Microsoft Word Byron and Scott 1809-1824

The Dream
, p.40. [p.183] 
This is true keeping—an Eastern picture perfect in its foreground, and distance, and sky, and no 
part of which is so dwelt upon or laboured as to obscure the principal figure. It is often in the slight and 
almost imperceptible touches that the hand of the master is shewn, and that a single spark, struck from 
his fancy, lightens with a long train of illumination that of the reader. 
It is another remarkable property of the poetry of Lord Byron, that although his manner is 
frequently varied—although he appears to have assumed for an occasion the characteristic stanza and 
style of several contemporaries,
70
yet not only is his poetry marked in every instance by the strongest 
cast of originality, but in some leading particulars, and especially in the character of his heroes, each 
story so closely resembled the other, that managed by a writer of less power, the effect would have 
been an unpleasing monotony. All, or almost all, his heroes, have somewhat the attributes of Childe 
Harold:—all, or almost all, have minds which seem at variance with their fortunes, and exhibit high 
and poignant feelings of pain and pleasure; a keen sense of what is noble and honourable, and an 
equally keen susceptibility of injustice or injury, under the garb of stoicism and contempt of mankind. 
The strength of early passion, and the glow of youthful feeling, are uniformly painted as chilled or 
subdued by a train of early imprudences or of darker guilt, and the sense of enjoyment tarnished, by too 
intimate and experienced an acquaintance with the vanity of human wishes. These general attributes 
mark the stern features of all Lord Byron’s heroes, from those which are shaded by the scalloped hat of 
the illustrious Pilgrim,
71
to those which lurk under the turban of Alp, the Renegade. The public, ever 
anxious in curiosity or malignity to attach to fictitious characters real prototypes, were obstinate in 
declaring that in these leading traits of character Lord Byron copied from the individual features 
reflected in his own mirror. On this subject the noble author entered, on one occasion, a formal protest, 
though, it will be observed, without entirely disavowing the ground on which the conjecture was 
formed. 
‘With regard to my story, and stories in general, I should have been glad to have rendered my personages more 
perfect and amiable, if possible, inasmuch as I have been sometimes criticised, and considered no less responsible 
for their deeds and qualities than if all had been personal. Be it so – if I have deviated into the gloomy vanity of 
“drawing from self,” the pictures are probably like, since they are unfavourable; and if not, those who know me are 
undeceived, and those who do not, I have little interest in undeceiving. I have no particular desire that any but my 
acquaintance should think the author better than the beings of his imagining; but I cannot help a little surprise, and 
perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when I see several bards (far more 
deserving, I allow) in very reputable plight, [p.184] and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of those 
heroes, who, nevertheless, might be found with little more morality than “The Giaour,” and perhaps – but no – I 
must admit Chile Harold to be a very repulsive personage; and as to his identity, those who like it must give him 
whatever “alias” they please.’
72
It is difficult to say whether we are to receive this passage as an admission or a denial of the 
opinion to which it refers: but Lord Byron certainly did the public an injustice, if he supposed it 
imputed to him the criminal actions with which many of his heroes were stained. Men no more expect 
to meet in Lord Byron the Corsair, who ‘knew himself a villain,’
73
than they looked for the hypocrisy 
of Kehama on the shores of the Derwent Water,
74
or the profligacy of Marmion on the banks of the 
Tweed: yet even in the features of Conrad, those who have looked on Lord Byron will recognise some 
likenesses. 
‘————————————— to the sight 
No giant frame sets forth his common height 
Yet, in the whole, who paused to look again,