Our hands, and cry “Eureka!” it is clear—
When but some false mirage[[48]] of ruin rises near.’
This is undoubtedly fine: but Rome was glorious, before she became a ruin; stately, before she was laid low; was ‘seen of all eyes,’ before she was confounded in oblivion. Lord Byron’s poetry, in its irregular and gloomy magnificence, we fear, antedates its own doom; and is buried in a desolation of his own creating, where the mists of fancy cloud, instead of lighting up the face of nature; and the fierceness of the passions, like the Sirocco of the Desart, withers and consumes the heart. We give this judgment against our wills; and shall be happy, should we live to see it reversed by another generation. All our prejudices are in favour of the Noble Poet, and against his maligners. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is dedicated to Mr. Hobhouse, and there are passages both in the dedication and the poem which would bribe our opinions, were they to be bribed either by our admiration of genius or our love of liberty. Such are the following passages:—
[‘What from this barren being do we reap,’ &c. (stanzas 93–95)].
But we must conclude; not, however, till we have made two extracts more. We shall not give the passages relating to his separation from his wife, or the death of the Princess Charlotte: we see nothing remarkable in the events, or in his Lordship’s reflections on them. As to his vow of revenge, which is to end in forgiveness, it is unconscious, constitutional caprice and contradiction: it is self-will exerting itself in straining at a violent conclusion; and then, by another exertion, defeating itself by doing nothing. So also he expatiates on the boundless anticipated glories of a female reign, which were never likely, and are now impossible, only that he may rail at lady Fortune in good set terms, and indulge a deeper disgust at all that is real or possible. We will give what is better than such cant,—the description of the dying Gladiator, and the conclusion of the poem:—
[‘I see before me the Gladiator lie,’ &c. (stanzas 140 and 141)].
O si sic Omnia! All, however, is not so. The stanzas immediately following, on the story of the Grecian Daughter and the Apollo Belvidere, are in as false and sophisticated a taste, as these are pure and sublime. But, at the close of the poem, in addressing the pathless ocean,—the self-willed, untamed mighty world of waters,—his genius resumes its beauty and its power, and the Pilgrim sinks to rest in strains as mild and placid as the breath of childhood, that frets itself asleep.
[‘My task is done—my song hath ceased—my theme,’ &c. (stanzas 185 and 186)].
THE OPERA
| The Yellow Dwarf.] | [May 23, 1818. |