its rank breath, nor bowed
To its idolatries a patient knee.

And this attitude of Byron's has been adopted by all his disciples, who
delight in picturing his scorn:

With terror now he froze the cowering blood,
And now dissolved the heart in tenderness,
Yet would not tremble, would not weep, himself,
But back into his soul retired alone,
Dark, sullen, proud, gazing contemptuously
On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet.
[Footnote: Robert Pollock, _The Course of Time._]

Of the other romantic poets, Sir Walter Scott alone remains on good
terms with the public, expressing a child's surprise and delight over
the substantial checks he is given in exchange for his imaginings. But
Shelley starts out with a chip on his shoulder, in the very
advertisements of his poems expressing his unflattering opinion of
The public's judgment, and Keats makes it plain that his own criticisms
concern him far more than those of other men.

The consciously aristocratic, sniffing attitude toward the public, which
ran its course during Victoria's reign, is ushered in by Landor, who
confesses,

I know not whether I am proud,
But this I know, I hate the crowd,
Therefore pray let me disengage
My verses from the motley page,
Where others, far more sure to please
Pour forth their choral song with ease.

The same gentlemanly indifference to his plebeian readers is diffused
all through Matthew Arnold's writing, of course. He casually disposes of
popularity:

Some secrets may the poet tell
For the world loves new ways;
To tell too deep ones is not well,--
It knows not what he says.
[Footnote: See _In Memory of Obermann._]

Mrs. Browning probably has her own success in mind when she makes the
young poetess, Aurora Leigh, recoil from the fulsome praise of her
readers. Browning takes the same attitude in _Sordello,_ contrasting
Eglamor, the versifier who servilely conformed to the taste of the mob,
with Sordello, the true poet, who despised it. In _Popularity_, Browning
returns to the same theme, of the public's misplaced praises, and in
_Pacchiarotto_ he outdoes himself in heaping ridicule upon his readers.
Naturally the coterie of later poets who have prided themselves on their
unique skill in interpreting Browning have been impressed by his
contempt for his readers. Perhaps they have even exaggerated it. No less
contemptuous of his readers than Browning was that other Victorian, so
like him in