The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-12-10

They have Deen appearing LOT SOME
year or so. We have seer neither edi-
ton, but they are praised by compe-
tent English critics. The one we would
be particularly glad Ito have and to
hold" is edited by Roland E. Prothero,
formerly a fellow of Oxford University,
and with sundry degrees conferred.
The sixth volume is not yet the end
We think six are required to contain
the Letters and Journals" alone of
the eminent poet. There are two vol
umes of poetry yet to come. Byron
was one Of the most interesting and
consummate masters of letter writing
who have lived in any age or country.
We recall that in the forties, while at
the University of North Carolina. we
read with consuming interest the life
of the poet by Tom Moore, the gifted,
mellifiuous Irish bard He published a
goodly number of letters from the poet
and the were full Of personal charm
and literary c~leverness. The new vol
ume referred to contains. as we learn,
some hundred letters hat have never
been printed before. This will prove to
be of genuine interest to the true
Byronic admirer. We do not know who
Is the chief reviewer for the New York
Tribune, but he is scholarly, able, in
dependent, and gifted with mental
health and literary sincerity. He writes
as he thinks and he thinks well. His
insight ordinarily is excellent and his
- aI-,f-ahl1 D0r;1uf~~ Tho Loot
OF Byron's letters in the Murray edition
we are noticing, he begins in this wise:
There could be no better testimony
to the enduring fascination Of Byron's
correspondence than the feeling of re-
let which arises on reaching the end
Of 1t in the definitive edition of the
POETS writings. One would willingly
have the letters go on indefinitely. But
since, even with the substantial addi-
tons mad by Mr.. Murray, We must be
content with six volumes of them, we
have at least n consolation; every
one Of them can be read, and re-read,
n re-read again. That is one sign
of the immortal quality in Byron. For
many years he suffered a neglect per-
haps more apparent than real Che has
never, of course. been without a large
public, but of late it has seemed as if
&tC c DC1lS hIOIC S1uCI ICdu llldl1
ever; and we believe that as this new
edition Of him makes him better and
better known the prophecy or Matthew
Arnold will be more than fulfilled"
Mr.. Arnold, a great English critic and
essayist-equalled but by ~few-prophe-
sled that Byron would again be real
by lovers of high literature-would
come to his own again. The Tribune
critic thinks the letters so fine that
they must be inevitably a great help
in making the verse better understood"
IL you will read Byron's letters-his
will see the accomplishments
of superb intellect. and that they conf
pare we'll with the supposed writers of
greatest success in letter writing-with
Cowper, Horace, Walpole. Fitzgerald,
and others in England. and with the
most famous letter writer's in France.
The Effort to pooh-hooh Byron made by
a few prominent critics in the past has
failed. That great critic in the first
quarter of the last century. William
Hazlitt, wrote most dispairingly of
Byron, and even abused and under
rated him sc~andaloIsly. But the
Byronic candle vas not to expire under
such hostile attacks. Within a few
years a we'll known Victorian critic.
Professor George Saintsbury. in his use
tul work on the Literature OF the
Nineteenth Century" vigorously attacks
him, and seeks to reduce him IL pos
sible to a rather Indifferent poet But
all this fails. Byron was indeed a
writer of splendid gifts, and his best
poetry has upon it the stamp of
durance. and will be read when his
assailants are we'll nigh forgotten or
are remembered because of their vitu-
perative, caustic criticism of n of the
most masculine poets in the great vol
ume OF English literature.
Byron was a lover himself OF great
literature. He had wide reading. The
Tribune writer says that "of the wide
scope and interesting character of his
reading" hat it ranged from Plato to
TO Voltaire. Judging from the number
OF quotations indicated. it would appear
that his three favorite authors. in the
order named, were Shakespeare. Scott
n Pope" Now little fellows who are
image breakers and character smash
ers deride Scott and think him but a
brass and a tinkling Gym
bal"
a carefully prepared volume or two
Of selections from Byron's poetical
would furnish the fastidious and
moral reader with much of the noblest
and most splendid poetry in the rich
OF Great Britain. The Ger
man author who Is placed above aIf the
poets Of his country, right or wrong.
and who is magniied into such extreme
greatness by admirers. placing him
with Homer Dante and above Mil
ton, Goethe, had great admiration for
Byron and wrote much concerning him.
had acuter ~discernment and higher
appreciation OF great poetry than Haz-