TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

PROFESSOR ELZE enjoys the reputation in Germany of possessing a deep and extensive acquaintance with the language and literature of England. He began his literary career, we believe, by the publication of a volume of 'Selections from the best English Poets.' His Reminiscences of a Tour through England and Scotland' communicated to Germany the results of his more personal observations. These were succeeded by a 'Life of Sir Walter Scott,' in 2 vols. 8vo., for whom he entertains the most sincere respect, and of whose genius he forms a still higher estimate than is generally held by the critics of Germany. Some of the results of his profound and original studies in Shakespeare and his contemporaries he published in a 'Critical Edition of Hamlet;' and the manner in which his knowledge and labours are regarded in Germany is evinced by the fact, that he has been appointed the editor of the Year-book of the German ShakespeareSociety,'-a publication devoted to the study of our great poet-the sixth volume of which has recently been published. In 1870 appeared his 'Life of Lord Byron.' In no country of Europe, not even in England, had Byron's poems been more widely read or more enthusiastically

2

He

admired than in Germany. Goethe tells us,' that the youth of both sexes had, in the ardour of their love for his poetry, almost forgotten their own nationality. But notwithstanding the interest thus felt for the creations of his genius, no substantive Life of Byron had, as far as we are aware, appeared in Germany, with the exception of Willkomm's Biography, which we know only from the contemptuous mention made of it by Treitschke in his able essay on 'Byron and Radicalism.' It seems, to judge from the terms in which it is there spoken of, to resemble those fantastic and spasmodic attempts at a biography of Byron which appeared in France shortly after and, indeed, even before, his death. Professor Elze's volume is of a totally different character. professes, indeed, to have no access to new or original documents; he makes no claim, therefore, to the interest attaching itself to a biography which enriches our previous knowledge with information derived from private and hitherto unused papers, journals, or letters. The materials from which he has constructed his 'Life' are open to all enquirers. Its merits as a narrative depend on the skilful and artistic use which he has made of these materials, and, as a work of criticism, on the truth and soundness of the critical judgments which he has formed and expressed. Nor have his labours been without success, if the opinion of his translator may be trusted. Professor Elze has produced-so he ventures to think-a clear, compact, wellarranged narrative of the external facts of Byron's life; he has endeavoured to seize and fix the rich and varied

1 Annalen. Sämmtliche Werke, xxvi. p. 245. 1858.

2 P. 317. Historische und politische Aufsälze. Dritte Auflage. 1867.

traits of his character in an analysis as elaborate as it is, perhaps, unsparing; and in his last chapter he seeks to assign to Byron the place which is his due, not merely in the literature of England, but in the literature of Europe.

It is undeniable that, partly from the fluctuations to which taste especially in poetry is exposed, and partly from the rise of new poetic schools, the vast influence, once exercised by the works of Byron, had to a certain extent waned among us. But various signs may be discerned which seem to point to a revival of the old interest, not indeed in the fervour, hardly admitting of calm and thoughtful appreciation, which greeted the appearance of Childe Harold,' but in a more chastened and intelligent fashion, which will lead us, after all abatements are made, to see in Byron the most vigorous, the most original, poetical genius which England has produced since Milton. The attempts to darken the shadows that lay on some portions of his life may, perhaps, have contributed to produce this revulsion of feeling; but, even apart from this, it would have been an ill sign of the vigour and manliness of our own minds, if the fire, the force, the passion, the intense vitality, of Byron's poetry should have remained for any long period of time unknown or unrecognised. Another biography, coming from a nation standing at the head of the culture of Europe, written, if not with new materials yet from a somewhat different point of view, and which is not only narrative but critical, will, we trust, be as welcome to English readers as it seems to be opportune.

There is no want, indeed, in our own literature, of so

called Lives of Lord Byron. Their abundance testifies, at least, to the interest with which everything relating to him and promising to add to our information was greedily received. A host of small men that hung round the skirts of the great poet, more intent on spying out his foibles and infirmities, than eager to apprehend the force of his genius, who noted down with vulgar alacrity the unguarded words and actions of one of the most free, frank, fearless, outspoken men that ever lived--for such was Byron-big with the importance of having seen, or talked, or dined with him, or stung, it may be, by the scorn he could not dissemble, rushed into print, some to gratify the curiosity, not in itself unlaudable, of the English public, some to vent their own spleen and malignity. Hence the baneful crop of 'Lives' and 'Recollections' and 'Conversations' of the Leigh Hunts, the Galts, the Medwins, the Trelawnys-books, the very existence of which is a stigma on our literature. From our memories let their records of things great and small concerning Byron be studiously spunged out, if we would guard ourselves against the shame of attempting to understand a great genius through a medium coloured and tainted by prejudice, ignorance, and vulgarity. Our only source, at present open, of authentic information remains in The Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of his Life,' by Moore, published at first (1829-1830) in two quarto volumes, and repeatedly since then in numerous editions. The Notices,' however, cannot be said to add much to the literary reputation of their author. They are encumbered with tedious, turgid reflections, which, however, not unfrequently act as a foil to those portions where Byron him

self comes before us in his letters or journals, which exhibit the man and his character with marvellous distinctness. These Professor Elze has studied with evident interest and attention; and justly indeed, for they are open and sincere to an astonishing degree. That dangerous frankness which Hobhouse mentions as one of the traits of Byron's character is conspicuous in every line of them. But they abound in other merits. What letters or journals in the English language surpass or equal them for masculine vigour of understanding, for clearness, force, or directness of expression, for traits of feeling so tender yet so manly, for the wit and humour, for the fun and drollery, which sparkle throughout them? Our author is truest, we apprehend, in his delineations, when he reposes most simply and unreservedly on Byron's self-portraiture in those charming letters and journals.

But another and far different task was imposed on Professor Elze, from which, as he himself avows, he would most gladly have withdrawn, had his duties as biographer allowed it. The spirit of slander that had followed Byron throughout his life, and which seemed to slumber for a time after his death, awoke refreshed with the sleep of more than thirty years, to fashion and publish charges of darker hue and of more systematic purpose than the world had heard before. We have felt ourselves bound to speak with disrespect of the earlier records of certain authors; but even these, we firmly believe, though justly chargeable with detraction, would have scorned to circulate the calumnies of more recent times. This new phasis of slander was ushered into the world by the pretentious effusions-we regret to say it-of a lady who, though often