BYRON.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 92, 11 January 1908, Page 13

BYRON.

7 necessary at "this titiie. of day to recapitulate tho causes of thi) ■cfitiitisiasin r d's*BjrfbH^-^ o rKs I :. frdm 'Childs'.Har,old" onwardj wefe greeted By 1 tho British public: at the time of their first appoaraneo. A/cynic might insinuate that", the, poet's aristocratic birtlij. his reputation! ■ for nigh-handed: debauchery, and the seduc-' tivo sensuality of his verses, wcye among, the chief of these causes. But a cynical vieiv is always wrong. , . Byron's popularity was based 6ft something far deeper than snobbishness or prurie?oe'r ® lne ' ha,flv ' a 5' aftd made articulate tho'dumb and nascent aspirations of many of- his, roadep towards . that; emancipation from social conventiorti that personal and ■subjective. oxporiencS of passion,, of which ,thqro was no wofd. either in tho : esoteric nature-cult" of Wordstfatth, the extravagant idealism of Shelley, or the beauty-worship Keats. The latest canons of . literary criticism, forbid us, it appears, to. insist iijion any organic connection betwoeit the intellectual or social movements of Europe. But there-is no,law against, our defining Byronism as tho .-aggressive) and positive, in short, ih6 distinctively English form of:that Weltschmcrz, that grcon-sickhoss of society, which, - however caused—by spots in ~the sun, increiiso in the internal heht of the earth, or oft inherent, tendency ill the hiifcini mindI—broke1 —broke out in Germany in tho form of passive and deliquescent sentimentalityi fliWl destroyed the weakened tiisiies of tho bodypolitic of Francfe. Byronism. ili short, is tho nctivo manifestation.of Wert her ism. Wefthaf let Charlotte alone,, anil ."blow his Silly brains out.' Thc.Byronic hero blew other pcoplo's brains, ottt, arid carried off Zulleka orHaidee . -to. his piratical • stronojholdj whonco,' armed. to-the teeth, and attired in becoming draperios of Gracco-Turkish cut, he Btared, out, frith a look of iiiciirable melancholy, and steady defiance, Upoiv a world which had had the audacity to bore hiirii To tell how this attititdfi rebommciided itself to tho rising generation of the trading classhow ,the London apprentice cultivated the Byronic curl and tho Byronic sneer, and the dry-store. clerk Af Thomsonvjllo, Miss., indited Spenserian-stanzas inside the covers 'of. molasses-stained. day-books — is to turn back to a well-worn pago of social and literary.' history. , Had this been all —had thero- not been ft "Vision of Judgment" find "Don Juan" in the back premises to take tho place of such gaudy, shop-window goods as ' Tho Corsair," : "Lara," and the greater part of- "Childc Harold"—Byron would have shared the; fate of Tnppor, of Lewis, of Philip Jaiiics Bailey; and tho "Hebrew Melodies" would have brought him barely in line with Tom Mooro., As it Was, the real arc-.of his genuinely-inspired work kept his lame'alive in England until tho publication of . "The. Lady of Shalott." Tho exquisite filigr co of Tennyson put hopelessly Out of fashion,the rough, Rodin-like style of Byron, which, moreover, in the poems and romances of Robort Browning, was thenceforth tempered and broadened by a ripe, impersonal philosophy of which Byron was constitutionally incapable. The apiarian polity of tho mid-Victorian ago had no use for gaudy, blustering, destructive dronos. In "Maud," Byronism, like tho rfissccted doctor in Hogarth's tableau, has become the subject of the sphere it once inspired. Meanwhilo, Byron's Continental reputation had been steadily growing. Goetho hailed him as the greatest European poet since Shakespeare; Lamartino worshipped and feared him; Balzac and Hugo quoted him; and, in rccont times, Castelhr lias almost repeated , tho eulogies, of Goetho. Indeed, there'is. no doubt that by most people on tho Continent ho is regarded as tho representative British poet, Sliakespearo being thought of, merely as a dramatist, which, in tho Continental apprehension, docs not necessarily' connote any notion of great poetry. The reason of Byron's Continental reputation is, to put it shortly, that ho expressed tho English naturo in a Continental sense. Tho colour, the events, tho morality, tho background, tho ideas, tho style, are European, and therefore universally comprehensible ; tho personality is unmistakably, aggressively English, and therefore interesting to a Continental by its froshnoss, salicnco, and novelty. To put it in another way, Byron has tho strong individuality of tho Englishman with none of his parochial prejudices; Ho is thjis a perfectly unique figure in European literature. Moreover, it is possible for a foreigner, and impossible tor a Briton, to study Byron's ideas and personality apart from tho cccasiondly' very impcrfect. medium in which thoy aro expressed, and which, indeed, may seem admirable to a non-English reader, since, being terso. "meatv," and do-

void pf any bewildering half-tones, it "repays perusal mdre' quickly than the esoteric stylo of a poet liko Keats or Wordsworth, whose appeal is along the lino of i thousand clolicato tentacles of. racial and linguistic sympathies. ' Mussct, a careless and inartistic, poet, and (ino of Byron's most\slavish imitators, is preferred by English rentiers to Hugo or Racino. for about livo of!tho hundred. reasons which a Frenchman, has for preferring Byron to Tennyson. Signs are not awanting that tho Byronic comet is once moro abovo tho horizon. Tho times, indeed, are propitious for its roascensiori. Its portentous mano streamed firSt over a World torn by political revolution and distracted intellectual change; it comesshorn'df its, superfluous arid meretricious apiieridago, in a time of signs and .wonders, of a/..Socialistic' propaganda,' of NiotzSchSan Anarchism, of Christian Science, arid tho New-.Theology. It brings with it tho serene arid chastened light of its bitter part, of true, poesy; and its clear flamo of passidnj frde from the fuliginous elements of sen'sualityi ;prid-s, liiid sriobb'ish cruolty; is a wholesome inspiraliciii to a timorous and selfdistrustful ago. ■ In. literaturo■ we have bocome'artistic ovormuch. Our poetry is sicklied o|er with a palo reflection of pre-Ra'phacl-' ism', itself_a'borrowed light; our novols run . to academie discussion, sham idyllism, and, social theorising, We have become anaemic. •We could riot do better .than open our veins, Chesterton and somo other writers have already done, to a transfusion of tho reel.blood „of Byronism.. The' effects aro bound-to be invigorating; and tho counsels of Tresidont, Roosevelt, tho philosophy of Mr. MbHeyrtho enactmfints of the Further Powers Act, and the claims of the Nori-conformist'-'.Gofisoieiice ■ ma.V 'he rcilicd upon as sufficient 'safeguards agdirist any drtheers nrhich might ariso out of an excess of virility.