ed have been acceptable to the
Edinburgh volunteers on Portobello sands. But Byron can write a battle
song too, when it is _his_ cue to fight. If you look at the introduction
to the _Isles of Greece_, namely the 85th and 86th stanzas of the 3rd
canto of _Don Juan_,--you will find--what will you _not_ find, if only
you understand them! 'He' in the first line, remember, means the typical
modern poet.

'Thus usually, when he was asked to sing,
He gave the different nations something national.
'Twas all the same to him--"God save the King"
Or "Ca ira" according to the fashion all;
His muse made increment of anything
From the high lyric down to the low rational:
If Pindar sang horse races, what should hinder
Himself from being as pliable as Pindar?

'In France, for instance, he would write a chanson;
In England a six-canto quarto tale;
In Spain, he'd make a ballad or romance on
The last war--much the same in Portugal;
In Germany, the Pegasus he'd prance on
Would be old Goethe's--(see what says de Stael)
In Italy he'd ape the 'Trecentisti;'
In Greece, he'd sing some sort of hymn like this t' ye.

Note first here, as we did in Scott, the concentrating and foretelling
power. The 'God Save the Queen' in England, fallen hollow now, as the
'Ca ira' in France--not a man in France knowing where either France or
'that' (whatever 'that' may be) is going to; nor the Queen of England
daring, for her life, to ask the tiniest Englishman to do a single thing
he doesn't like;--nor any salvation, either of Queen or Realm, being any
more possible to God, unless under the direction of the Royal Society:
then, note the estimate of height and depth in poetry, swept in an
instant, 'high lyric to low rational.' Pindar to Pope (knowing Pope's
height, too, all the while, no man better); then, the poetic power of
France--resumed in a word--Beranger; then the cut at Marmion, entirely
deserved, as we shall see, yet kindly given, for everything he names in
these two stanzas is the best of its kind; then Romance in Spain on--the
_last_ war, (_present_ war not being to Spanish poetical taste), then,
Goethe the real heart of all Germany, and last, the aping of the
Trecentisti which has since consummated itself in Pre-Raphaelitism! that
also being the best thing Italy has done through England, whether in
Rossetti's 'blessed damozels' or Burne Jones's 'days of creation.'
Lastl