Why, a, line of Wordsworth's is a lever to lift the
immortal spirit; Byron can only move the spleen. He was at best a
satirist. In any other way, he was mean enough. I daresay I do him
injustice; but I cannot love him, nor squeeze a tear to his memory. He
did not like the world, and he has left it, as Alderman Curtis advised
the Radicals, "if they don't like their country, damn 'em, let 'em leave
it," they possessing no rood of ground in England, and he ten thousand
acres. Byron was better than many Curtises.
Farewell, and accept this apology for a letter from one who owes you so
much in that kind.
Yours ever truly, C. L.
[1] "The Chimney-Sweeper's Friend, and Climbing-Boy's Album,"--a book,
by James Montgomery, setting forth the wrongs of the little
chimney-sweepers, for whose relief a society had been started.
[2] The Society for Ameliorating the Condition of Infant
Chimney-Sweepers.
[3] Byron had died on April 19.
LXXXIII.
TO BERNARD BARTON.
_August_, 1824.
I can no more understand Shelley than you can; his poetry is "thin sown
with profit or delight." Yet I must point to your notice a sonnet
conceived and expressed with a witty delicacy. It is that addressed to
one who hated him, but who could not persuade him to hate _him_ again.
His coyness to the other's passion--for hate demands a return as much as
love, and starves without it--is most arch and pleasant.
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