Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/849

* BYRON. 74a BYRON. article in the Ediiiburyh, and the town was taken by a phiy of wit and a mastery of versification uncqualcil since tlie days of Pope. Byron now witluirew from Knjihind, visiting Portugal, Sjiain. Turkey, and tJreece. On his return lie published the lirst two cantos of Childc Ilnrold (1812), with immense success, and was at onco enrolled among the great poets of his coiuitry. During the next two years he produced The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, and Lai-a. While these brilliant pieces were flowing from his pen, he was indulging in all the revel- ries and excesses of London society. What was noblest in the man revolted at this mode of life, and in an effort to escape from it, he married, in 1815, Miss ililbanke, daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke. This union was unfortunate. It lasted only a .rear, and during the brief period money embarrassments, recriminations, and all the miseries incidental to an ill-assorted marriage were of frequent occurrence. After the birth of her child, Ada, Lady Byron retired to her father's house and refused to return. Byron became the theme of all uncharitable tongues. The most popular poet, he was for a space the most un- popular individual in the country. In one of his letters, written from Italy some years later, re- ferring to the slanders current at the time, he said: "I was accused of every monstrous vice of public rumor and private rancor. Hy name, which has been a knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for illiani the Xorman, was tainted. I felt that if what was whispered, and muttered, and mur- mured was true, 1 was unfit for England; if false, England was unfit for me. I withdrew." The separation from his wife and the departure from England in 1816, never to return, mark a stage in the development of Byron's genius. A new element of power now entered into his verse. Jlisery and indignation stimul&ted him to re- markable activity. Six months' stay at Geneva produced the third canto of Childc Harohl. and The Prisoner of Chilian. Manfred and The Lament of Tasso were written in 1817. The next year he was at Venice, and finished Childc Harold there : and, in the gay and witty lieppo, made an experiment in the new field which he was after- wards to work so successfully. During the next three years he produced the first five cantos of Don Juan, and a number of dramas of various merit, Cain and M'crncr representing opposite poles. In 1821 he removed to Pisa, and worked there at Don Juan, which, with the exception of The ^'ision of Judgment, occupied his pen almost up to the close of his life. In 1822 Byron. Shel- ley, and Leigh Hunt started a journal called The Liberal. After the tragic death of Shelley in the summer of this year, Byron and Hunt quarreled, and the journal came to a quick close. Morally, Byron's Italian life was licentious, and his genius was tainted by his indulgences. The least censurable of all his moral lapses was his liaison with the Countess Guiccioli. Xear the close of his career he was visited by a new inspiration; the sun so long obscured shone out gloriously at its setting. In the summer of 1823 he sailed for Cephalonia to aid the Greeks in their strug- gle for independence. From Cephalonia he went to Missolonghi at the beginning of .lanuarj'. 1824. There he found nothing; but confusion and con- tending chiefs; but in three months he succeeded in evoking some kind of order out of the chaos. His health, however, began to fail. He died from exposure and fever. April Ifl, 1824. His body was- conveyed to England, and buried in the family vault in the village church of Hucknall, uear Newstead. Lord Byron is a remarkable instance of the fluctuations of literary fashion. Elevated to the highest pinnacle of fame by his contem- poraries, he was unduly decried after his death, when the romance which he had thrown around himself and his writings began to wear away; and it is only during the last twenty or thirty years that the ])roper place has been found for him in the public estimation. The resources of his intellect were amazing. He gained his first reputation as a depicter of the gloomy and stormful passions. After he wrote Bcppo, he was surprised to find that he was a humorist; when he reached Greece, he discovered an ability for military organization. When all the school- girls of England fancied their idol with a scowl- ing brow and a curled lip, he was laughing in Italy, and declaring himself to be the most un- romantic being in the world. And he was right. Take away all his Oriental wrappings and you discover an honest Englishman, who, above all tilings, hates cant and humbug. In Don Juan, which is his masterpiece, and in his letters, there is a wonderful fund of wit, sarcasm, humor, and knowledge of man. Few men had a clearer eye for fact and reality. His eloquence, pathos, and despair, as in Manfred and Childe Harold, were only phases of his mind. Toward the close of his life, he was working toward his real strength, and that lay in W'it and the direct representation of human life. ilurray, Byron's original publisher, has issued several editions of the complete works. Consult Henley, ^Vorks of Lord Byron (London, 1897- — ). The latest edition is that by Coleridge and Prothero (London, 1898-1901). The best esti- mate of Byron is to be found in Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, second series (London, 1888). The main source of information as to his life is Moore. Letters and Journals of Byron, with Xotices of His Life (London, 1S30, new ed. 1874). Consult, also: ilacaulay, Moore's Life of Lord Byron (London, 1831); Elze. Lord Byron (Eng. trans., London, 1872) ; Jeaifreson, The Real Lord Byron (London, 1883) ; Xichol, "Life," in English Men of Letters series (London, 1880) ; Countess Guiccioli, Jjord Byron jugi par les tcmoins de sa vie (Paris, 1868) ; English translation by Jcrningham as My Recollect ions of Lord Byron and Those of Eye-untnesses of Bis Life (Philadelphia, 1809); Lady Blessington, Conrersalions xcith Lord Byron (London, 183-1) ; Trelawny, Recollections of Shelley and Byron (Boston, 1858) ; Himt, Lord Byron and His Contentjinrarics (London, 1828). BYRON, ILERIET. The author of most of the imaginary epistles which compose Richard- son's »Sir Charles Orandison. She is a youthful sentimentalist, and an orphan. BYRON, Henry James (1834-84). An Eng- lish pla>'wright and actor, horn in Manchester. He studied medicine and then law, but soon became an actor and a pla^vright. and will be remembered as the author of a number of suc- cessful plavs, the earliest of which was Era fiiaro/o (1858). Our Boys (1878) had a long riui, but Cyril's .S'l/cccss is generally regarded as