John Nichol ("English Men of Letters" series), -a fair view of Byron, and perhaps the best short memoir for general reading, and by Roden Noel (“Great Writers'' series), accompanied with a very serviceable Bibliography by J. P. Anderson. Important, also, is the Life of Byron, by Leslie Stephen, in the Dictionary of National Biography. Volume I of the (incomplete) edition of Byron's Works by W. E. Henley contains the Letters from 1804 to 1813, and is valuable for the editor's brilliant and interesting Notes. Other memoirs, earlier and partial, are those by John Galt, 1830,-inept and self-satisfied, but with some valuable details; by Geo. Clinton,-a trashy piece of bookmaking, grob in tone (no one has been more unfortunate in his biographers than Byron!); by R. C. Dallas, 1824,-personal recollections, but contains little of value; Medwin's "Conversations of Byron," 1824,highly interesting, but declared untrustworthy by contemporary critics; the Countess of Blessington's "Conversations of Byron," 1834,-less interesting and skilful than Medwin's and fuller of the author, but important; Trelawny's "Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author," 1878,-intensely interesting and indispensable; the author, however, understood Shelley better than Byron; Leigh Hunt's "Byron and some of his Contemporaries," 1828 (2d ed.),—prejudiced, but apparently honest; the Countess Guiccioli's

Recollections of Lord Byron," English translation 1869, -a very foolish book, and surprisingly empty of original matter; many other contemporary memoirs are of value, as, for example, Lady Morgan's, and the Memoir of the Rev. Francis Hodgson by his son,

1878.

Castelar's Life of Byron is mainly a rhapsody

and of little worth.

For periodical literature on Byron, see Poole's Index and continuations.

Criticism

For criticism of Byron, by far the most just, adequate, and authoritative estimate is to be found in Matthew Arnold's essay (published as introduction to his "Selections from Byron "; also in his "Essays in Criticism," 2d series); see also Matthew Arnold's "Memorial Verses, 11. 6-14. Excellent also is the shorter study by J. A. Symonds, prefixed to the selections from Byron in Ward's

66

English Poets," Vol. IV. Perhaps third in value should be named the admirable summary of Byron's present position by Paul E. More in The Atlantic Monthly" for December, 1898. The several criticisms upon Byron by A. C. Swinburne are curiously contradictory and unequal. They contain some of the best things that have been written about Byron, with some of the worst. The critic attacks Arnold's judgment and violently denies Byron all purely poetic power. See his "Essays and Studies," 214-216, 238-258, 304-307; and his "Miscellanies," 63-156. The poet's historical position is judiciously weighed in John Morley's essay on Byron (in his "Miscellanies," I, 203-251). Slighter, but of charming quality, are the essay on Byron in W. E. Henley's "Views and Reviews," 56-62, and (in verse) in Andrew Lang's "Letters to Dead Authors."

Macaulay's essay, brilliant but borné, must still be read; as also should the utterances on Byron of distinguished critics and poets of an earlier day, like

William Hazlitt, Jeffrey, Goethe, Mazzini (eloquent yet admirable: see his Essays, in the Camelot Series, London, 1887, pp. 83-108), Scott, Shelley, Ste.-Beuve, Tennyson ("Memoirs ''), Ruskin ("Præterita ''), Lamartine, Washington Irving, and others. A valuable contemporary Continental criticism of Byron is to be found in G. Brandes, "Der Naturalismus in England" (Leipzig, 1894), chs. 16-21-especially excellent for the appreciations of "Cain" and "Don Juan." The sections on Byron in the standard histories of English Literature should also be consulted. See especially Taine, Gösse (“ Modern English Literature"), Saintsbury ("History of Nineteenth-Century Literature"; also a "Short History of English Literature ''), C. H. Herford (“The Age of Wordsworth'), Minto ("Literature of the Georgian Era," ch. xvii), and Courthope (“ Liberal Movement in English Literature," 131-144).

Numerous special studies on detached aspects or separate works of Byron exist, some of which are mentioned in the Notes to this volume. See also the pages of the periodicals, " Englische Studien" and "Anglia." Worthy of special mention are Prof. Kölbing's unfinished edition of Byron with elaborate notes; F. H. O. Weddigen, "Lord Byron's Einfluss auf die europäischen Litteraturen der Neuzeit," Hannover, 1884; J. O. E. Donner, 'Byron's WeltAnschauung," 1897; O. Schmidt, "Rousseau und Byron," Leipzig, 1890. See Varnhagen's Terzeichnis," etc., 1893, pp. 202-3.

66

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE

A ROMAUNT

TO IANTHE

NOT in those climes where I have late been straying,
Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deem'd,
Not in those visions to the heart displaying

Forms which it sighs but to have only dream'd,
Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seem'd:
Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek

To paint those charms which varied as they beam'd—
To such as see thee not my words were weak;

To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak?

Ah! may'st thou ever be what now thou art,
Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring,
As fair in form, as warm yet pure in heart,
Love's image upon earth without his wing,
And guileless beyond Hope's imagining!
And surely she who now so fondly rears
Thy youth, in thee, thus hourly brightening,
Beholds the rainbow of her future years,
Before whose heavenly hues all sorrow disappears.

Young Peri of the West!-'tis well for me
My years already doubly number thine;
My loveless eye unmoved may gaze on thee,
And safely view thy ripening beauties shine:

Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline;

Happier, that while all younger hearts shall bleed,
Mine shall escape the doom thine eyes assign

To those whose admiration shall succeed,

But mix'd with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours decreed.

Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the gazelle's,
Now brightly bold or beautifully shy,

Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells,
Glance o'er this page, nor to my verse deny
That smile for which my breast might vainly sigh,
Could I to thee be ever more than friend:

This much, dear maid, accord; nor question why
To one so young my strain I would commend,
But bid me with my wreath one matchless lily blend.

Such is thy name with this my verse entwined;
And long as kinder eyes a look shall cast
On Harold's page, Ianthe's here enshrined
Shall thus be first beheld, forgotten last:

My days once number'd, should this homage past
Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre

Of him who hail'd thee loveliest, as thou wast,
Such is the most my memory may desire;

Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship less require ?