276 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



KEY TO EXERCISES IN LESSONS IN ALGEBKA. 



EXERCISE 8. 



6. l - x. 



7. c + d + 



z-y. 



o-b. 



b +c. 



aa ax + xx. 



a; ax + 3aax. 



a + b' 



y 



d-h' 



EXERCISE 9. 

 2ay + ax 3bm + 4. , a 1 



GREAT BOOKS. 



XVL-CHILDE HAEOLD. 



IN the year 1807, a young nobleman, not quite out of his teens, 

 published a small volume of poems, under the title of " Hours 

 of Idleness," the contents of which were scarcely superior to 

 the ordinary run of verses written by sentimental youths who 

 think they have a special aptitude for poetic composition. The 

 book was very severely handled by the Edinburgh Review, then 

 a new organ of criticism, and famous for the trenchant style in 

 which^it treated all offenders against its literary canons. Some 

 sensitive natures would have been discouraged by this rough 

 reception ; but Lord Byron, the author of the " Hours of Idle- 

 ness," was not the man to " let himself be snuffed out by an 

 article," as he afterwards believed was the case with Keats. 

 He wrote a satire on his assailants, and his "English Bards 

 and Scotch Eeviewers," which saw the light in 1809, gave him 

 a position as a writer of some mark and promise. Nevertheless, 

 it was not until 1812, when the first part of " Childe Harold " 



appeared, that the poetical powers of Byron were generally 

 acknowledged. Between the publication of the retort upon the 

 Edinburgh critics and the issue of " Childe Harold," Byron 

 had travelled in Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Turkey, and his 

 mind seems to have been enlarged and vivified by the variety 

 of experiences with which he thus came in contact the splendid 

 scenery, the grand historical and literary associations, and the 

 rich and passionate developments of life and character, which 

 he found in lands warmed by a brighter sun, and kindled by 

 more glowing skies. After the appearance of "Childe Harold," 

 the critical and the uncritical agreed that a new poet had risen 

 above the horizon. 



Even at the present day, " Childe Harold " is the best known 

 of Byron's poems, unless it be considered that that distinction 

 belongs more properly to " Don Juan." It is not the best of 

 his works, since it does not, as a whole, show the full maturity 

 of his genius ; but it contains some of the most distinctive evi- 

 dences of the power which we recognise as "Byronic," and it 

 has furnished many familiar phrases to the language. A close 

 inspection, however, shows that the poetic qualities of Byron 

 were developed in the process of writing this poem. He does 

 not seem to have begun his work with anything like a clear 

 conception of what he was going to do with it. The manner 

 alters as he proceeds, to an extent which indicates a considerable 

 change in the mind of the writer. The style of the opening 

 pages recalls those half -burlesque and wholly superficial imita- 

 tions of Spenser, such as Shenstone's " Schoolmistress," which 

 were at one time reckoned among the choicest of literary 

 pleasantries, but which are now happily abandoned by all. An 

 affectation of old English phraseology is ostentatiously intro- 

 duced. We continually find such lines as 



" Nor mote iny shell awake the weary Nine ; " 



****** 



" Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth 

 Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight; " 

 ****** 



" And where these are, light Eros finds a feere ; " 



all of which we are to accept as semi-humorous reproductions 

 of Spenserian simplicity. The very title of the poem is con- 

 ceived in the same spirit of sham antiquity ; " Childe " being 

 an Anglo-Saxon word, signifying the son of a nobleman or a 

 knight. 



As he progressed, Byron would appear to have been dis- 

 gusted by the false pretence of this so-called Elizabethan 

 manner, which bears no true resemblance to the reality it 

 assumes to mock. He next slid into a style which was much 

 more natural to him the conventional style of the latter half 

 of the eighteenth century the style which Wordsworth had 

 even then been labouring nearly twenty years to upset, but 

 which always had its charms for Byron. Every quality or 

 emotion of the mind is personified ; every noun is linked to its 

 accustomed epithet. The crags are "horrid," the cork-trees 

 are " hoar," the deep is " unruffled," the hills are " romantic : " 

 Scorn points her finger, and Pomp varnishes guilt. The 

 moralising is puerile, if it be not rather of that insincere and 

 superficial order which belongs to men whose morals go no 

 deeper than their phraseology. Yet the style acquires a greater 

 firmness as the poet advances on his path. The affectation of 

 Spenserianism is abandoned except in a few rare instances 

 long before the end of the first canto ; a certain fulness 

 takes possession of the verse ; a certain impetus sweeps on 

 from stanza to stanza. It is difficult to say in what lies the 

 power of the poem, unless it be in the revelation of a strong 

 and vivid personality. On analysis, much of the matter in 

 these earlier parts proves to be commonplace ; yet there is 

 something behind which is not commonplace. This must be 

 Byron himself the man, as distinguished from the author. 



That Childe Harold was intended by Byron as in some 

 measure a representation of his own nature cannot be doubted. 

 The hero of the poem is a young nobleman satiated with a few 

 years of pleasure and debauchery, who seeks foreign lands in 

 the vain hope that change of scene will restore his interest in 

 life, and lull the feelings of remorse with which his mind is 

 tormented. He is a cynic and a misanthrope, yet a man capable 

 of quick and keen observation. All this may be equally said 

 of Byron. Owing to a wilful disposition and a bad bringing 

 up, the poet, while still a youth, had so exhausted the capacity 



