al
way, the necessity of caution and circumspection in all his movements.
Something happened which brought the policy of caution to a speedy end.
A report, which found some credit at the time, gave out that Sir Edward
Codrington had received an unofficial hint that there was no necessity
for carrying caution too far; but, however the event may have been
brought about, it is certain that a collision did take place between
the allied fleets and those which were championing the authority of the
Sultan, and the result was that the Turkish and Egyptian war vessels
were destroyed. This was the battle of Navarino, which was afterwards
described in the language of British authority as "an untoward event."
Untoward, in fact, it was not, for the purposes which Canning had in
view, because it put an end to all the resistance of the Ottoman Power,
and the independence of Greece as a self-governing nation was
established, and recognized. We have been somewhat anticipating events
in order not to break up the story of the Greek struggle for
independence, but it has to be said that Canning did not live to see
the success of his own policy. Before the battle of Navarino had been
fought, the career of the great statesman had come to an end. We shall
have to retrace our steps, for there is much still left untold in the
story of Canning's career.

That struggle for Greek independence will always be remembered in the
history of English literature. It cost England the life of one of her
greatest modern poets. Lord Byron died of fever in the swamps of
Missolonghi on April 19, 1824, not long after he had left the Greek
Islands to conduct his part of the campaign on the mainland of Greece.
It was not his good fortune to die sword in hand fighting on the
battle-field for the cause which he loved so well. It was not his good
fortune even to have had a {51} chance of doing much of a soldier's
work in that cause. There can be no doubt that if he had been graced
with opportunity he would have shown that he had a leader's capacity as
well as a soldier's courage--that, as Fortinbras says of Hamlet, "He
was likely had he been put on to have proved most royally." He had
only completed his thirty-sixth year shortly before his death, and the
poem in which he commemorated his birthday can never be read without
feelings of genuine emotion. His death created a profound sensation,
not only in England, but all through the civilized world. Not long