The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1888-01-28
BYRON.


By William Hinierl
On certain night in 1885, when
Mrs. Siddons was acting at Edinburgh,
the play being 'The Fatal Marriage"
and the character Isabella, a young
lady of Aberdeenshire, Miss Catherine
Gordon, eight, was amongst the audi
ence. There is point in that tragedy
at which Isabella recognizes her first
husband, whom she had supposed to
be dead and III whose absence she had
been married to another, and her con-
sternation, grief and rapture are sudden
and excessive. Mrs. Siddons, at that
point, always made great effect. The
words are, ooh, my Bron, my Biron 7"
On this night, at the moment when the
wonderful actress sent forth her wall
ing and heart-piercing cry as she ut
tered those words, Miss Gordon, of
eight, gave frantic scream, fell into
violent Mysteries, and was borne out OF
the theatre,-still repeating "Oh, my
Biron, my Biron r' At the time of
this incident 1t does not appear that she
had ever met the man by whom she
was afterward wedded-the Hon. John
Byron, whose wife she became about a
year later. Their frst-born and only
child was George Gordon, afterward
Lord Byron, the poet; and among the
many aspects of his life which impress
the thoughtful reader of that strange
and melancholy story none is more
striking than the dramatic aspect-so
strangely pretigure in this event.
Censure of Byron whether as man
or as writer may be considered to
have spent its force. 1t is a hundred
years since he was born and sixty-four
years since he died. Everybody who
wished to say word against him has
had ample opportunity for saying 1t,
and there is evidence that this oppor-
tunity has not been neglected. The
record was long ago made up. The
story was long ago told. Everybody
knows that Byron's conduct was some
times deformed with frenzy and stained
with vice. Everybody knows that
Byron's writings are occasionally marred
with profanity and licentiousness, and
that they contain a considerable guam
tity of trash. Ii he had never been
married, or if, beng married, his do
mestic life had not ended in disaster
and scandal, his personal reputation
would stand higher than it does at
present in the esteem of society. If
about one third of what he wrote had
never been published his reputation as
a man of letters would stand higher
than it now does in the esteem of the
best judges of literary art. After ali
exhaustive discussion of the subject in
every possible aspect of 1t, after every
variety of hostile assault and after praise
sounded in every key OF enthusiasm
and in every language of the world,
these truths remain. 1t is pity that
Byron was not virtuous man and a
good husband. 1t is a pity that he
was not better literary artist, that he
wrote so much, and that he published
almost everything that he wrote. But,
when all this has been said, it remains
a solid and immovable fact that Byron
was a great poet, and that he continues
to be great power in the literature
and in the life of the world. Nobody
who pretends to read anything ever
omits to read "Childe Harold"
To touch this complex and delicate
subject in only superficial manner it
may not be amiss to say that the world
is under obligation to Byron, if tor
nothing else, for the spectacle Of a most
romantic, impressive and instructive
life. His agency in that spectacle, no
doubt, was involuntary, but all the same
he presented it. He was a true poet !;
man of genius his faculty of express
sion was colossal, and his conduct was
absolutely genuine. No man in litera-
ture ever lived who lived himself more
fully. Even his assumptions of dis
gulse only made him more obvious and
transparent. He kept nothing back.
His heart was laid absolute bare. We
know even more about him than we
know about DR.. Johnson-who never
could have dropped an h without hav-
ing 1t picked up by his biographer-
and still his personality endures the
test OF our knowledge and remains uni
que, romantic, fascinating, prolific of
moral admonltion and infinitely pathe-
tic. Byron in poetry, like Edmund
Kean in acting, is figure that COM
plctely fills the imagination, profoundly