His notions fitted things so well,
That which was which he could not tell,
But oftentimes mistook the one

For th' other, as great clerks have done.
He could reduce all things to acts,
And knew their natures by abstracts;
Where entity and quiddity,

The ghost of defunct bodies, fly;
Where Truth in person does appear,

Like words congealed in northern air.
He knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.

For his religion, it was fit

To match his learning and his wit:
'Twas Presbyterian, true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew

Of errant saints, whom all men grant

To be the true church militant:
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversy by
Infallible artillery;

And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire and sword and desolation

A godly-thorough-Reformation,
Which always must be carry'd on,
And still be doing, never done,

As if Religion were intended

For nothing else but to be mended.

A sect whose chief devotion lies

In odd perverse antipathies:
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss:
More peevish, cross, and splenetic,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick.
That with more care keep holy-day
The wrong, than others the right way:
Compound for sins they are inclin'd to,
By damning those they have no mind to:
Still so perverse and opposite,

As if they worship'd God for spite.

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The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow.
All piety consists therein

In them, in other men all sin.
Rather than fail, they will defy

That which they love most tenderly:
Quarrel with minc'd pies, and disparage

Their best and dearest friend - plum-porridge;

Fat pig and goose itself oppose,

And blaspheme custard through the nose.

His puissant sword unto his side,
Near his undaunted heart, was ty'd,
With basket-hilt, that would hold broth,
And serve for fight and dinner both.
In it he melted lead for bullets,

To shoot at foes, and sometimes pullets;
To whom he bore so fell a grutch,
He ne'er gave quarter t'any such.
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting was grown rusty,

And ate into itself, for lack

Of somebody to hew and hack.

The peaceful scabbard where it dwelt

The rancor of its edge had felt.

This sword a dagger had, his page,
That was but little for his age:
And therefore waited on him so,
As dwarfs upon knights-errant do.
It was a serviceable dudgeon,
Either for fighting or for drudging:
When it had stabb'd, or broke a head,
It would scrape trenchers or chip bread,
Toast cheese or bacon, though it were
To bait a mouse-trap, 'twould not care:
'Twould make clean shoes, and in the earth
Set leeks and onions, and so forth:
It had been 'prentice to a brewer,
Where this, and more, it did endure;
But left the trade, as many more
Have lately done, on the same score.

LORD BYRON

(1788-1824)

BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

OETHE, in one of his conversations with Henry Crabb Robinson about Byron, said "There is no padding in his poetry" ("Es sind keine Flickwörter im Gedichte"). This was in 1829, five years after Byron died. "This, and indeed every evening, I believe, Lord Byron was the subject of his praise. He compared the brilliancy and clearness of his style to a metal wire drawn through a steel plate." He expressed regret that Byron should not have lived to execute his vocation, which he said was "to dramatize the Old Testament. What a subject under his hands would the Tower of Babel have been!" Byron's views of nature he declared were "equally profound and poetical." Power in all its forms Goethe had respect for, and he was captivated by the indomitable spirit of Manfred. He enjoyed the Vision of Judgment' when it was read to him, exclaiming "Heavenly!» «Unsurpassable!" "Byron has surpassed himself." He equally enjoyed the satire on George IV. He did not praise Milton with the warmth with which he eulogized Byron, of whom he said that "the like would never come again; he was inimitable."

Goethe's was the Continental opinion, but it was heightened by his conception of "realism"; he held that the poet must be matterof-fact, and that it was the truth and reality that made writing popular: "It is by the laborious collection of facts that even a poetical view of nature is to be corrected and authenticated." Tennyson was equally careful for scientific accuracy in regard to all the phenomena of nature. Byron had not scientific accuracy, but with his objectivity Goethe sympathized more than with the reflection and introspection of Wordsworth.

Byron was hailed on the Continent as a poet of power, and the judgment of him was not influenced by his disregard of the society. conventions of England, nor by his personal eccentricities, nor because he was not approved by the Tory party and the Tory writers. Perhaps unconsciously-certainly not with the conviction of Shelley - Byron was on the side of the new movement in Europe; the spirit of Rousseau, the unrest of Wilhelm Meister,' the revolutionary seething, with its tinge of morbidness and misanthropy, its brilliant dreams of a new humanity, and its reckless destructive