on horseback--he writes as habitually as others
talk or think--and whether we have the inspiration of the Muse or not, we
always find the spirit of the man of genius breathing from his verse. He
grapples with his subject, and moves, penetrates, and animates it by the
electric force of his own feelings. He is often monotonous, extravagant,
offensive; but he is never dull, or tedious, but when he writes prose.
Lord Byron does not exhibit a new view of nature, or raise insignificant
objects into importance by the romantic associations with which he
surrounds them; but generally (at least) takes common-place thoughts and
events and endeavours to express them in stronger and statelier language
than others. His poetry stands like a Martello tower by the side of his
subject. He does not, like Mr. Wordsworth, lift poetry from the ground, or
create a sentiment out of nothing. He does not describe a daisy or a
periwinkle, but the cedar or the cypress; not "poor men's cottages, but
princes' palaces." His Childe Harold contains a lofty and impassioned
review of the great events of history, of the mighty objects left as
wrecks of time, but he dwells chiefly on what is familiar to the mind of
every schoolboy; has brought out few new traits of feeling or thought; and
has done no more than justice to the reader's preconceptions by the
sustained force and brilliancy of his style and imagery.

Lord Byron's earlier productions, _Lara_, the _Corsair_, etc. were wild
and gloomy romances, put into rapid and shining verse. They discover the
madness of poetry, together with the inspiration; sullen, moody,
capricious, fierce, inexorable, gloating on beauty, thirsting for revenge,
hurrying from the extremes of pleasure to pain, but with nothing
permanent, nothing healthy or natural. The gaudy decorations and the
morbid sentiments remind one of flowers strewed over the face of death! In
his _Childe Harold_ (as has been just observed) he assumes a lofty and
philosophic tone, and "reasons high of providence, fore-knowledge, will,
and fate." He takes the highest points in the history of the world, and
comments on them from a more commanding eminence: he shows us the
crumbling monuments of time, he invokes the great names, the mighty spirit
of antiquity. The universe is changed into a stately mausoleum:--in
solemn measures he chaunts a hymn to fame. Lord Byron has strength and
elevation enough to fill up the moulds of our classical and time-hallowed
r