DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25988#0369
1816,
Correspondence.
345
seems to have been talking of him for these last three or four
years. I like “ Childe Harold ” very much. It is exquisite
blue-devilage. If you have read it but once, I dare say you do
not like it. I was so disappointed in the expectation I had
formed from its title, and so disgusted with the badness of the
old English, and the affectation of using old English at all, that
I did not admire it at first; but on reading it again I did
extremely. One merit it has. It is the first practical exhi-
bition of real blue devils—causeless, cureless dejection, with
gloom enough to be interesting, and not so clark as to be really
distressing—a Claude Lorraine picture of the world, that some-
times shows things under a tint more pleasing than their
natural colours. Then, Lord Byron’s poetry (“ Childe Harold”
at least) is always written in good faith. Topics are not
brought forward because they are capable of embellishment,
nor sentiments introduced because they appear to be required.
Tlie poet seems to pour forth whatever strikes his own mind
because it strikes him, and to employ the language that will
express his thought with most force, and without much con-
sidering how either the ideas or the diction are to affect his
readers. I do not like his tales half so well. I am sick of
their monotony or mannerism; ancl, besides, his heroes, with
all their dark energies, are too m.uch akin to the captains of
robbers and proprietors of castles in the Apennines, that have
figured so much in plays and romances, Grerman and English,
for the last fifty years. The finest lines in Lorcl Byron, I think,
are the seventh, eighth, and ninth stanzas of the second canto
of “ Childe Harold,” which read, I beg of you. You may even
read from the beginning of the canto if you have time.
‘ You used to say, speaking of Forlorn, that it was the sign
of an ignorant man to talk much of the book he happened to
be reading, and you must have discovered before now that I am
reading “ Childe Harold,” and have had the blue devils. I
have so, though it is of rare occurrence with me now. I am
sure it is not from want of plenty to say, nor yet from any
exuberance of time to say it in, that I fill my letter with
critiques on noble authors. My letter of February will have
Correspondence.
345
seems to have been talking of him for these last three or four
years. I like “ Childe Harold ” very much. It is exquisite
blue-devilage. If you have read it but once, I dare say you do
not like it. I was so disappointed in the expectation I had
formed from its title, and so disgusted with the badness of the
old English, and the affectation of using old English at all, that
I did not admire it at first; but on reading it again I did
extremely. One merit it has. It is the first practical exhi-
bition of real blue devils—causeless, cureless dejection, with
gloom enough to be interesting, and not so clark as to be really
distressing—a Claude Lorraine picture of the world, that some-
times shows things under a tint more pleasing than their
natural colours. Then, Lord Byron’s poetry (“ Childe Harold”
at least) is always written in good faith. Topics are not
brought forward because they are capable of embellishment,
nor sentiments introduced because they appear to be required.
Tlie poet seems to pour forth whatever strikes his own mind
because it strikes him, and to employ the language that will
express his thought with most force, and without much con-
sidering how either the ideas or the diction are to affect his
readers. I do not like his tales half so well. I am sick of
their monotony or mannerism; ancl, besides, his heroes, with
all their dark energies, are too m.uch akin to the captains of
robbers and proprietors of castles in the Apennines, that have
figured so much in plays and romances, Grerman and English,
for the last fifty years. The finest lines in Lorcl Byron, I think,
are the seventh, eighth, and ninth stanzas of the second canto
of “ Childe Harold,” which read, I beg of you. You may even
read from the beginning of the canto if you have time.
‘ You used to say, speaking of Forlorn, that it was the sign
of an ignorant man to talk much of the book he happened to
be reading, and you must have discovered before now that I am
reading “ Childe Harold,” and have had the blue devils. I
have so, though it is of rare occurrence with me now. I am
sure it is not from want of plenty to say, nor yet from any
exuberance of time to say it in, that I fill my letter with
critiques on noble authors. My letter of February will have