It must be frankly confessed that Byron had moments of insincerity, and that he often posed; but he was largely the victim of his temperament. Mr. Symonds has said of him that he was well born and ill bred. He had noble impulses, and he had the strong passions that give energy of feeling and vitality of imagination to many of the greatest men and women; but he had neither clearness of moral vision nor steadiness of purpose. He had great genius; but he was neither intellectually nor morally great. And yet he had such force of mind and eloquence that Goethe, (gay´-te) who was the greatest critic of his time, if not of all time, declared that the English could show no poet to be compared with him.
BYRON’S PLACE AMONG POETS
NEWSTEAD ABBEY
Byron’s Home.
BYRON’S MOTHER
From the painting by Thomas Stewardson in possession of John Murray.
What ground was there for an estimate which gave Byron a place by himself among English poets? “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” was a telling satire written by a confident boy of genius, effective in “hits” which the time understood, but defective in critical insight; “Childe Harold,” the early stanzas of which appeared after travel had inspired him, was a splendid piece of rhetoric which often attains a very noble eloquence. “The Giaour” (jow´-er), “Manfred,” the “Corsair,” “Lara” (lah´-rah), stirred an age which was in revolt against rigid and often artificial conventions. “Don Juan” (hoo-ahn´), like “Childe Harold,” is a poetic journal which lacks dramatic unity, but contains descriptions of compelling beauty. Some of the shorter pieces, like the “Prisoner of Chillon,” “When We Two Parted,” “She Walks in Beauty,” have the power of deep feeling when it becomes eloquent; while such stanzas as “The Isles of Greece,” scattered through “Childe Harold,” make history as moving as poetry.
