New-York tribune., 1910-11-30


paints himself; and specially to seek
consolation for his own matrimonial In
felicity by considering marriage as a rule
unhappy. most wives wanton, and all
men false. Their attacks on well known
personages outrage most limitations that
gentlemen are expected to recognize;
yet they seem made, sometimes perhaps
for revenge. but more often for the mere
fun Of showing how outrageous he can
be, or Of annoying his family, members
OF his order and former friends by ex-
hibiting himself as the most unscrupulous
madcap that ever put splendid brain TO
such uses. Then again come flashes of
magnanimous praise for old foes like
Jeffrey; and more striking still, the
warmest and most grateful returns to
every patient soul that still showed him
appreciation or kindness in spite Of his
excesses. For the one extreme, you Will
remember his frequent tone toward
Shelley and Wordsworth; for the other,
his sincere and obviously heartfelt trib-
utes to Sir Walter Scott, to Thomas
Moore, to Hobhouse, and especially to
Goethe. It was indeed a mad, bad.
phase Of his literary life.
But even at the worst he would sud
denly pass from wearisome pages OF
mere degradation Of his powers to a lyric
that will set the pulses Of all men throb-
bing while brave deeds are honored or
liberty is loved. Take these disconnect-
ed lines from one that still shines in Its
base surroundings gem. in fact, that
on the stretched forefnger Of all time
sparkles forever:
The mountains look on Marathon.
And Marathon looks or the sea;
And, muSing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free.
Must we but weep Ger days more blest?
Earth render back from out thy breast
a remnant of our Spartan "a dead af
To make a new Thermopyl&!
Place me on Sunium's marble steep,
Where nothing save the waves and
May hear our mutual murmurS sweep;
There, swanlike. let me sing and die;
A land Of slaves shall neer be mine
Dash down yon cup Of Samian wine!
There has been some misdirected SYM
pathy wasted on the beginning of Lord
Byron's career. THE Hours Of Idleness'
was a thin production, even for a clever
lad Of only eighteen; and the stilted pref
ace, with its exaggerated emphasis on
his youth, and its housekeeping parade
of his ancestors and his noble blood, con-
trasts absurdly enough with his own real
feelings, In his black moods, on the same
subject. THE Edinburgh Review"
might easily have ignored this first pub
lication; but the game was too tempting.
THE Review" really gave 1t only what
it deserved. But it also gave the conf
dent and audacious young man his op-
portunity, and taught him his strength.
The retort In English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers was obviously modelled on
Pope. 1t did not equal that original.
| but for the occasion and for the youth 1t
was singularly and most unexpectedly
effective; and. from the day Of its pub
| lication, Lord Byron had literary i'm
mortality absolutely in his own hands.
Three years later (when he was still
only twenty-four) the first part of the
| poem on which his better fame rests
was published, and six years after that
came it's nlatchfess climax. In the same
interval appeared most Of the other
works by which his admirers prefer to
remember him, though one Of the great
est was three years later still.
BY then 1t had been burnt into his
consciousness that he had "sQuandered
his whole summer while 1t still was
May; and by some tremendous effort.
after the worst OF the work In Venice
and the perverse publication Of so much
of 1t which his friends resisted and de-
plored, he summoned up all his powers
and gave to the world in that memorable
year Of 1921 Che thirty third Of his age,
! and practically the last Of his valuable
literary productivity one poem at least,
Cain" which in sheer power and maj
esty has not been surpassed since Mil
| ton. Sir Walter Scott even declared
that Byron had matched Milton on his
own ground" But the circumstances
| hardly permitted this to be an impartial
verdict. If there were not other rea-
| sons for demur, it would be enough to
consider the sad sincerity Of the great
Puritan, and the frivolous affectations Of
the poet Of the Regency. The one in pro-
found faith touched the noblest notes in
the poetic diapason with the exalted fer
vor belonging to his theme. The other
seemed to have nc faith. in God, or man,
or woman, or in himself. He put into
the mouth of our first Mother as fearful
a curse upon the first murderer as ever
chilled human veins:
May the grass wither from thy feetI the
woods
Deny thee shelter earth home! the dust
God
And, then, il forwarding it to his pub
fishers, described it in this fiippant way:
There's as pretty a piece of imprecation
for you, when joined to the lines already
sent, as you may wish to meet with in
the course Of your business. But don't
forget the addition Of these three lines,
which are clinchers to Ewes speech"
Imagine John Milton sending Satan's
speech in Paradise Lost" to his pub
fishers with such a mesSagei AS little
was he like our other and earlier liter
ary divinity, Shakespeare. That un-
challenged master knew all moods, all
heights and depths of the human mind.
Byron really knew to the bottom only
the extravagantly loving or the defiant
and revengeful ones. His heroes were
!. rSni-e I'D