that its future existence depended on enlarging and transforming its sphere.  Both society and poetry uttered a cry of despair:  the death-agony of a form of society produced the agitation we have seen constantly increasing in Europe since 1815:  the death-agony of a form of poetry evoked Byron and Goethe.  I believe this point of view to be the only one that can lead us to a useful and impartial appreciation of these two great spirits.

There are two forms of individuality; the expressions of its internal and external, or—­as the Germans would say—­of its subjective and objective life.  Byron was the poet of the first, Goethe of the last.  In Byron the Ego is revealed in all its pride of power, freedom, and desire, in the uncontrolled plenitude of all its faculties; inhaling existence at every pore, eager to seize “the life of life.”  The world around him neither rules nor tempers him.  The Byronian Ego aspires to rule it; but solely for dominion’s sake, to exercise upon it the Titanic force of his will.  Accurately speaking, he cannot be said to derive from it either color, tone, or image; for it is he who colors; he who sings; he whose image is everywhere reflected and reproduced.  His poetry emanates from his own soul; to be thence diffused upon things external; he holds his state in the centre of the universe, and from thence projects the light radiating from the depths of his own mind; as scorching and intense as the concentrated solar ray.  Hence that terrible unity which only the superficial reader could mistake for monotony.

Byron appears at the close of one epoch, and before the dawn of the other; in the midst of a community based upon an aristocracy which has outlived the vigor of its prime; surrounded by a Europe containing nothing grand, unless it be Napoleon on one side and Pitt on the other, genius degraded to minister to egotism; intellect bound to the service of the past.  No seer exists to foretell the future:  belief is extinct; there is only its pretence:  prayer is no more; there is only a movement of the lips at a fixed day or hour, for the sake of the family, or what is called the people; love is no more; desire has taken its place; the holy warfare of ideas is abandoned; the conflict is that of interests.  The worship of great thoughts has passed away.  That which is, raises the tattered banner of some corpse-like traditions; that which would be, hoists only the standard of physical wants, of material appetites:  around him are ruins, beyond him the desert; the horizon is a blank.  A long cry of suffering and indignation bursts from the heart of Byron:  he is answered by anathemas.  He departs; he hurries through Europe in search of an ideal to adore; he traverses it distracted, palpitating, like Mazeppa on the wild horse; borne onwards by a fierce desire; the wolves of envy and calumny follow in pursuit.  He visits Greece; he visits Italy; if anywhere a lingering spark of the sacred fire, a ray of divine poetry, is preserved,