Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 15 Lord PCD HIS year, the literary world ` БЕ » is turning its thoughts back to Byron on the occasion of the one hundredth anni- a ge, versary of his death at Ow ч-н БГ in the cause of Hellenic freedom. George Gordon Byron, better known as Lord Byron, a great English poet and one of the most remarkable figures in the litera- ture of the nineteenth century, was born in London on January 22nd, 1788. He was the only child of a profligate father and an equally unscrupulous mother. The latter, Catherine Gordon of Gight, an heiress of Aberdeenshire, was soon impoverished through the wild excesses of her husband, Captain John Byron, and taking her son, she retired to Aberdeen, where they spent several years in very straightened circum- stances. However, it was a very short time before the death of a great uncle made Byron heir to a huge estate, including one of the oldest: English baronies, together with the beauti- ful residence of Newstead Abbey, near Nottingham. He was then sent to Harrow School where a thorough education soon fitted him for that eminent seat of learning, Trinity College, Cambridge. His unusual talent was not long in making itself mani- fest at the latter institution and he grad- uated with high honours before he was yet nineteen years of age. He had already begun his literary career, having, in 1807, presented to the public his first production of a work entitled “Hours of Idleness.” The closing words of his preface to this volume are characteristic of his modesty and sense of humour: “With slight hopes and some fears, I publish this first and last attempt. To the dictates of youthful ambition may be ascribed many actions more criminal and equally absurd. It is highly improbable from my situation and pursuits here after, that I should ever obtrude myself a second time on the pub- lic.” This volume, however, received such fierce criticism from the Edinburgh Review, Byron that he did “obtrude” himself “а second time on the public and that in a manner long to be remembered, when, in 1809, he replied to this attack in “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” in which he vigor- ously assailed nearly every literary man of the day. That Byron was possessed of determination can easily be seen from a remark he made with reference to this poem: “All my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this satire with my name. If I were to be turned from the career of my humour by “quibbles quick and paper bullets of the brain,” I should have complied with their counsel; but I am not to be terrified by abuse or bullied by reviewers with or with- out arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally, who did not commence the offensive. An author's works are public property; he who pur- chases may judge and publish his opinion if he pleases; and the authors I have endeavoured to commemorate may do by me as 1 have done by them; I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings than in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write well. The opening lines give us an idea of what is to follow: Still must I hear?—Shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl His creaking couplets in a tavern hall? And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch reviews Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse? Prepare for rhyme—T'll publish right or wrong; Fools are my theme, let satire be my song. Nor is he incapable of sarcasm. Hear him when he refers to his old enemies, the critics. A man must serve his time to every trade Save censure—critics all are ready made, Take hackney'd phe from Miller, got by rote, With just enough of learning to misquote; A mind well filled to find or forge a fault; A turn for punning, call it Attic salt; To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet. His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet; Fear not to lie, ’twill seem a luck fit; Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit; Care not for feelings—pass your proper jest, And stand a critic, hated but caress'd.

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16 LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW —Ж— 4 Amid the furore resultant upon the publication of this satire, the poet with- drew from England, visited the Mediter- ranean, and rested awhile in Turkey and Greece. He returned in 1812, and as an outcome of these travels we have the first two cantos of “Childe Harold's Pilgrim- age. These poems are written in Spen- serian stanza and are remarkable for their strength, elasticity and brilliant illustra- tions, as may be judged by the first stanza of canto one:— Oh, thou, in He llas, deem'd of heavenly birth, Muse, form'd or fabled at the minstrel’s will; Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth, Mine dares not call thee from the sacred hill; Yet there I've wandered by thy vaunted rill; Yes! Sighed o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine, Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still; Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine To grace so plain a tale—this lowly lay of mine. Indeed, such was the enthusiasm with which this poem was received, that the author himself declared, “1 awoke one morning and found myself famous. “Childe Harold was followed in the succeeding year by the “Bride of Abydos” and, in 1814, by “The Corsair” and “Laura,” two compositions of a very high order. Byron was now at the head of the English poets and at the height of his popularity in London. In 1815 he married Miss Millbanke, the daughter of Sir Ralphe Millbanke, a Durham baronet. This marriage proved an unhappy one and within a year Byron parted from his wife and left England his native country in 1816, never to return. The remainder of his life he spent in Switzerland, Italy and Greece. It was while at Geneva that he wrote the third canto of “Childe Harold and “Тһе Pris oner of Chillon. The latter concerns a certain Francois de Bonnivard, son of Louis de Bonnivard, a native of Seysel and Seigneur of Lunes, who was born in 1496. Educated at Turin, he received from his uncle in 1510 the Priory of Saint Victor, which was a considerable living. The style of the poem itself, is musical, abound- ing in rhythm, with a strong strain of pathos throughout. The following year Byron removed to Venice where he completed “Childe Har- old and wrote “Beppo—An Italian Ro- mance. ТЕ was about this period—the exact date is not known—that he com- posed “Manfred,” the first and probably the best of all his dramatic productions. An idea may be gained of the depth of feeling and wealth of word-painting of this masterpiece from the following soliloquy of “Manfred” taken from Scene IV, Act III: The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains,—Beautiful! I linger yet with nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that on man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness, I learn'd the language of another world. I do remember me, that in my youth, When I was wandering—upon such a night I stood within the Coliseum's wall, Midst the chief relics of Almighty Rome; The trees which p along the broken arches Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar The watchdog bay'd beyond the Tiber; and More near from out the Саезаг’з palace сате The owl’s long cry, and, interruptedly, Of distant sentinels the fitful son Begun and died beyond the gentle wind. Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood ithin a bowshot. His poetical production, within the last three years, ending іп 1821, were “ Maz- eppa,” his tragedies of “Marino Faliero,” the “Two Foscari and ‘“‘Sardanapalus,” “The Prophesy of Dante,” “Cain,” and several cantos of “ Don Juan,” the sixteenth canto of which he completed at Pisa. At this place ће also wrote “Werner,” “The Deformed Transformed,” “Heaven and Earth,” and the celebrated “Vision of Judgment;” the two last of which appeared in “The Liberal,” the joint production of himself, Mr. Shelly and Mr. Leigh Hunt, who had joined his lordship at Pisa. In 1821 the Greek nation rose in revolt against the cruelties and oppression of the Turkish rule, and Byron’s sympathies were strongly enlisted on the side of the Greeks. He helped the struggling little country with contributions of money; and, in 1823, sailed from Geneva to take a personal share in the war of liberation. He got no further than Missolonghi, however, when he was seized with a fever that proved fatal. On the morning of the nineteenth of April, 1824, at the age of thirty-six '