in the eye of a mortal their greatest obstacles were looked on "as
the dust in a balance." He gained the envied eminence of living
popularity by making a breach where it was thought impregnable. Where
others had laid siege for a lifetime, and lost their hopes and their
labour at last, he gained the heights of popularity by a single
stride, and looked down as a free-booter on the world below, scorning
the applause his labours had gained him, and scarcely returning a
compliment for the laurels which fashion so eagerly bound round his
brows, while he saw the alarm of his leaden-footed enemies, and
withered them to nothings with his sneer. He was an Oliver Cromwell
with the critics. He broke up their long-standing Parliament and
placed his own will in the Speaker's chair, and his will they humbly
accepted. They submitted to one that scorned to be shackled, and
champed the bit in his stead. They praised and respected him, nay,
they worshipped him. He was all in all in their mouths and in their
writings, but I suspect their hearts had as much love for him as the
peasantry had for witches in the last century, who spoke well of them
to their faces because they dared not do other-wise for fear of
meeting an injury. Whether Byron hath won true fame or not I cannot
say; my mind is too little to grasp that judgment. To say that he was
the first of his age in his way is saying nothing, but we have
sufficient illustration for the argument in saying that popularity is
not the forerunner of fame's eternity. Among all the bustle of
popularity there must be only a portion of it accepted as fame. Time
will sift it of its drossy puffs and praises. He has been with others
extolled as equal to Shakespeare, and I dare say the popular voice of
"readers" thought him superior. But three centuries will wither every
extravagance, and sober the picture of its glaring colours. He is no
doubt one of the eternals, but he is one of those of the 19th
century, and if all its elements be classed together in the next they