He has been placed on a level with Wordsworth.  One cultured writer whose judgment on literature we listen to with respect has said:  “Wordsworth and Byron stand out by themselves.  When the year 1900 is turned, and our nation comes to recount her poetic glories of the century which has then just ended, the first names with her will be these."** But there are many who will deny him this high rank.  “He can only claim to be acknowledged as a poet of the third class,” says another great poet,*** “who now and then rises into the second, but speedily relapses into the lower element where he was born.”  And yet another has said that his poetry fills the great space through which our literature has moved from the time of Johnson to the time of Wordsworth.  “It touches the Essay of Man**** at the one extremity, and The Excursion at the other."***** So you see Byron’s place in our literature is hardly settled yet.

Scherer. *Arnold. ***Swinburne. ****By Pope. *****Macaulay.

When Byron left England he fled from the contempt of his fellows.  His life on the Continent did little to lessen that contempt.  But before he died he redeemed his name from the scorner.

Long ago, you remember, at the time of the Renaissance, Greece had been conquered by the Turks.  Hundreds of years passed, and Greece remained in a state of slavery.  But by degrees new life began to stir among the people, and in 1821 a war of independence broke out.  At first the other countries of Europe stood aloof, but gradually their sympathies were drawn to the little nation making so gallant a fight for freedom.

And this struggle woke all that was generous in the heart of Byron, the worn man of the world.  Like his own Childe Harold, “With pleasure drugg’d he almost long’d for woe.”  So to Greece he went, and the last nine months of his life were spent to such good purpose that when he died the whole Greek nation mourned.  He had hoped to die sword in hand, but that was not to be.  His body was worn with reckless living, and could ill bear any strain.  One day, when out for a long ride, he became heated, and then soaked by a shower of rain.  Rheumatic fever followed, and ten days later he lay dead.  He was only thirty-six.

All Greece mourned for the loss of such a generous friend.  Cities vied with each other for the honor of his tomb.  And when his friends decided that his body should be carried home to England, homage as to a prince was paid to it as it passed through the streets on its last journey.

“The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece, around me see! 
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,

                Was not more free.

“Awake! (not Greece—­she is awake!)
Awake! my spirit!  Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,

                And then strike home!

“Tread those reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood! unto thee
Indifferent should the smile or frown

                Of Beauty be.