Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/233

 but one, than I could imagine Shelley endowed with the various, fearless, keen-eyed, and triumphant enerpy which makes the greatest of Byron's works so great. With all his glory of ardour and vigour and humour, Byron was a singer who could not sing; Shelley outsang all poets on record but some two or three throughout all time; his depths and heights of inner and outer music are as divine as nature's, and not sooner exhaustible. He was alone the perfect singing-god; his thoughts, words, deeds, all sang together. This between two singing-men is a distinction of some significance; and must be, until the inarticulate poets and their articulate outriders have put down singing-men altogether as unrealities, inexpedient if not afflictive in the commonwealth of M. Proudhon and Mr. Carlyle. Till the dawn of that "most desired hour, more loved and lovely than all its sisters," these unblessed generations will continue to note the difference, and take some account of it. Again, though in some sense a "child of the idea," Byron is but a foundling or bastard child; Shelley is born heir, and has it by birthright; to Byron it is a charitable nurse, to Shelley a natural mother. All the more praise, it may be said, to Byron for having seen so much as he did and served so loyally. Be it so then; but let not his imperfect and intermittent service, noble and helpful now, and now alloyed with baser temper or broken short through sloth or spite or habit, be set beside the flawless work and perfect service of Shelley. His whole heart and mind, his whole soul and strength, Byron could not give to the idea at all; neither to art, nor freedom, nor any faith whatever. His life's work therefore falls as short of the