various lyrical pieces, and
the _Border Minstrelsy_, he published the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ in
1805, _Marmion_ (with its fine stanzas on Pitt and Fox) in 1808, the
_Lady of the Lake_ in 1809, _Don Roderick_ in 1811, and _Rokeby_ in
1813, as well as minor poems of high merit. He is said to have abandoned
poetry in deference to Byron's rising star, and it is certain that he
now fills a higher place in the roll of English classics as a prose
writer than as a poet. His first novel, _Waverley_, appeared in 1814,
and was followed In the next four years by six of the greatest "Waverley
Novels," as the series came to be called--_Guy Mannering_, the
_Antiquary_, the _Black Dwarf_, _Old Mortality_, _Rob Roy_, and the
_Heart of Midlothian_. It is not too much to say that by these works,
both in poetry and in prose, he created the historical romance in Great
Britain. The legends of chivalry and the folk-lore of his native land
had deeply stirred his soul, and fired his imagination from childhood,
and though later "research" has far outstripped the range of his
antiquarian knowledge, no modern writer has ever done so much to awaken
a reverence for olden times in the hearts of his countrymen. The easy
flow of his style, the vivid energy of his thought, the graphic power of
his descriptions, his shrewd and robust sympathy with human nature, and
the evident simplicity of his own character, not unmingled with flashes
of true poetical insight, justly rendered him the most popular writer of
his time.

Byron was born in 1788, and first sprang into notice as the author of
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, a fierce and bitter reply to
critics who had disparaged his first essay in poetry. This satire
appeared in 1809, when he was just of age, after which he travelled with
Hobhouse, and it was not until 1812 that he "woke to find himself
famous," on publishing the first two cantos of _Childe Harold_. During
the next three years, he poured forth a succession of characteristic
poems, including the _Giaour_, the _Bride of Abydos_, the _Corsair_,
_Lara_, and the _Siege of Corinth_. His later work was of a more
finished order, including the remaining cantos of _Childe Harold_,
_Manfred_, _Cain_, and _Mazeppa_, and when he died at Mesolongi in 1824,
he left unfinished what is, in some ways, the most remarkable of his
works, _Don Juan_. Long before his death he had become the prophet and
hero of a pseudo-romantic school, composed of young E