show of funeral plumes, a century late, would be still less worthy of the occasion than anything that you may hear to-night.
I have always felt that Byron’s future is safe, not only with critics, and not only with persons who care for poetry, but with persons who do not much care for it at all. This may sound a double-edged saying; but it is meant well. It implies, for one thing, that the man, apart from his writings, can never be forgotten, just as Swift, Johnson, and Carlyle can never be forgotten, whatever becomes, in the judgment of Time, of their formal works. I choose these names because they are the English writers of great rank whom we know best personally; and Byron we know in the same way. All four have told us an immense amount about themselves, and others have told us almost more about them. Over the other three Byron has at least one advantage: he has spoken of himself, and at great length, both in his best prose and in his best verse. I have met various people who have very little sense for literature, but who could not keep away from Byron. Mr. Murray, writing a few years ago, speaks of the stream of pilgrims who come to see his Byron museum. For the man is still an enigma, although the broad lines of his character are familiar. Nor does the interest in Byron depend upon unsolved scandals, which so far as I am concerned may go down to their own place in the gutter. It is doubtful whether, after all, they throw any but a doubtful and indirect light upon his poetry. Nor, again, does the interest depend on any “message,” or deep philosophical idea, that Byron can furnish. It depends on his mixed and large humanity, on his way of continually disappointing us, and of suddenly recovering himself, and triumphing, both as a poet and as a man.
1. The first, then, of my questions is this: Can he tell a story? The gift of narrative is, of course, not implied in, nor does it imply, the poetic gift. The two things may go together; but they need not, in mathematical language, vary together. Even when they go together, as in Chaucer and William Morris they do, they are still different. Gower, Chaucer’s friend, is something of a poet, but he is much more of a tale-teller; and his narrative ease carries him through when the poetry wears thin. When Shelley tries to tell a tale, his poetic gift just carries him through when the narrative wears thin. As to Byron, he begins very ill in this particular, and for a long time he does not improve at all; but at last he disappoints us pleasantly. His series of lays, poured out so fast, and so wildly
