The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-08-01
BYRON AND MILTON.
lHoward wydman, in Indianapolis Hera

bearing date of July 4. an extract from an article by Gath" Tn which he, with some brevity, places Byron and Milton in contrast as to their poetical works, and their respective qualifications as bodied forth in them. l confess to a fondness for Mir. Townsend's articles, for the req son that they are for the most part writ ten in lucid, conversational style, are apparently written with ease, always having in them the quality of simpli city, which is, according to the aphorism, beauty. heartily wish the criticism had been made longer. Good criticism is always precious, and we have Imlac's authority for saying that it is rarer than good poetry The remarks have refer ence to, coming as they do from writer of experience, observation and learning, coald hardly fail to be of some interest to the general reader, and of great deal of interest to the reader who endeavors to peer below the current, well-known facts in the life of any great literary man, into the larger province of min utia.
 MT. Townsend has given us a piece of ingenious writing, in which 1t has pleased him to attempt to displace Milton from his elevated seat next to Shakespeare, and substitute in his stead a man of noble powers, George Gordon Noel Byron. Far be it from me, while not rendering to Byron the full measure ot my homage, ever to say aught by way of depreciation of him. That cannot be done. To him who, while still in his homage, so effectually brid!ed the ranting, virulent criticism ot knot of illustrious pedants that infested the recesses of the Edinburg RevieaV, and strove to build themselves palace of fame on the foun- da,ion reared by others, just as Bowles attempted to chamber into Pope's triunphal chariot; to the man that a lit tie later published one of the noblest and most affecting of poems to the man that smote with the hammer of Thor every species ot cant and hypocrisy, from Covent C. Irden to "Your Most Serene Highness; ;" to the man that spent his last days in exertion to infuse new life into the Grecian government where it lay, possessed of a deep, immedicable coma to the man that wrote "The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece" than which poem patriotism as it has hap pened to rise into verse cannot show a better; to this man shall always look with deference and admiration.
 But when we come to brush aside all the secondary Cor primary?) considera- tions, and weigh each of these two great mems claim upon our suffrage to place one or the other next to the man "who was not for an age, but for all ,ime," our final opinion rapidly changes tenor. There is great deal in Byron to admire |; that is, tha. admiration given to bravery, prowess. and disregar ard of death, and such peculiarities that bespeak for the inner soul an indomitable will and daunt- less energy. sit enthralled with Rich- ards bloody work, and nod at the pious and wise melancholy of Jacques. Why r Because feel assured that when Rich- mond fronts the "poisonous hunch- backed toad" with drawn and th1eaten- ing blade, he will not shriRk nor implore :; benetted with traitors and a Nydra- headed conscience, he will not .mble or fear. MT John Nichol has drawn Byron to the life in this portrait:
 The scion of long line of lawless bloods-a Scandinavian Berserker, if there ever was one-the literary heir of the E idas, was specially created to smite the conventionallty which is the tyrant of England with the bolts of love, and to scar with the sarcasm of Mephistopheles the hollow hypocrisy-sham tastes, sham religion, sham morals of the society by which he was surrounded and infected, and which all but succeeded in seduCing him. His greatness as well as his weak. ness lay in the fact that from boyhood battle was the breath ot his being. To tell him not to fight was like telling Wordsworth not to mediate, or Shelley not to sing. His instrument was an in- strament of challenge. and he lived as he appropriately died, in the progress of an unaccomplished campaign"
 No prose in English has quite the same sketchiness, rapidity and vigor as Byron s; and Tn verse or prose he was never called prolix or dull, even by his worst enemies. In fact, there is no mass of writings that breathe so much of confi- dence. He tells us everything; nothing kept from us, even from the duns he re- ceived. If he goes out of his room he tells us, his hat and gloves still lying on the table," when he is interrupted. think this IS Tn the Oh canto of "Don Juan," but have not the book at hand now, and must be contented with a mere con- lecture.
 His works are all fame-hame, that is the word fire. uncomfortable and wild. But after all false fire, whose destroy ing influences we see gradually creeping inward toward the heart and centre till at last the great oak goes laundering to the earth. As one consequence of this fire," which is often mistaken for ener- gy, we find him at nineteen talking thus {: rest perfect Simon."
 What sad contrast with Shelley, the eternal child," as Mir. Gilfallan calls him. It is great relief to turn from one who studied to dress his poetry in all the lascivious trumpery possible, to one whose life was a continuous triumph, through the sheer force of his genius, to man tha, was the friend Of virtue. and walked himself in her quiet path-Mil- ton. He has produced the finest Masque In English, "Comus the two sweetes, and simplest rural lyrics, "L'Allegro 1"
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