the majestic simplicity of Greek art. Hermes has touched him with his wand, and inspired a certain marvellous grace and quiet. It is a poem of "depth," not of " tumult." (1.75.) 159. 1. The first Edition of this stanza ran thus "With sacrifice before the rising morn Performed, my slaughtered lord have I required; 11. Comp. Verg. Æn. vi. 48-50, of the Sibyl as the god descends upon "sed pectus anhelum, Et rabie fera corda tument; majorque videri 160. 27. Comp. Verg. Georg. iv. 501. 36. boon meant originally a prayer, Anc. Eng. ben, Dan. bon. 161. 66. In the earlier editions sonnet. "Know virtue were not virtue, if the joys," &c. 72. [What are the emphatic words in this line?] her: 78. Sojourn, Anc. Fr. sojourner, Prov. sojornar, Ital. soggiornare, Lat. sub-diurnare. 79. This rescue is the subject of Euripides' play, Alkestis. 83. See Class. Dict. 90. See Shelley's When the lamp is shatter'd: "When hearts have once mingled, Love first leaves the well-built nest; The weak one is singled To endure what it once possest. O Love, who bewailest The frailty of all things here, Why choose you the frailest See also Milton's last For your cradle, your home, and your bier?" 162. 1o1. Comp. Verg. Æn. vi. 637–65. 105. Comp. Æn. vi. 639: 66 'Largior hic campos æther, et lumine vestit Purpureo, solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.' 120. [Where was Aulis?] See Eschyl. Agam. 184-249, Eurip. Iphigenia at Aulis, Lucret. i. 84-101. 163. 150. Comp. Par. Lost. viii. 588-94. 158. The first version ran: "Ah! judge her gently who so deeply loved! 164. 167. [What is the force of fondly here?] BYRON. J. 1788-1807. GEORGE GORDON BYRON was born in Holles Street, off Oxford Strecu London, Jan. 22, 1788, the son of Captain John Byron of the Guards by his second wife Catherine Gordon, an Aberdeenshire heiress. The Byrons traced their descent from a Ralph de Burun of Doomsday Book. They were ennobled by Charles I. for services done him in the Civil Wars. The future poet's father, a reckless spendthrift and rake, after running through his wife's fortune, left her to maintain herself and their son, and shortly afterwards took himself off to the Continent, where he died at Valenciennes, in 1791. Mrs Byron-sh: had no claim to the title of "Honourable" which her son subsequently gave her, nor ever had-retired with the boy to Aberdeen. There they lived on but scanty means till 1798, when on the death of his great uncle he succeeded to the family title and estates. His formal education, began at the Free school at Aberdeen, was now continued at a school at Dulwich, and then at Harrow. During his Harrow days he fell in love with Mary Chaworth, daughter of his neighbour at Newstead; but she thought of him but as a schoolboy, and married a Mr Musters. From Harrow he went up in 1805, to Trinity College, Cambridge; where he passed two years, studying occasionally but consuming his time for the most part in boxing, swimming, fencing, pistol-practice, and in other practices much less laudable. 2. 1807-1812. In 1807 appeared Hours of Idleness, a volume of poetical pieces of little intrinsic merit, and of as little promise. A disparaging critique of these Hours in the Edinburgh Review stirred their author to revenge, and the result was his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, published in 1809. That same year he took his seat in the House of Lords, and for a time meditated a political life. At this time he resided mainly at Newstead Abbey, living somewhat wildly. Possessed with a passion for travel, he quitted England for two years, visiting Portugal, Spain, Albania, Greece. On his return he published the first two Cantos of Childe Harold, which he had written during his tour, and at once found himself famous. 3. 1812-1816. During the next four years Byron enjoyed an amazing popularity as a poet, and in London Society. The Childe was followed by a series of tales, or Eastern Romances: the Giaour, the Bride of Abydos, the Corsair, Lara, the Siege of Corinth, Parasina. These in a great measure owed their form to the influence of Scott's "lays"; but they were of a far different spirit. In January 1815, Byron married Miss Milbanke. Just twelve months afterwards, shortly after the birth of a daughter, she separated herself from him and on grounds not commonly known, but which in the eyes of judicious friends seemed quite satisfactory and indeed decisive, declared she would never live with him again. The public of the day was all of a sudden inflamed, for whatever reason, with a similar disgust and indignation. Out of the midst of this outcry Byron, partly perhaps puzzled and astonished, partly scornful and cursing, partly it may be conscience-bitten and remorseful, withdrew to the continent, never, as it proved, to return. 4. 1816-1824. He lived some months in Switzerland, with the Shelleys; then at Venice, when his life was of unbridled licentiousness; then at Ravenna; then at Pisa, and lastly at Genoa. In 1819 he became connected with the Countess Guiccioli. Through her relatives he was associated with the revolutionary party then secretly agitating Italy. When the Greek insurrection against Turkey began, he allied himself with it with the utmost ardour. He resolved to support it not only with money but with personal aid; and in July 1823 sailed from Genoa for that generous purpose. Meanwhile, his pen had not been idle. He had written the latter two Cantos of Childe Harold, all his Dramas, Beppo, the greater part of his unfinished Don Juan, besides other pieces. He was not long to be with his Greeks. For some seven months he devoted himself to their cause with all his energy, and is said to have shown a wonderful aptitude for managing the complicated intrigues and plans and selfishnesses which lay in the way. His health was already somewhat broken when he left Italy. In the Spring of 1824 it gave way altogether under his self-imposed fatigues. On April the 19th after a twenty-four hours lethargy ensuing upon an attack of inflammation of the brain, he said "Now I shall go to sleep," and died. In Byron's life there is certainly much that needs apology, if apology could be found. It must be remembered also that there is much that calls for compassion. He inherited a wilful headstrong nature, which it must be owned was confirmed rather than subdued or regulated by what early lessons he received. To the end of his life he was a spoilt child-to the end wayward and wild and undisciplined. The presiding spirit of his ancestral demesnes seemed to have passed into his blood. There was something of Robin Hood in him-something of a native lawlessness and defiance. Self-control he never learnt; with all his triumphs he was never "victor sui." Hence the nobler part of his nature was often obscured. To him "deus fit dira cupido. " The British public treated him as injudiciously as did his mother-first fondly petting, then in a fury fiercely slapping him. He was blessed and cursed with a most unwise, a well-nigh fatal abruptness. After he left England, the society of the high-minded Shelley was no slight benefit to him. After he parted from Shelley his life was for a time utterly sensual. But through all that degradation what was noble in him was only eclipsed, not extinguished. The last months of his life show his better self awaking. They were spent generously and well, and, had his life been prolonged, might have proved for him the beginning of a higher æra. As a poet, Byron professed himself a partisan of Pope, and his first successful essay is after the manner of Pope; but no writer belongs more thoroughly to the early nineteenth century and all its movements than he. In one respect it might have been better for him, had he really followed his professed master, viz. in careful workmanship. His productions are often wanting in finish. He did not "file" and perfect enough; in this regard as in others he is the son of his time. He is of the Revolution. His age is fallen and base, to his thinking. This thought filled him with contempt and scorn for it. This same belief made Shelley an earnest, though perhaps a somewhat wild, reformer; it made Byron only cynical, and destructive so far as he was active. His spirit found its most congenial expression in a kind of poetry that allowed it the utmost freedom of style, where he could praise or mock, be refined or coarse, terrible or grotesque, comic or tragic or farcical, as his mood was. Undoubtedly Don Juan is the best and fullest representation of Byron's nature, as that nature was in the prime of his life. His most abundant wit, his consummate mastery of language and of metre, his beliefs and still more his disbeliefs are all shown there as in a clear glass. His models in this familiar style were Italian; they provided him with just what he wanted. His Tragedies reflect only part of him, and in that part is much affectation and, it must be said, much superficiality. He often mistook for high philosophical melancholy what was in fact only remorse. If Hamlet, and not his uncle, had murdered his father, one would see another reason for his declaring all the uses of this world weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. His Tales enjoyed a vast popularity. Certainly there are passages in them of exquisite beauty, which will live as long as anything their author ever wrote; but, as a whole, they have not so much life in them as have those "lays" of Scott's which they cast for the time so completely into the shade. Scott's pieces, if they are not thrilled by the passionateness which permeates those of his successor in the throne of poetry, are also free from the extreme morbidness that marks those; and their comparative merits are now recognized. Marmion has outlived the Corsair. The latter two Cantos of Childe Harold are of "a higher mood" than the former. This superiority of the 3rd canto at least was undoubtedly to a great extent due to the companionship and influence of Shelley. As a whole, the work wants unity. It is a collection of splendid passages, and is for the most part only known by excerpts. Byron lacked one of the highest faculties of the artist—that of construction. He was incapable of forming a noble and complete design, and executing it carefully and faithfully. He wrote from hand to mouth, so to speak. No one could tell, and he perhaps less than any one, what a Canto or an act might bring forth. He leapt something recklessly on his Pegasus' back, and rode anywhere, often to evil places, often in a wild fashion. Of his shorter pieces many are beyond praise. He was essentially a lyrical poet. His songs for their beauty, their sweetness, their intensity can never be forgotten. PRISONER OF CHILLON. This piece was written in 1816, shortly after Byron's leaving England for the last time. He was then living with Shelley, of whose influence the third Canto of Childe Harold, also written about this time, bears signs. Byron knew little or nothing of any actual captive, when he wrote this piece. The mere sight of the dungeon suggested it. Not till afterwards was he familiar with the story of the illustrious prisoner Bonnivard. There is no resemblance at all between Byron's hero and that historical one; except that they were both imprisoned in Chillon. Bonnivard was confined only 6 years, from 1530 to 1536 (he had been confined before at Grolée for 2 years, 1519-21); the cause was political, not religious; no brothers shared his fate. Byron afterwards celebrated him in a sonnet; which see. This poem belongs to the close of what may be. called the Tale or Romance period of Byron's life. He had not yet discovered that style of which he was to be such an especial master. In that style Beppo, written the year after the Prisoner, was his first essay. In the Prisoner the influence of Scott's example is yet acting. What is still more noticeable in it is the influence of Coleridge and Wordsworth. Byron was perpetually laughing at the Lake School, as it was somewhat strangely called; he accused Wordsworth of unintelligibility and also of renegadism, and Coleridge of unconsciously turning into a metaphysician. But for all his derision the greatness of these poets was really felt by him. The traces of them perceptible in his writings at this time are perhaps mainly due to Shelley, who was to begin with an intense Wordsworthian, though estranged from the great master by what he regarded as his political tergiversation. This poem cannot be pronounced a masterpiece; to say nothing of several lapses and carelessnesses, there is a want of concentration in it; the purpose of the poem is somewhat vacillating. But it is a capital specimen of Byrons vigour and verve. The passage in which he tries his power of language to the utmost and displays best how remarkable that power was is Stanza IX. 105. 4. "Ludovico Sforza and others. The same is asserted of Marie Antoinette's, the wife of Louis the Sixteenth, though not in quite so short a period, grief is said to have the same effect; to such, and not to fear, this change in hers was to be attributed." (Byron)—See 1 Hen. IV. II. iv. 393: "Thy father's beard is turned white with the news.' On which see Steevens' note, who quotes from Nashe's Have with you to Saffron Walden: "Looke and you shall find a grey haire for every line I have writ against him; and you shall have all his beard white too, by the time he hath read over this book." 10. bann'd. This is an unusual, though perhaps a not unnatural use of this word. It is commonly used only of persons; here it is used of things; as if one should say in Latin-it would scarcely be correct Latin—“aqua et ignis Galli interdicebantur" instead of “aqua et igne Gallis interdicebatur" or " 'aqua et igni Gallos interdicebant.' Ban (i) properly means to proclaim, from the High Germ. bannan (see Brachet); then (ii) to outlaw or otherwise sentence by proclamation (as Gloucester proposes to have Edgar proclaimed in King Lear, II. i. 62); then (iii) generally to curse. For (i) see Robert of Gloucester, apud Richardson: "Of ys rounde table ys ban aboute he sende That eche a Wytesonetyd to Carleon wende." Hence bandon = command, power; the early English lover says of his mistress Alysoun⚫ "I am in her bandoun.' "" Hence abandon to give up or resign to anyone's power. So bans or banns of marriage = proclamation, public announcement. For (ii) obs. the word bandit one proclaimed, and banish &c. For (iii), Udal has "to ban and execrate himself," Turberville "they banne the sunne, they curse the moone," Shakspere "Fell banning hag" (1 Hen. VI. V. iii. 42), "lunatic bans" opp. to "prayers" (King Lear, II. iii. 19) &c. With the use here, which is of course a variety of (ii), comp. bans in Far. Lost, IX. 925. [forbidden. What is the effect of for- here?] 11. this, &c. There seems some carelessness of style here, such as often marks Byron's writings. This shoula be it, or line 12 should be omitted altogether. As the text stands, line 12 is pleonastic. and 25. sigillo. 22. The indefinite or aoristic preterite might be better here, as in lines 19 Seal is lineally connected with sign. The in seal is from the dim. sigillun, It. 25. dungeon is a various form of donjon, the Provençal dompnhon, which leads to the Lat, dominionem (see Brachet). Diez however derives the word from Keltic dûn. 26. Probably wreck and frango (frag.) are of the same ultimate root. to the f. 27. [Explain of Gothic mould.] The w answers "The dungeon of Bonnivard is airy and spacious, consisting of two aisles, almost like the crypt of a church." (Murray's Handbook for Switzerland, &c.) 30. According to Murray's handbook, "it is lighted by several windows, through which the sun's light passes by reflection from the surface of the lake up to the roof, transmitting partly also the blue colour of the waters." 166. 32. crevice and crevasse are cognate. The root is in the Lat. crepo (so arrive from ripa). 34. [What is the force of so?] 35. See L'Alleg. 104, Mids. N. D. II. i. 39. 38. Canker and cancer are the same word. 40. this new day. See below, Stanza xiv. 45. score, cognate with scar, scaur, shear, shore, sheer, means properly a notch or mark for keeping count. 53. Comp. Par. Lost, i. 61-64. 55. fetter'd. Fetters are strictly foot-shackles, Lat. pedicæ, foot-ers, which becomes fetters by assimilating vowel-sympathy. Hand-shackles, Lat. manicæ, were called strictly manacles; hand-cuffs is a sort of comic term; but both fetters and manacles are used in a quite general way; and so gives or gyves (as "with gyves upon his wrist" in Hood's Eugene Aram), which seems strictly to have denoted some foot-bond; thus Tyndall apud Richardson: "He that hath his feete in fetters, gives or stockes must first be loosed or he can go, walke, or run to." 57. [What is meant here by the pure Elements of Earth?] 63. So the voices of Arctic explorers. When Franklin, then Lieutenant, was heading an expedition from the Stations of the Hudson's Bay Company to the mouth of the Coppermine River to join Parry if possible, who had sailed from England in 1819, he with a few attendants DD |