Early in 1815 Byron married Miss Milbanke, an heiress, at least in expectations, though his motive was not mercenary. He was instantly pursued by creditors; his temper and behaviour became insufferable; and, as soon as possible after the birth of a daughter, his wife returned to her own people, and early in 1816 left him for ever. Her whole conduct, and the conduct of all concerned, is difficult to explain on any theory, and Byron, under a heavy cloud, left England for Switzerland and the society, for a few months, of Shelley, Mary Godwin, and Claire Clairmont. The party were pursued by curiosity, and scandalous rumour was as active on the Continent as at home.
The play of "Manfred," in which the mysterious hero, in his moods of romantic remorse about nobody knows what, courts peril among Alpine peaks, tempests, and glaciers, was supposed to represent the passions and the pursuits of the noble poet.
Goethe was much interested in "Manfred"; his own "Faust," partly translated to Byron by Shelley or Monk Lewis, was certainly one of the elements in the making of the poem.
Byron fed the public curiosity about himself and his wife and sister by various pieces of verse, including the admired "Dream," in which he displayed his moods repentant, or angry, but always annoying to the persons at whom he wrote. The third canto of "Childe Harold," written in Switzerland, was full of personal "disclosures," and contained the familiar stanzas on the Duchess of Richmond's ball on the eve of Quatre Bras. There are curious—traces of Wordsworthian influence, received through Shelley, in this canto. Byron proceeded to Venice, where he lived an unwholesome life for several years; finishing "Childe Harold" after a trip to Rome: in this part he introduced descriptions of many works of ancient art, and expressed his contempt for its critics. His ecstasies over the Venus de Medici were in accordance with the taste of a period that knew not the Greek art of the age of Pheidias, till the "Elgin marbles," reft (to Byron's natural and laudable indignation), from the Parthenon, had been studied. The Dying Gladiator was the motive of one of the most admired passages of the fourth canto of "Childe Harold".
The spirited "Mazeppa"; the lively "Beppo" (the verse fashioned on an Italian model), the dramas of "Marino Faliero," "The Two Foscari," "Cain" (dedicated to Scott), "Heaven and Earth" (much admired by Goethe), and the beginnings of "Don Juan," with, later, the continuation of "Don Juan," and "The Island" and several minor things, proved the astonishing energy of Byron, while living at Venice, Ravenna, Genoa, and elsewhere. "The Vision of Judgment," an attack on Southey through his poem on the death of George III., and "Don Juan," show the high-water mark of his powers as a satirist. Always ready at freedom's call, Byron went to inspire and direct the Greek war of national independence, and, after struggling to reconcile the feuds and jealousies of the patriots, died of fever, malaria, and the results of the climate, at Missolonghi, on 19 April, 1824.
The question as to whether Byron was a great poet, or merely a man of extraordinary mental energy, wit and rhetorical force, expressing himself in verse, must be decided by the taste of the reader. No discoverable rule seems to guide the verdicts of critics. The resonance of Byron's name, due in great part to his title, his beauty, his mystery, his love affairs, to "the pageant of his bleeding heart," and to his fiery attacks on convention, still echoes on the Continent. Byron's reputation abroad (especially among those who have not read much of him, and of Shakespeare have read little or nothing), is perhaps the highest that is accorded of any English poet. At home, if he "bet" Scott, it was rather in popularity than in performance. While Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge were neglected (though Wordsworth from the first had a small but constantly growing flock of devotees), Byron, by "Don Juan," and by the romance of his death, recovered a vogue that had been waning, till a new generation arose; and the contemporaries of Tennyson's undergraduate time declared, like Thackeray, that Byron "was never sincere".
It is impossible to conjecture what the reaction to the poetry of Byron will be in each reader's case. He was revolutionary; Matthew Arnold was not; but it is the placid Arnold who hails Byron as "the greatest force" in the English literature of the nineteenth century; and it is the revolutionary Swinburne whose copious vocabulary is over-tasked in the effort to find epithets of disdain and disgust. The intellectual energy of Byron is like a meteoric force of Nature, that is undeniable, whether we admire his poetry, or think it but rhetoric carried to an unexampled pitch in verse. It is for future generations and not for the ordinary critic to pronounce a verdict on so much humour, wit, and capricious genius. There is at this hour no complete and critical life of the poet: many letters and other documents remain unpublished. But if ever a biography, critical and complete, is produced, the discredit thrown on English hypocrisy because of English treatment of the poet will probably be seen to be based on ignorance and sentiment. Byron was, undeniably, dowered with "the scorn of scorn": it was his humour to mock at what was best in his own impulses and in the nature of man; and it is probable that his excellences were sincere while his mockery was an affectation; the result of inherited qualities, and of the amari aliquid always mixed with the cup whereof he had to drink. He was, unquestionably, in so far sincere, that his poetry was the reflection of his character, which never overcame the noble tolerance of Scott, though, at last, it repelled and disgusted the not intolerant Shelley. His poetry has now to meet the rivalry of contemporaries little heeded in his day,—Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth,—and of such successors as Tennyson; as careful as Byron was disdainful of form; so that new generations are not apt to begin with enthusiasm for the author of "Childe Harold".
Keats.
John Keats, born in London (1795), was the son of a livery-stable keeper. His education was not neglected, though he had no Greek, and in boyhood he could appreciate the magic of Virgil (which does not usually charm boys), and made some progress with a translation. In physique he was powerful, and no mean boxer, despite the inherent weakness of his constitution. He became acquainted with Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt, who introduced him to some of the old English poets; Spenser he found out for himself, like Cowley, and revelled in "The Faery Queen," like a young horse turned loose in a pasture. Another friend of Keats was the witty John Hamilton Reynolds, whose parody of Wordsworth's "Peter Bell" was published before the original. Shelley and Keats were acquainted but were never intimate, Shelley advising Keats not to publish "his first blights," and Keats admonishing Shelley to write less rapidly and copiously and to "load every rift with ore". In no long time Keats discovered in Leigh Hunt certain unendearing qualities which never appear to have been noticed by Shelley; for of Hunt, which is strange, Shelley's good opinion never altered.