The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1881-04-13
PnREfseimfsm in ByrOn's Time.

Byron found our nation, after its long and
victorious struggle with revolutionary France,
fixed in a system of established facts and
dominant ideas which revolted him. The
mental bondage Of the most powerful part Of
our nation, Of its strong middle class, to a
narrow and false system Of this kind, is what
we call British Philistinism. That bondage
is unbroken to this hour, but in Byron's time
it was even far more deep and dark than it is
now. Byron was an aristocrat, and it is not
difficult for an aristocrat to look on the preju-
dices and habits Of the British Philistine with
skepticism and disdain. Plenty Of young
men of his own class Byron met at Almack's
or at Lady Jerseys, who regarded the estab-
lished facts and reigning beliefs of the Eng
land of that day with as little reverence as he
did. But these men, disbelievers in British
Philistinism in private, entered English pub
lie life, the most conventional il the world,
and at once they saluted with respect the
habits and ideas of British Philistinism as If
they were a part of the order of creation, and
as if in public no sane man would think Of
warning against them. With Byron it was
different. What he called the can't of the
great middle part Of the English nation,
what we call its Philistinism, revolted him;
but the cant of his own class, deferring to
this Philistinism and profting by it while
they disbelieved i in it, revolted him even more.
"Come what may" are his own words, II
will never fatter the millions canting in any
shape" His class in general on the other
hand, shrugged their shoulders at this cant,
laughed at it, pandered to it, and ruled by it.
The f%alsehood, cynicism, insolence, misgov-
eminent, oppression, with their consequent
unfailing crop of human misery, which were
produced by this state Of things, reused By
ron to ~irreconcilable revolt and battle. They
made him indignant; they Infatuated him;
they were SO strong, SO defiant, 50 malefcent
and yet be felt that they were doomed. "You
have seen every trampler down in turn" he
comforts himself with saying, "from Bona
parte to the simplest individuals" The old
order, as after 1915 it stood victorious, with
its ignorance and misery below, its cant, sell
fshness, and cynicism above, was at home
and abroad equally hateful to him. 1T have
simpliied my politics" he writes, ''into an
utter detestation of all existing Governments.
And again: "Give me a republic. The King
times are fast finishing: there will be blood
shed like water and tears like mist, but the
peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not
live to see il, but I foresee it." This is not
the sort Of Liberal peer to move the Address
in the House Of Lords, to pay compliments
to the energy and elf-reiance of British
middle class Liberalism, and to adapt his
politics to suit it. Byron threw himself
upon poetry as his organ and in poetry his
topics were not Queen NAB, and the Witch
Of Atlas, and the Sensitive Plant, they were
the upholders Of the old order, George Ill,
and Lord Castlereagh, and the Duke Of We'll
and Southey, and they were the
and tramplers Of the great world,
and they were his enemies and himself.