st of it is that I _do_ believe,"
said Byron, discussing his bravery under fear of death. "Anything but
the Church of England," was the attitude by which Byron shocked the
orthodox. "I think," he wrote, "people can never have enough of
religion, if they are to have any. I incline myself very much to the
Catholic doctrine." [Footnote: Letter to Tom Moore, March 4, 1822. See
also the letter to Robert Charles Dallas, January 21, 1808.] _Cain,_
however, is not a piece of Catholic propaganda, and the chief
significance of Byron's religious poetry lies in his romantic delight in
arraigning the Almighty as well as Episcopalians.

Shelley comes out even more squarely than Byron against conventional
religion. In _Julian and Maddalo_, he causes Byron to say of him,

You were ever still
Among Christ's flock a perilous infidel.

Shelley helped to foster the tradition, too, that the poet was
persecuted by the church. In _Rosalind and Helen_, the hero was
hated by the clergy,

For he made verses wild and queer
Of the strange creeds priests hold so dear,

and this predilection for making them wild and queer resulted in
Lionel's death, for

The ministers of misrule sent
Seized on Lionel and bore
His chained limbs to a dreary tower,
For he, they said, from his mind had bent
Against their gods keen blasphemy.

The most notable illustration of this phase of Shelley's thought is
_The Revolt of Islam,_ wherein the poets, Laon and Cythna, are put
to death by the priests, who regard them as their worst enemies.

Burns, also, took a certain pleasure in unorthodoxy, and later poets
have gloried in his attitude.

Swinburne, in particular, praises his daring, in that he

Smote the God of base men's choice
At God's own gate.
[Footnote: _Burns._]

Young poets have not yet lost their taste for religious persecution. It
is a great disappointment to them to find it difficult to strike fire
from the faithful in these days. Swinburne in his early poetry denounced
the orthodox God with such vigor that he roused a momentary flutter of
horror in the church, but nowadays the young poet who craves to manifest
his spiritual daring is far more likely to find himself in the position
of Rupert Brooke, of whom someone has said, "He imagines the poet as
going on a magnificent quest to curse God on his throne of fire, and
finding--nothing."

The poet's youthful zest in scandalizing the orthodox is likely,
however, to be e