vii] BEDFORDSHIRE: SURVEYING 113 



The very earth with joy. Still thrills the heart 



Of man at those sweet notes ; scared despots start 



To curse them from their thrones ; they pierce the cell 



And cheer the captive in his chains ; they tell 



Lessons of life to struggling liberty. 



Death mars the man but spares his memory, 



Nor tears one laurel from his wreath of fame. 



How many glorious thoughts of his we claim 



Our heritage for ever ; beacon lights 



To guide the barque of freedom through the nights 



Of tyranny and woe, when not a star 



Of hope looks down to glad the mariner: 



Thoughts which must ever haunt us, like some dream 



Of childhood which we ne'er forget, a gleam 



Of sunshine flashing o'er life's troubled stream ! " 



The last eight lines of this poem form a passage charac- 

 terized by deep feeling and poetic beauty of a high order. 

 My brother was an admirer of Byron, and he used to say 

 that his description of Satan, in the " Vision of Judgment," 

 was finer than anything in Milton. This poem, which is 

 essentially a satirical parody of Southey's poem with the 

 same title, yet contains some grand passages on behalf of 

 political and religious liberty. The lines my brother thought 

 so fine (and I agree with him) are the following : — 



" But bringing up the rear of this bright host, 



A Spirit of a different aspect waved 

 His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast 



Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved ; 

 His brow was like the deep when tempest-tost ; 



Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved 

 Eternal wrath on his immortal face, 



And where he gazed a gloom pervaded space." 



Those who only know Byron by his more romantic or 

 pathetic poems, and who may think the panegyric of the 

 anonymous writer in The Constitutional* to be overdrawn, 

 should read "The Age of Bronze," which is pervaded 



* This newspaper — The Constitutional — appears to have existed only two 

 years. The Daily News, referring to a sale of Thackeray rarities last year, states 

 that he contributed several articles to that paper as Paris correspondent, and that, 

 in consequence, a set of the paper sold in 1899 for two hundred guineas. A 

 friend informs me that it does not exist in the Bodleian Library. 



VOL. I. I 



