plimented on the completion of that princely dwelling. “I look around - not a house is to be seen but mine. I am the giant of Giantcastle, and I have eat up all my neighbors."-- FORSTER.

1. 298. Its vistas strike. The landscape gardener has secured beautiful effects on the rich man's estate.

1. 318. the black gibbet. They had to steal to live. dome. Here it means house or palace.

1. 319.

1. 344. wild Altama. The Altamaha River in Georgia. In the following passage, certainly, Goldsmith does not present a romantic view of the emigrant's lot. We should have thought, in spite of the poet's classical training, that the strangeness, the luxuriance, and the mystery of the New World would have found some expression in his verse. Cf. Tennyson's description in Enoch Arden of a tropical isle:

"The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns
And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven,
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes,
The lightning flash of insect and of bird,
The lustre of the long convolvuluses

That coiled around the stately stems, and ran
Even to the limit of the land, the glows
And glories of the broad belt of the world

The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl,
The league-long roller thundering on the reef,
The moving whisper of huge trees that branched
And blossomed in the zenith,

The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts,

Among the palms and ferns, and precipices;

The blaze upon the waters to the east;

The blaze upon his island overhead;

The blaze upon the waters to the west;

Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven,
The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again

The scarlet shafts of sunrise."

1. 399.

Where yon anchoring vessel spreads. Goldsmith doubtless had in mind one of his own experiences when he wrote of the emigrants and penned these lines.

1. 413. Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe. Forster says Goldsmith once remarked to a friend: I cannot afford to court the draggle-tail muses, they would let me starve; but by other labors I can make shift to eat and drink and have good clothes." Goldsmith never flattered a patron in order to secure material advantage from his poetry.

1. 418. Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's Tarnea is in the northern part of Sweden. is a peak of the Andes near Quito.

truth. Goldsmith's

side. Lake Pambamarca

verse

never

1. 423. Aid slighted failed to do that. His attitude toward society was romantic, although his tendency to moralize was classical.

1. 427. Boswell says that the last four lines were added by Johnson, who thought that the poem as completed by Goldsmith ended too tamely. Is The Deserted Village merely a rimed essay, or is it a real poem?

CANTO FOUR OF CHILDE

HAROLD'S

PILGRIMAGE AND THE PRISONER OF CHILLON

GEORGE GORDON BYRON

THE LIFE OF BYRON

BYRON is the most picturesque figure in the history of English literature. If he had written nothing, and his life and character had been portrayed by some Boswell, he would still be famous. His long-continued struggle against foes without and within occupied the attention of Europe for years. Many detested him, some idolized him, but all observed him and were interested in his fate. His proud and scornful spirit failed in the fight against tremendous odds, but it did not yield.

He was, perhaps, the supreme egotist of all time. It is difficult to tell when, if ever, he is sincere, or when he is posing. He may have been the worst of men or he may have sought the public eye by appearing to be the worst of men. His characteristic despair may have been real or it may have been theatrical. Although he resented adverse criticism as has no other author, critical attention of some sort he craved. He placed his own character under thin disguises as the hero of each of his longer poems, and he sought to fashion his life

into a romantic tale. His own individual will he opposed against the precedent, convention, and authority of society as long as he lived; except for physical bravery there seemed to be no self-renunciation in his nature. Such individuality was his, yet he seemed to be the product of his time and the spokesman of his age. He lived in a period of revolution and revolt. Fifty years before Byron, Rousseau had produced works which had thrown Europe into turmoil. The French Revolution had made a new France and' in almost every country of Europe there were changes scarcely less momentous, although not always so evident. Governments were becoming democratic, and hereditary rank and aristocratic pretention were losing their authority. In education and religion practices and beliefs that had been in use for centuries were being thrown aside. Society itself was losing its authority because of the magnified liberty, and even license, which was accorded the individual. This fact adds significance to M. Scherer's saying that Byron "has treated hardly any subject but one himself; he posed all his life long." This is true in the sense that the consideration of the individual, as distinguished from the member of society, reached a climax in the time of Byron, and he was the chief exponent and spokesman of his age. He was no prophet; perhaps he even lagged behind the true art of his time. What was subtle escaped him. But to-day one who would through poetry enter into the life of the early nineteenth century must read his works. As a mirror of the times his poetry has no rivals.

Byron came of a famous family which in its later years had not borne a good reputation. The poet's father,

E

John Byron, was a captain of the Guards, and was dissipated and worthless. He eloped with the wife of the Marquis of Carmorthen and married her after she had secured a divorce from her husband. Of this marriage was born Augusta, the poet's half-sister. In 1785 John Byron married Miss Catherine Gordon, probably to gain her fortune, for he ill-treated his bride and deserted her soon after the birth of the poet, in 1788. Byron's mother, however, was herself erratic and passionate. She quarrelled with her son continually. Because of his club-foot she called him a lame brat and threw the fire-shovel and tongs at his head. But even at this age Byron did not tamely submit. When he was scolded for soiling a new frock, he tore the garment from top to bottom.

When Byron was an infant his mother removed from London to Scotland. There he attended school until, in 1798, through the death of a cousin, he inherited the estate of Newstead Abbey and the title of lord. In 1801 he was sent to Harrow, where he remained for four years. The young lord objected to the discipline of the school and was an indifferent student, but was an omniverous reader. He formed warm friendships and was not at all averse to using his fists in defence of friends if he thought them ill-treated. Once while yet a small boy he approached an upper classman and offered to take half the beating which the big fellow was about to inflict on the little Peel. He gave much attention to athletic sports, especially to swimming, rowing, and boxing, and he became a leader among the boys.

In 1805, Byron went to Cambridge University, from which he was graduated in 1808. As at Harrow he