powers
of his genius led out the one dispensation and
introduced the other. The world had never
heard such strange music before Pope had
g sung in stains of orphean melody, and the
i music of his verse was like the rustling of
. angels wings. Gowper, with the powers Of
an inimitable description, had clothed the
cofnrnonest scenes in nature with an unearth-
~ charm; and others with the sterner define
ations of truth, had unfolled strange myste-
s ries in the human heart; but it remained for
Byron to introduce neto era in poetic litera-
ture3 ,yi.tfyttI i9 7o19oa - esi3 . 1913
Without the finished grace analytic phi
losophy, delicacy, variety, and stern truth
characteristic of others, Byron was destined,
4 by the force and erefgy.of his thought, and
vehen1enee of his passion, to at once and for
ever outstrip them, and to change, to con-
siderable extent, the whole current of poeti-
s cal literature of the age. Mr. H. observed
g that there was a peculiar feature in Byron's
Is productions, which other geniuses rarely ever
develop; that was sdnaeness-not the same
;. ness of mohotony-far from it. He remark
ed that there really were but two characters in
all Byron's works-the one stern, morose,
cynical being, hating mankind, implacable in
= his revenge; yet susceptible of the most ten
!, der affection; the other woman full of ten
: derness and love, but capable of executing the
most revengeful and diabolical Deeds when
once the evil passions of her soul are reused
into action. These characters Byron ever
carried with him. They were part and par
eel of his intellectual self; he could not di-
I vest himself of them For this reason By
ron sgnaly failed as dramatist The ele-
ments of dramatic power he never possessed.
The very construction of his mind was such
as to preclude any marked attainment in this
direeten. La all his dramatic works there is
: wanting that essential element to dramatic
effect, viz the creation Of character. There
4 are no events there are no characters, pro-
:. perly, in all his works. No author, perhaps,
ever possessed less dramatic effect, that Pc
!, culiar faculty of going out of ones self to
create character, and which was so soremarkably
developed by Shakespeare, than Byron The
want of this contributed, in no small degree,
to his early fame, for it was his intense indi-
: viduality that SO vitalized, with strong PAS
sion, every emotion of his lofty and misan-
: thropic mind The speaker alluded to By
rons wonderful and almost unlimited control
, over the realms of passion, nisanthropy and
: scorn. These constituted, in his nature, a
perpetual and perennial Marqh of bitterness;
and impaired to his sarcasm a point and pun
geney rarely. if ever equalled by any writer.
Mr.. H. illustrated the above traits Of char
acter in Byron, by referring to some passages
! of terrible scorn; such as the 'imprecation of
Eve upon Cain for the murder of Abel, and
y lines to Mrs Charinort for her interference in