reatures, and no one could find
fault with his sweet fancy. In the same way, when Samuel Johnson chose
to stalk ponderously along the streets, stepping on the edges of the
paving-stones, or even when he happened to roar a little loudly in
conversation, who could censure him seriously? His heart was as a little
child's: his deeds were saintly; and we perhaps love him all the more
for his droll little ways. But, when Shelley outrages decency and the
healthy sense of manliness by his peculiar escapades, it is not easy to
pardon him; the image of that drowned child rises before us, and we are
apt to forget the pretty verses. Calm folk remember that many peculiarly
wicked and selfish gentry have been able to make nice rhymes and paint
charming pictures. The old poet Francois Villon, who has made men weep
and sympathize for so many years, was a burglar, a murderer, and
something baser, if possible, than either murderer or burglar. A more
despicable being probably never existed; and yet he warbles with angelic
sweetness, and his piercing sadness thrills us after the lapse of four
centuries. Young men of unrestrained appetites and negative morality are
often able to talk most charmingly, but the meanest and most unworthy
persons whom I have met have been the wild and lofty-minded poets who
perpetually express contempt of Philistines and cast the shaft of their
scorn at what they call "dross." So far as money goes, I fancy that the
oratorical, and grandiose poet is often the most greedy of individuals;
and, when, in his infinite conceit, he sets himself up above common
decency and morality, I find it difficult to confine myself to moderate
language. A man of genius may very well be chaste, modest, unselfish,
and retiring. Byron was at his worst when he was producing the works
which made him immortal; I prefer to think of him as he was when he cast
his baser self away, and nobly took up the cause of Greece. When once
his matchless common sense asserted itself, and he ceased to contemplate
his own woes and his own wrongs, he became a far greater man than he had
ever been before. I should be delighted to know that the cant about the
lowering restrictions imposed by stupidity on genius had been silenced
for ever. A man of transcendent ability must never forget that he is a
member of a community, and that he has no more right wantonly to offend
the feelings or prejudices of that community than he has to go about
buffeting individual me