Page:Under the Microscope - Swinburne (1899).djvu/44

 before ever his latest English panegyrist laid lance in rest against all comers in defence of his fame; using meantime that fame as a stalking-horse behind which to shoot at the fame of others. And as to his assumed office of spokesman on behalf of Byron—a very noble office it would be if there were any need or place for it—we cannot but ask who gave him his credentials as advocate or apologist for a poet whose fame was to all seeming as secure as any man's? Is the name of Byron fallen so low that such a style of advocacy and such a class of counsel must be sought out to revive its drooping credit and refresh its withered honours?^ Quis vituperavit? Has any one attacked his noble memory as a poet or a man, except here and there a journalist of the tribe of Levi or Tartuffe, or a blatant Bassarid of Boston, a rampant Mænad of Massachusetts? To wipe off the froth of falsehood from the foaming lips of inebriated virtue, when fresh from the sexless orgies of morality and reeling from the delirious riot of religion, may doubtless be a charitable office; but it is no proof of critical sense or judgment to set about the vindication of a great man as though his repute could by any chance be widely or durably affected by the confidences, exchanged in the most secret place and hour of their sacred rites, far from the clamour of public halls and platforms made hoarse with holiness,