following the suggestions in Painter's "Guide to Literary Criticism." The first chapter of "The Talisman" is given in the selections of Part II. LORD BYRON. 371. Personal Elements.—No other poet has so embodied himself in his poetry as Byron. Had he not possessed a powerful individuality, his works would long since have perished. He was utterly lacking in the independent creative power of Shakespeare, who never identified himself with his characters. Throughout Byron's many works, we see but one person proud, misanthropic, sceptical, ungovernable man. Whatever exaggerations of feature there may be in the portrait, we recognize the essential outlines of the poet himself. a 372. Poetic Characteristics.- His poetry is largely autobiographical and his utterance intense. Without the careful artistic polish of many minor poets, his manner is rapid, stirring, powerful. He was, perhaps, the most remarkable poetic genius of the century; yet his powers were not turned to the best account. He lacked the balance of a noble character and a well-regulated life. On reading a collection of Burns's poems, he once exclaimed: "What an antithetical mind! - tenderness, roughness-delicacy, coarseness sentiment, sensuality soaring and grovelling-dirt and deity-all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay." The same antitheses might be applied with equal truth to himself. 373. Parentage.- George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born in London, Jan. 22, 1788. His ancestry runs back in an unbroken line of nobility to the time of William the Conqueror. His father was an unprincipled and heartless profligate, who married an heiress to get her property, and who, as soon as this was squandered, abandoned her. His mother was a proud, passionate, hysterical woman, who alternately caressed and abused her child. At one moment treating him with extravagant fondness, at the next she reproached him as a lame brat," and flung the poker at his head. With such parentage 66 and such rearing, it becomes us to temper somewhat the severity of our judgment of his character. 374. Early Romance. He was sent to school at Harrow. "I soon found," wrote the head-master shortly afterward, “that a wild mountain colt had been submitted to my management." Byron did not take much interest in the prescribed studies and never became an accurate scholar. His reading, however, was extensive, and he learned French and Italian. He formed a few warm friendships. During one of his vacations, he fell in love with Mary Ann Chaworth, whose father the poet's granduncle had slain in a tavern brawl He was fifteen and she was two years older. Looking upon him as a boy, she did not take his attachment seriously, and a year later married another. To Byron, who loved her with all the ardor of his nature, it was a grievous disappointment; and years afterward, when he himself stood at the altar, recollections of her disturbed his soul. The story is told in "The Dream," a poem of much beauty: "The boy had fewer summers, but his heart Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye 375. At the University. In 1805 Byron entered Trinity Collage, Cambridge, with which he was connected for nearly three years. Like many of his predecessors of independent genius Bacon, Milton, Locke, Gibbon - he cared little for the university training. He was fond of outdoor sports and excelled in cricket, boxing, riding, and shooting. Along with a good deal of miscellaneous reading, he wrote verses, and in 1808 he published a volume entitled "Hours of Idleness." The work gave little evidence of poetic genius, and was the subject of a rasping critique in the Edinburgh Review. "The poesy of this young lord," it was said with some justice, "belongs to the class which neither gods nor men are said to permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that exact standard." 66 376. English Bards and Scotch Reviewers."— While |