FIRST BLOOD AT SALMON-FISHING. 37 



lapping milk under a shed was as poetical as a tiger 

 lapping your blood beneath a palm-tree. And < what 

 for no ' ? " 



"And of your countryman, Sir Walter Scott, 

 Major ? " 



" I am at one with the world, and which now 

 thinks Scott's strength was prose, more poetical than 

 his poetry. Yet are the ' Lady of the Lake ' and 

 ' Marmion ' something beyond these pretty idyls, 

 and will, I think, be read when such fanciful things 

 have passed." 



"Then Byron, for whom Sir Walter made way; 

 will he do?" 



" Yes ; he is one of the very few. Byron was 

 indeed a poet. Poor fellow ! he had scant years 

 or peace of mind to develop his full strength ; but 

 he showed his power, and had he lived to divest 

 himself of his cynical morgue, and, in his right 

 mind, have quietly thought out the great prob- 

 lems of life, the world would have been richer. 

 And how few poets have written such lines as 

 these?" 



Then the Major took down a copy of "Byron's 

 Poems," and read aloud one of the fine passages 

 from " Childe Harold " the address to the Sea 



