New-York tribune., 1910-11-30

tides. the leader in talent and truth, is to
4 be next 10 the Divinity
NAV I be forgiven for wishing to add
to this early English estimate of the
father of his country-even at the cost
of seeming intrusive-a later one. purely
| American. Forty years after Byron's
! lines were written an occupant Of Wash
ington's chair. no less than Abraham
Lincoln, said:
ION that name no eulogy is expected
here. It cannot be. To add brightness 70
the sun. or glory to the name OF Wasn1rg ttaaS+
it. In solemn awe pronounce the maine,
and in its naked, deathless splendor leave
il shining on.
When you consider the nature OF Eng
land. and indeed when you consider the
history of the nineteenth centur3, the
reason why Lord Byron's work and fame
seem now less vital than they were be-
comes plain enough. He was perpetually
in revolt His work is the literature OF
revolt, and for the most part Of unw1se
and unsuccessful revolt. 1t was revolt
against society; revolt against those
features Of morality on which society
sets up the most exacting standards;
revolt against his order; revolt against
theology If not against religion; and
finally, revolt against many established
opinions most established institutions,
and against some esta blished govern
ments Yet his revolutions were all fall
! ures They were either too late or too
early-one or two were magnificent, but
they We're not war. Rousseau did in
spire a revolution: Byron spent most OF
his time glorifying the disdain. the re-
venge and the despair Of baff1ed con-
spirators And between the disdain and
| the despair which were the favorfte emo
! tons Of his heroes, depicted again and
again until they become monotonous he
rarely failed to introduce the debauch-
cry. The admirable critic who still lends
such scholarly dignity to your present
government pronounced a kind verdict
in declaring him ''the favorite poet of
all the most highminded conspirators
and socialists of Continental Europe for
| half a century"
Yet even in his worse moments of ut
ter perversity. when eager to maintain
his affected pose as the most startlingly,
sensational1y, picturesquely wicked Of
Englishmen, he passed in an instant to
strains Of surprising sweetness when he
thought Of his daughter or his sister-to
pictures of feminine charm and purity
and grace which neither English litera-
ture nor the classics Of the world can
ever afford TO lose from their immortal
treasures. Who does not know and
sympathize with the exclamation of the
idolatrous parent?
Is thy face like thy mothers, my fair child
Ada. sole daughter of my house and heart
| When last l saw thy young blue eyes, they
| smiled,
And then we parted
Or who can fail to carry with him that
parent-poet's picture Of. the hapless
Bride OF Abydos7
Soft as the memory OF buried love;
Pure as the prayer which Childhood waits
above;
Such was Zu1eika, such around her shone
The nameless charms, unmarked by hel
alone
The light of love, the purity Of Grace,
The mind, the music breathing from hel
The heart whose softness harmonized tn.
whole,
And oh !, that eye was in itself a soul
Or who would not envy. the Giaour the
memory he recalled In his confession:
She was form of life and light,
That seen, became part of sight;
And rose. where'er I turned mine eye,
The Morning-star Of Memory.
Yes, love indeed is life from heaven,
a spark Of that immortal fire,
With Angels shared. by Allah given
To lift from earth our low desire.
Or who does not love looking again
and again on this picture from the He
brew Melodies:
She walks in beauty, like the night
OF cloudless clirnes and starry skies;
I And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
: The smiles that win. the tints that glow,
! But tell Of days in goodness spent,
a mind at peace with all below.
a heart whose love is innocent
But when you consider England again,
or indeed when you consider human nat
Ure within the range of modern civiliza-
ton, you see why even exquisite pas
sages like these, which without doubt
fairly revealed one side Of the poets nat
ure, failed when the first storm arose
perhaps still fail to earn general for
giveness for Lord Byron. He addressed
his greatest poem to his fair child, sole
daughter OF his house and heart; but
could not finish even that without an
other attack upon her mother. or the
boast that
far hour shall wreak
The deep prophetic fulness of this verse
And pile on human hearts the mountain of
my curse.
He put In the same poem tender and
not unnatural address to his sister, with
/ a longing for her companionship. He
even addressed its earlier cantos, in pure
and graceful lines, to a child of eleven,
the daughter of distinguished friend
And yet. in this noblest of his works,
the high-water mark of his better pow
ers. consecrated thus in the eyes of the
world TO his daughter, his sister, and the
child of his friend he could not forego
soiling with an occasional Icentious
touch the stately and splendid display of
a poetical genius hardly equalled in the
century.
The depths to which he fell in some
of his poems Of the Venetian period re-
veal with painful frankness the other
side of his amazing literary character.
Perhaps il is well enough depicted in his
: own lines about Manfred:
This should have been a noble creature: he
Hath all the energy which would have made
a goodly frame Of glorious clements,
Had they been wisely mingled: IL is,