He wrote tragedies, metrical romances, lyrics, and everything that he wrote was read--not only at home, but on the Continent.
And one thing that we must remember Byron for is that he made English literature Continental. "Before he came," says an Italian patriot and writer,* "all that was known of English literature was the French translation of Shakespeare. It is since Byron that we Continentalists have learned to study Shakespeare and other English writers. From him dates the sympathy of all the true-hearted amongst us for this land of liberty. He led the genius of Britain on a pilgrimage throughout all Europe."
*Mazzini.
Much that Byron wrote was almost worthless. He has none of the haunting sense of the beauty of words in perfect order that marks the greatest poets. He has no pa.s.sion for the correct use of words, and often his song seems tuneless and sometimes vulgar.
For in Byron"s undisciplined, turgid soul there is a strain of coa.r.s.eness and vulgarity which not seldom shows itself in his poetry, spoiling some of his most beautiful lines. His poetry is egotistical too, that is, it is full of himself. And again and again it has been said that Byron was always his own hero. "He never had more than a singe subject--himself. No man has ever pushed egotism further than he."* In all his dark and gloomy heroes we see Lord Byron, and it is not only himself which he gives to the world"s gaze, but his wrongs and his sorrows. Yet in spite of all its faults, there is enough that is purely beautiful in his work to give Byron rank as a poet. He has been placed on a level with Wordsworth. One cultured writer whose judgment on literature we listen to with respect has said: "Wordsworth and Byron stand out by themselves. When the year 1900 is turned, and our nation comes to recount her poetic glories of the century which has then just ended, the first names with her will be these."** But there are many who will deny him this high rank. "He can only claim to be acknowledged as a poet of the third cla.s.s," says another great poet,*** "who now and then rises into the second, but speedily relapses into the lower element where he was born." And yet another has said that his poetry fills the great s.p.a.ce through which our literature has moved from the time of Johnson to the time of Wordsworth. "It touches the Essay of Man**** at the one extremity, and The Excursion at the other."***** So you see Byron"s place in our literature is hardly settled yet.
*Scherer.
**Arnold.
***Swinburne.
****By Pope.
*****Macaulay.
When Byron left England he fled from the contempt of his fellows.
His life on the Continent did little to lessen that contempt.
But before he died he redeemed his name from the scorner.
Long ago, you remember, at the time of the Renaissance, Greece had been conquered by the Turks. Hundreds of years pa.s.sed, and Greece remained in a state of slavery. But by degrees new life began to stir among the people, and in 1821 a war of independence broke out. At first the other countries of Europe stood aloof, but gradually their sympathies were drawn to the little nation making so gallant a fight for freedom.
And this struggle woke all that was generous in the heart of Byron, the worn man of the world. Like his own Childe Harold, "With pleasure drugg"d he almost long"d for woe." So to Greece he went, and the last nine months of his life were spent to such good purpose that when he died the whole Greek nation mourned.
He had hoped to die sword in hand, but that was not to be. His body was worn with reckless living, and could ill bear any strain. One day, when out for a long ride, he became heated, and then soaked by a shower of rain. Rheumatic fever followed, and ten days later he lay dead. He was only thirty-six.
All Greece mourned for the loss of such a generous friend.
Cities vied with each other for the honor of his tomb. And when his friends decided that his body should be carried home to England, homage as to a prince was paid to it as it pa.s.sed through the streets on its last journey.
"The sword, the banner, and the field, Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield, Was not more free.
"Awake! (not Greece--she is awake!) Awake! my spirit! Think through whom Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, And then strike home!
"Tread those reviving pa.s.sions down, Unworthy manhood! unto thee Indifferent should the smile or frown Of Beauty be.
"If thou regrett"st thy youth, why live?
The land of honourable death Is here:--up to the field, and give Away thy breath!
"Seek out--less often sought than found-- A soldier"s grave, for thee the best; Then look around, and choose thy ground And take thy rest."
These lines are from Byron"s last poem, written on his thirty- sixth birthday.
Chapter Lx.x.x Sh.e.l.lEY--THE POET OF LOVE
WHEN Byron wandered upon the Continent he met and made friends with another poet, a greater than himself. This poet was called Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley, and of him I am going to tell you something in this chapter.
On the 4th of August, 1792, Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley was born at Field Place, near the village of Warnham, in Suss.e.x. His father, "a well-meaning, ill-doing, wrong-headed man," was of a good family, and heir to a baronetcy. His mother was a beautiful woman.
Of the early childhood of Bysshe we know nothing, except that at the age of six he was daily taught Latin by a clergyman.
When we next hear of him he is a big boy, the hero of the nursery with four little sisters, and a wee, toddling, baby brother, to all of whom he loved to play big brother. His sisters would often sit on his knee and listen to the wonderful tales he told.
There were stories of the Great Tortoise which lived in a pond near. True, the Great Tortoise was never seen, but that made it all the more mysterious and wonderful, and any unusual noise was put down to the Great Tortoise. There were other stories about the Great Old Snake which lived in the garden. This really was seen, and perhaps it was the same serpent which two hundred years before had been known to lurk about the countryside. "He could jut out his neck an ell," it was said, "and cast his venom about four rods; a serpent of countenance very proud, at the sight or hearing of men or cattle, raising his head seeming to listen and look about with great arrogancy." But if it was this same serpent it had lost its venom, and in the days when Bysshe and his sisters played about the garden, they looked upon it as a friend. One day, however, a gardener killed it by mistake, when he was cutting the gra.s.s with a scythe. So there was an end of the Great Old Snake. But the Tortoise and the Snake were not the only wonderful things about Field Place. There was a big garret which was never used, with beneath it a secret room, the only entrance to which was through a plank in the garret floor. This, according to the big brother, was the dwelling-place of an alchemist "old and grey with a long beard." Here with his lamp and magic books he wrought his wonders, and "Some day" the eager children were promised a visit to him. Meanwhile Bysshe himself played the alchemist, and with his sisters dressed up in strange costumes to represent fiends or spirits he ran about with liquid fire until this dangerous play was stopped. Then he made an electric battery and amused himself by giving his sisters "shocks" to the secret terror of at least one of them whose heart would sink with fear when she saw her brother appear with a roll of brown paper, a bit of wire, and a bottle. But one day she could not hide her terror any longer, and after that the kind big brother never worried her any more to have shocks.
Sometimes, too, their games took them further afield, and led by Bysshe the children went on long rambles through woods and meadows, climbing walls and scrambling through hedges, and coming home tired and muddy. Bysshe was so happy with his sisters and little brother that he decided to buy a little girl and bring her up as his own. One day a little gypsy girl came to the back door, and he though she would do very well. His father and mother, however, thought otherwise, so the little girl was not bought.
But the boy who was so lively with his sisters, at times was quiet and thoughtful. Sometimes he would slip out of the house on moonlight nights. His anxious parents would then send an old servant after him, who would return to say that "Master Bysshe only took a walk, and came back again." A very strange form of amus.e.m.e.nt it must have seemed to his plain matter-of-fact father.
But now these careless happy days came to an end, or only returned during holiday times, for when Bysshe was ten years old he was sent to school.
Sh.e.l.ley went first to a private school, and after a year or two to Eton, but at neither was he happy. And although he had been so merry at home, at school he was looked upon as a strange unsociable creature. He refused to f.a.g for the bigger boys. He never joined in the ordinary school games, and would wander about by himself reading, or watching the clouds and the birds. He read all kinds of books, liking best those which told of haunted castles, robbers, giants, murderers, and other eerie subjects.
He liked chemistry too, and was more than once brought into trouble by the daring experiments he made. Sh.e.l.ley was very brave and never afraid of anything except what was base and low.
To the few who loved him he was gentle, but most of his schoolfellows took delight in tormenting him. And when goaded into wrath he showed that he could be fierce.
Sh.e.l.ley soon began to write, and while still at school, at the age of sixteen, he published a novel for which he received 40 pounds. A little later he and one of his sisters published a book of poems together.
From Eton Sh.e.l.ley went to Oxford. Here he remained for a few months reading hard. "He was to be found, book in hand, at all hours; reading in season and out of season; at table, in bed, and especially during a walk." But he read more what pleased himself than what pleased the college authorities. He wrote too, and among the things he wrote was a little leaflet of a few pages which seemed to the fellows of his college a dangerous attack upon religion. They summoned Sh.e.l.ley to appear before them, and as he refused to answer their questions he was expelled. Sh.e.l.ley had given himself the name of Atheist. It is a very ugly name, meaning one who denies the existence of G.o.d. Looking back now we can see that it was too harsh and ugly a name for Sh.e.l.ley. The paper for which he was expelled, even if it was wicked, was the work of a rash, impetuous boy, not the reasoned wickedness of a grown man. But the deed was done, and Sh.e.l.ley was thrown out into the world, for his father, sorely vexed and troubled, not knowing how to control his wild colt of a son, refused to allow him to return home. So Sh.e.l.ley remained in London. Here he went often to visit his sisters at school, and came to known one of their school friends, Harriet Westbrook. She was a pretty, good- tempered girl of sixteen with "hair like a poet"s dream."*
Sh.e.l.ley thought that she too was oppressed and ill-used as he had been. She loved him, he liked her, so they decided to get married, and ran away to Scotland and were married in Edinburgh.
Sh.e.l.ley was nineteen and his little bride sixteen.
*Hogg.
This boy and girl marriage was a terrible mistake, and three years later husband and wife separated.
I can tell you very little more of Sh.e.l.ley"s life, some of it was wrong, much of it was sad, as it could hardly fail to be following on this wrong beginning. When you grow older you will be able to read it with charity and understanding. Meantime keep the picture of the kindly big brother, and imagine him growing into a lovable and brave man, into a poet who wins our hearts almost unawares by the beauty of his poetry, his poetry which has been called "a beautiful dream of the future." Of some of it I shall now tell you a little.
Very early Sh.e.l.ley began to publish poetry, but most of it was not worthy of a truly great poet. His first really fine poem is Alastor. It is written in blank verse, and represents a poet seeking in vain for his ideal of what is truly lovely and beautiful. Being unable to find that which he seeks, he dies.
The poem is full of beautiful description, but it is sad, and in the picture of the poet we seem to see Sh.e.l.ley himself. Other long poems followed, poems which are both terrible and beautiful, but many years must pa.s.s before you try to read them. For Sh.e.l.ley"s poetry is more vague, his meaning more elusive, than that of almost any other poet of whom we have spoken. It is rather for Sh.e.l.ley"s shorter poems, his lyrics, that I would try to gain your love at present, for although he wrote The Cenci, the best tragedy of his time, a tragedy which by its terror and pain links him with Shakespeare, it is as a lyric poet that we love Sh.e.l.ley. "Here," says another poet,* "Sh.e.l.ley forgets that he is anything but a poet, forgets sometimes that he is anything but a child. . . . He plays truant from earth, slips through the wicket of fancy into heaven"s meadow, and goes gathering stars."
And of all our poets, Sh.e.l.ley is the least earthly, the most spiritual. But he loved the beautiful world, the sea and sky, and when we have heard him sing of the clouds and the skylark, of the wind and the waves of--
*Francis Thompson.
"The fresh Earth in new leaves drest, And the starry night; Autumn evening, and the morn When the golden mists are born,"*
*Song.
when we have heard him sing of these, and have understood with our heart, they have an added meaning for us. We love and understand the song of the skylark better for having heard Sh.e.l.ley sing of it.
"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
"Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The deep blue thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
"In the golden lightening Of the sunken sun, O"er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.