a year's quarrels and estrangements they separated, she returning with her infant daughter to her father's house. Byron found himself abused in the papers and hissed in the streets for his treatment of his wife, and in the spring of 1816 he left England in disgust, and never again saw his native land. He wandered over Europe, crossed the Jura, and finally reached Italy, where, at Venice and Ravenna and Pisa and Rome, he led a wild, irregular life of dissipation, from which he was saved only by an illegitimate attachment to a young Romagnese lady, the countess of Guiccioli, who had married a wealthy nobleman thrice her own age. It was during his stay at these cities that he wrote most of his poems, which brought him thousands of pounds. Here also he wrote several dramas. In the summer of 1823 he set sail for Greece to aid that country in its struggles for independence. He reached Missolonghi, in Western Greece, on the 4th of January, 1824. Here he found everything in discord and confusion, but his plans were thoroughly prepared, and in the space of three months, with his influence and his money, he had succeeded in reducing the contending factions to order. But on the 9th of April, being overtaken by a heavy shower, he became at once the victim of rheumatism and a treacherous fever, and on the evening of the 19th he died. The people of Greece publicly mourned his death, and “his band of turbulent Suliotes gathered, pale and tearful, around his coffin" when the funeral-service was read. His body was sent to England for burial, and was interred in the family-vault near Newstead. Byron's most important poems are Childe Harold, The Dream, The Prisoner of Chillon, Mazeppa, The Bride of Abydos, Parisina, The Giaour, The Siege of Corinth, Beppo, The Lament of Tasso, The Prophecy of Dante, and Don Juan. CRITICISM BY MACAULAY. He was truly a spoiled child-not merely the spoiled child of his parents, but the spoiled child of Nature, the spoiled child of Fortune, the spoiled child of Fame, the spoiled child of Society. His first poems were received with a contempt which, feeble as they were, they did not absolutely deserve. The poem which he published on his return from his travels was, on the other hand, extolled far above its merits. At twenty-four he found himself on the highest pinnacle of literary fame, with Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and a crowd of other distinguished writers beneath his feet. There is scarcely an instance in history of so sudden a rise to so dizzy an eminence. . The obloquy which Byron had to endure was such as might well have shaken a more constant mind. The newspapers were filled with lampoons. The theatres shook with execrations. He was excluded from circles where he had lately been the observed of all observers. The unhappy man left his country for ever. The howl of contumely followed him across the sea, up the Rhine, over the Alps; it gradually waxed fainter; it died away. Those who had raised it began to ask each other what, after all, was the matter about which they had been so clamorous, and wished to invite back the criminal whom they had just chased from them. His poetry became more popular than it had ever been, and his complaints were read with tears by thousands and tens of thousands who had never seen his face. He had fixed his home on the shores of the Adriatic. He plunged into wild and desperate excesses. His health sunk under the effects of his intemperance. His verse lost much of the energy and condensation which had distinguished But he would not resign without a struggle. A new i dream of ambition arose before him-to be the centre of a literary party. The plan failed, and failed ignominiously. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. NOTE.-The following are the ten closing stanzas of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, the poem which established Byron's fame and which made him the idol of English literary circles. 1. Oh! that the desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair spirit for my minister, Accord me such a being? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. 10 2. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods; There is a rapture on the lonely shore; There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, ANALYSIS. 3. Explain all forget the human race. 1-4. What kind of sentence, grammatically? 4. love. Give grammatical construction. 5. Ye elements! What figure? 5, 6. in whose .... exalted. Give the syntax. 8. Supply the ellipsis. 9. What is the subject of can be? 10. Syntax of There? What is the subject of the clause? 13. Give the syntax of music. 14. What is the office of not and less? 15. From these, etc. What is the antecedent? these our. What is the syntax? 15, 16. in which I steal from all I may be. 15-18. Give the modifiers of steal .... tax of all. Give the meaning. all conceal. Give the syn 15 To mingle with the universe, and feel 8. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll! He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 4. His steps are not upon thy paths; thy fields Are not a spoil for him; thou dost arise 20 25 And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields 30 Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, His petty hope in some near port or bay; And dashest him again to earth,-there let him lay! 5. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls ANALYSIS.-19. Point out the figure in the line. 20. Ten thousand fleets sweep, etc. What figure? 23. all. What does the word modify? 24. Give the syntax of save. 25, 26. like a drop.... He sinks. What figure? Give the syntax of like and drop. 31. all despise. Give the syntax of all. 28-36. What figure runs through the stanza? . 36. there let him lay. Would this be correct as prose? 37-39. Give the meaning of these lines. 40-43. Give the meaning of these lines. 41. clay creator. Give the meaning. 335 40 Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war,~ 6. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee. 45 50 7. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,— 55 Calm or convulsed, in breeze or gale or storm, Dark-heaving: boundless, endless, and sublime,- Of the Invisible: even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. ANALYSIS.-43. What are the antecedents of These! 43, 44. as the snowy flake, They mell. What figure? 44. yeast of waves. What figure? 45. Give the meaning of Armada's pride; also, spoils of Trafalgar. 46. save thee. Parse save. 47. Assyria, Greece, etc. Give syntax. 49. And many a tyrant since. Explain. 50, 51. their decay Has dried up realms to deserts. Give the meaning 51. not so thou. Give the syntax. 52. Parse Unchangeable. 53. thine azure brow. Give syntax. 55, 56. the Almighty's form Glasses itself. What figure? 56-61. Point out the figure. 61, 62 from out thy slime.... are made. What figure? 62, 63. each zone Obeys thee. What figure? 60 |