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must, in the common course of events, decline in power; and the former must as inevitably become better.

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The English Government deceived itself at first in thinking it possible to maintain the Turkish Empire in its integrity; but it cannot be done, that unwieldy mass is already putrified, and must dissolve. If anything like an equilibrium is to be upheld, Greece must be supported." These words have been well characterized as prophetic. During this time Byron rallied in health, and displayed much of his old spirit, vivacity, and humour, took part in such of his favourite amusements as circumstances admitted, fencing, shooting, riding, and playing with his pet dog Lion. The last of his recorded practical jokes is his rolling about cannon balls, and shaking the rafters, to frighten Parry in the room below. with the dread of an earthquake.

Towards the close of the month, after being solicited to accompany Mavrocordatos, to share the governorship of the Morea, he made an appointment to meet Colonel Stanhope and Odysseus at Salona, but was prevented from keeping it by violent floods which blocked up the communication. On the 30th he was presented with the freedom of the city of Mesolonghi. On the 3rd of April he intervened to prevent an Italian private, guilty of theft, from being flogged by order of some German officers. On the 9th, exhilarated by a letter from Mrs. Leigh with good accounts of her own and Ada's health, he took a long ride with Gamba and a few of the remaining Suliotes, and after being violently heated, and then drenched in a heavy shower, persisted in returning home in a boat, remarking with a laugh, in answer to a remonstrance, "I should make a pretty soldier if I were to care for such a trifle." It soon became apparent that he had caught his death.

Almost immediately on his return, he was seized with shiverings and violent pain. The next day he rose as usual, and had his last ride in the olive woods. On the 11th a rheumatic fever set in. On the 14th, Bruno's skill being exhausted, it was proposed to call Dr. Thomas from Zante, but a hurricane prevented any ship being sent. On the 15th, another physician, Mr. Milligen, suggested bleeding to allay the fever, but Byron held out against it, quoting Dr. Reid to the effect that "less slaughter is effected by the lance than the lancet-that minute instrument of mighty mischief," and saying to Bruno, "If my hour is come I shall die, whether I lose my blood or keep it." Next morning Milligen induced him to yield, by a suggestion of the possible loss of his reason. Throwing out his arm, he cried, “There! you are, I see, a d—d set of butchers. Take away as much blood as you like, and have done with it.” The remedy, repeated on the following day with blistering, was either too late or ill-advised. On the 18th he saw more doctors, but was manifestly sinking, amid the tears and lamentations of attendants who could not understand each other's language. In his last hours his delirium bore him to the field of arms. He fancied he was leading the attack on Lepanto, and was heard exclaiming, “Forwards! forwards! follow me!" Who is not reminded of another death-bed, not remote in time from his, and the Tête d'armée of the great Emperor who with the great Poet divided the wonder of Europe? The stormy vision passed, and his thoughts reverted home. "Go to my sister," he faltered out to Fletcher; "tell her-go to Lady Byron -you will see her, and say"-nothing more could be heard but broken ejaculations: "Augusta-Ada-my sister, my child. Io lascio qualche cosa di caro nel mondo. For the

rest, I am content to die." At six on the evening of the 18th he uttered his last words, "Aeî μe vôv kabeúdei ;" and on the 19th he passed away.

66

Never perhaps was there such a national lamentation. By order of Mavrocordatos, thirty-seven guns-one for each year of the poet's life-were fired from the battery, and answered by the Turks from Patras with an exultant volley. All offices, tribunals, and shops were shut, and a general mourning for twenty-one days proclaimed. Stanhope wrote, on hearing the news, England has lost her brightest genius-Greece her noblest friend ;" and Trelawny, on coming to Mesolonghi, heard nothing in the streets but "Byron is dead!" like a bell tolling through the silence and the gloom. Intending contributors to the cause of Greece turned back when they heard the tidings, that seemed to them to mean she was headless. Her cities contended for the body, as of old for the birth of a poet. Athens wished him to rest in the Temple of Theseus. The funeral service was performed at Mesolonghi. But on the 2nd of May the embalmed remains left Zante, and on the 29th arrived in the Downs. His relatives applied for permission to have them interred in Westminster Abbey, but it was refused; and on the 16th July they were conveyed to the village church of Huck

nall.

CHAPTER XI.

CHARACTERISTICS, AND PLACE IN LITERATURE.

LORD JEFFREY at the close of a once-famous review quaintly laments: "The tuneful quartos of Southey are already little better than lumber, and the rich melodies of Keats and Shelley, and the fantastical emphasis of Wordsworth, and the plebeian pathos of Crabbe, are melting fast from the field of our vision. The novels of Scott have put out his poetry, and the blazing star of Byron himself is receding from its place of pride." Of the poets of the early part of this century, Lord John Russell thought Byron the greatest, then Scott, then Moore. "Such an opinion," wrote a National reviewer, in 1860, "is not worth a refutation; we only smile at it." Nothing in the history of literature is more curious than the shifting of the standard of excellence, which so perplexes criticism. But the most remarkable feature of the matter is the frequent return to power of the once discarded potentates. Byron is resuming his place: his spirit has come again to our atmosphere; and every budding critic, as in 1820, feels called onto pronounce a verdict on his genius and character. The present times are, in many respects, an aftermath of the first quarter of the century, which was an era of revolt, of doubt, of storm. There succeeded an era of exhaustion, of quiescence, of reflection. The first years of the third quarter saw a

revival of turbulence and agitation; and, more than our fathers, we are inclined to sympathize with our grandfathers. Macaulay has popularized the story of the change of literary dynasty which in our island marked the close of the last, and the first two decades of the present, hundred years.

The corresponding artistic revolt on the continent was closely connected with changes in the political world. The originators of the romantic literature in Italy, for the most part, died in Spielberg or in exile. The same revolution which levelled the Bastille, and converted Versailles and the Trianon-the classic school in stone and terrace-into a moral Herculaneum and Pompeii, drove the models of the so-called Augustan ages into a museum of antiquarians. In our own country, the movement initiated by Chatterton, Cowper, and Burns, was carried out by two classes of great writers. They agreed in opposing freedom to formality; in substituting for the old, new aims and methods; in preferring a grain of mother wit to a peck of clerisy. They broke with the old school, as Protestantism broke with the old Church; but, like the sects, they separated again. Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge, while refusing to acknowledge the literary precedents of the past, submitted themselves to a self-imposed law. The partialities of their maturity were towards things settled and regulated; their favourite virtues, endurance and humility; their conformity to established institutions was the basis of a new Conservatism. The others were the Radicals of the movement: they practically acknowledged no law but their own inspiration. Dissatisfied with the existing order, their sympathies were with strong will and passion and defiant independence. These found their master-types in Shelley and in Byron.

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