An Apology for Lord Byron [In Verse]. with Miscellaneous Poems

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1836. Excerpt: ... and, in the clothing of the sheep, steal like a wolf into the fold! That my ability to harm, supposing me so minded, would be little, I am happy to acknowledge; but I wish to disclaim the animus itself. Why, then, have I ventured on an Apology for Lord Byron? Simply, because I know of no character, which--looking, without prejudice, at his inauspicious parentage--his spoilt infancy--his weedy boyhood--his neglected youth--his affection, blighted by disappointment--his marriage, clouded by uncongeniality--his station, negatived by need--his hereditary spirit, exasperated by a fiercely poetical temperament--no counsellor, to point the path to virtue--no friend, to shelter indiscretion from its own most mischievous effect, viz. that froward and precipitate pride, which, because folly was uncharitably construed The gist of the poem hitherto, I trust, will exonerate me from the charge of having used the word Apology in its blame-denying and blame-defying acceptation i Defence. a into fault, in the first instance, seems determined, that fault shall unmistakeably magnify itself into vice, in the last--looking at all this, I say, I know of no character, which, in its degree, admits of more palliatives, or calls for more pity, than one, like Byron's, the breath of whose being was passion, and whose passion was volcano. Besides, of what inconsistent ingratitude has the world not been guilty, in respect to that singular and singularlygifted man? With Self, so glowingly portrayed on each successive canvass of his poetic easel, whose shadowing creations, on that very account, were gazed at with unexampled avidity, the too-faithful artist, nevertheless, has been abused and blackened, banned and banished, in every imaginable way. Oh! commend me to that reasoning righte...