imitators or disciples--were of the following of Byron.
This fact is beyond dispute, that after the first outburst of popularity he
has touched and swayed other nations rather than his own. The part he
played or seemed to play in revolutionary politics endeared him to those
who were struggling to be free. He stood for freedom of thought and of
life. He made himself the mouthpiece of an impassioned and welcome protest
against the hypocrisy and arrogance of his order and his race. He lived on
the continent and was known to many men in many cities. It has been argued
that foreigners are insensible to his defects as a writer, and that this
may account for an astonishing and perplexing preference. The cause is
rather to be sought in the quality of his art. It was as the creator of new
types, "forms more real than living man," that Byron appealed to the
artistic sense and to the imagination of Latin, Teuton or Slav. That "he
taught us little" of the things of the spirit, that he knew no cure for the
sickness of the soul, were considerations which lay outside the province of
literary criticism. "It is a mark," says Goethe (_Aus meinem Leben:
Dichtung und Wahrheit_, 1876, iii. 125), "of true poetry, that as a secular
gospel it knows how to free us from the earthly burdens which press upon
us, by inward serenity, by outward charm." Now of this "secular gospel" the
redemption from "real woes" by the exhibition of imaginary glory, and
imaginary delights, Byron was both prophet and evangelist.

Byron was 5 ft. 8 in. in height, and strongly built; only with difficulty
and varying success did he prevent himself from growing fat. At
five-and-thirty he was extremely thin. He was "very slightly lame," but he
was painfully conscious of his deformity and walked as little and as seldom
as he could. He had a small head covered and fringed with dark brown or
auburn curls. His forehead was high and narrow, of a marble whiteness. His
eyes were of a light grey colour, clear and luminous. His nose was straight
and well-shaped, but "from being a little too thick, it looked better in
profile than in front face." Moore says that it was in "the mouth and chin
that the great beauty as well as expression of his fine countenance lay."
The upper lip was of a Grecian shortness and the corners descending. His
complexion was pale and colourless. Scott speaks of "his beautiful pale
face--like a spirit's good or evil." Charles Matthews said that "he was the
o