The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Born in London, 1788. Died at Missolonghi, in Greece, 1824. Aged 36.] Assuredly, the most popular, if not the greatest poet of our times. But, the popularity by no means proof of the greatness. He was an object of interest on account of his birth, his youth, his misfortunes, his constant practice of associating with poetry his personal and daily history, his strongly imagined injuries, his feverish complaints. A vigorous painter of portraits--that is to say, of two, for he took delight only in the hero of gloomy passion, and in the heroine of soft voluptuous beauty--all his pictures more or less reflecting his own nature, and the nature of woman as it appeared to his refined sensuality. Byron has described with ineffable grandeur natural scenery, and has kindled the spirits of men with enthusiasm for the ancient glory; but we find no solace in his companionship, although he takes us to streams and mountains visited by the gods. His own distempered image is too visibly stamped on every scene. Byron affected to be a misanthrope; yet he cherished the good opinion of men, and shrunk from their adverse criticism. He pretended that he was isolated from the world; yet his name and fame were upon every lip. What will last in the poetry of Byron are the verses uttered in moments of self-oblivion. Keats complained that Byron made solemn things gay, and gay things solemn. This was a great wrong, and is hardly repaired by the tenderness, pathos, sentiment, and passion, that start from his poetry to go straight to the heart. It was the misfortune of Byron to be sent into the world without discipline or training of any kind. Had he been fairly dealt with in his childhood and youth, his life might have been happier--its course more equable. As it was, his genius was enslaved and wronged, his career was violent and erratic, his whole nature warped, and his poetry, instead of being a well-trimmed garden of beauty, had its choicest flowers entangled and half hidden in unwholesome, gaudy weeds. [By Thorwaldsen, but not from the life.] 418A. GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON. _Poet._ [By E. H. Baily, R.A. Modelled from authentic portraits.]