le doute incarne sous la figure de Byron; puis la litterature
allemande, quoique plus mystique, nous conduisit au meme resultat par un
sentiment de reverie plus profond.'_

The number of translations that have appeared in Germany since 1830
proves the coincidence of Byronic influence with revolutionary movement
in that country.]

The day of recollection has not yet come. It is only in his own country
that Byron's influence has been a comparatively superficial one, and its
scope and gist dimly and imperfectly caught, because it is only in
England that the partisans of order hope to mitigate or avoid the facts
of the Revolution by pretending not to see them, while the friends of
progress suppose that all the fruits of change shall inevitably fall, if
only they keep the forces and processes and extent of the change
rigorously private and undeclared. That intense practicalness which
seems to have done so many great things for us, and yet at the same
moment mysteriously to have robbed us of all, forbids us even to cast a
glance at what is no more than an aspiration. Englishmen like to be able
to answer about the Revolution as those ancients answered about the
symbol of another Revolution, when they said that they knew not so much
as whether there were a Holy Ghost or not. The same want of kindling
power in the national intelligence which made of the English Reformation
one of the most sluggish and tedious chapters in our history, has made
the still mightier advance of the moderns from the social system and
spiritual bases of the old state, in spite of our two national
achievements of punishing a king with death and emancipating our slaves,
just as unimpressive and semi-efficacious a performance in this country,
as the more affrontingly hollow and halt-footed transactions of the
sixteenth century.

Just because it was wonderful that England should have produced Byron,
it would have been wonderful if she had received any permanently deep
impression from him, or preserved a lasting appreciation of his work,
or cheerfully and intelligently recognised his immense force. And
accordingly we cannot help perceiving that generations are arising who
know not Byron. This is not to say that he goes unread; but there is a
vast gulf fixed between the author whom we read with pleasure and even
delight, and that other to whom we turn at all moments for inspiration
and encouragement, and whose words and ideas spring up incessantly and
ani