The Republican journal., 1888-04-05
The Byron Centenary.

| For few years no name in England was so
| famous, no personality so picturesque, no lit
| erary influence more positive and universal.
Byron appeared. and there seemed to be no
other English poet living. Scott, Wordsworth.
i Coeriuge, Shelley, Keats, Campbell Moore
all shone feeby beside that sun. He cast a
spell, dazzling glamour upon England which
was unprecedented His career was meteoric,
a flash, a blazing line of light, and sudden
darkness In this country, IIalleck. Percva,
willis, and others of our early choristers echo
| cd his note. The grandfatherS of the present
| generation quoted Byron and filled their scrap
| books with his poetry. and when Wordsworth
was mentioned and Tennyson began to sing,
| those fathers listened with the batfed wonder
of old Colonel Newcome lookin. at Gives
| great picture.
| Byron died at thirty six. and died is he had
| -picture>quey and romanticav. He
| died at MisSolonghi, in the land which his
genius had touched into new interest, in the
| heroic effort to aid her struggle against tNran-
| ny; and he died in solitude. and almost with
out friend to close his eyes. England, which
| had runS with his name, and of which he was
i the most conspicuous son OF his time. refused
him the grave in Westminster Abbey which
/ she has granted to many smaller Enyishnan.
and the place of his burial is best described in
| tender and touching paper by MIR. William
| winter which was lately published in Iiarper's
| Weekly, at the time of the centenary. The
centenary reeurs. There is no general inter-
| est i'll it, no marked observation Of il. The
| apathy harmoniZes with the solitude of the
| ueat, and the neglected burial. 1t completes
| in il mourntu way the tragedy of the life, and
| recalls the last lines of his ''Drram'-one of
the simplest and most purely pathetic of his
| poems. in which he describes his boyhoodrs
love for Mary Chaworth:
at was of a strange order, that the doom
VI these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a realitv-the one
| To end III madness both in mfserv."
| There can be but one explanation. 1t is that
the glamour has faded, ant, that the genius no
longer fasclnates. Yet the genius is undenia-
| ble. The charms of "Chde Harold is imper-
i>hable. the Mephi>topheIian wit cf "Don
Juan still remains, and the sadness of som. Of
the songs is as deep as ever. 1t was true some
years ago. and is still probably true. that Byron
in 'Childe Harold" makes the Italy and the
/ Continent that most Enylishmen see. He has
stepped in melody the famous places and the
romantic associations, and cultivated England
used to wander over Europe murmuriny BY
ron. The reaction against hi, absolute literary
ascendenry which followed his death has now
in some degree >ub>ide,l, and Matthew Arnold
| and Frederic Harrison, men of the modern
spirit. acknowledge that his Yenil> gives him Il
place i'll the first rank of English poets.
1t Is, indeed. hard to suppose that the time
VIII come when much of what charm, lis to-
day i'll Byron's poetry will no longer charm.
W 18th all the Sentimentalv there is also Il genl-
- '''ii i''ii'i-. Win IL power cl
musical expression which is uBqur>tiumahle.
AS I he voice of revolutionary epoch. howev-
er. ne Is by nG means significant as Shelley,
while in the high spiritual and humane REGION
i'll which we see Wordsworth
"sailing in supreme dominion =
we do not ste Byron AT all. There is always
the suspicion of Il want of moral and mental
sincerity. IT may not be the spell Of a profane
love OF which we are conscious in his SOM, hut
II Is certainly not the benedctiun of sacred
love. George William Curtis in iIarper'>
Magazine for April.