II
Only second to the impact of Napoleon on Europe was the impact of Byron. ’Tis Cæsar and Hamlet in contemporary antithesis, for Professor Minto has well said that Byron played Hamlet with the world for his stage. While Byron was soliloquising with his pen, Napoleon was energising with his sword, and whether the pen was really the mightier of the twain is a nice thesis for debating societies. But in Italy, and by the greatest modern Italian poet, Byron has been acclaimed as a man of action. In my hotel in Bologna the landlord had piously—or with an eye to custom—suspended a tablet, commissioned from Carducci, whereof a translation would run as follows:
“Here
In August and September 1819
Lodged
And Conspired for Liberty
George Gordon, Lord Byron,
Who Gave to Greece His Life,
To Italy His Heart and Talent,
Than Who