These lines, written in 1818, were meant to apply only to Coleridge,
Wordsworth, and Southey. Whether they be altogether just or unjust
is not now the question. It must seem somewhat strange to our young
poets that Shelley's name is not among those who are to try the
question of immortality against the Lake School; and yet many of his
most beautiful poems had been already written. Were, then, "The
Revolt of Islam" and "Alastor" not destined, it seems, in Byron's
opinion, to live as long as the "Lady of the Lake" and the "Mariners
of England?" Perhaps not. At least the omission of Shelley's name
is noteworthy. But still more noteworthy are these words of his to
Mr. Murray, dated January 23, 1819:

"Read Pope--most of you don't--but do . . . and the inevitable
consequence would be, that you would burn all that I have ever
written, and all your other wretched Claudians of the day (except
Scott and Crabbe) into the bargain."

And here arises a new question--Is Shelley, then, among the
Claudians? It is a hard saying. The present generation will receive
it with shouts of laughter. Some future one, which studies and
imitates Shakespeare instead of anatomising him, and which gradually
awakens to the now forgotten fact, that a certain man named Edmund
Spenser once wrote a poem, the like of which the earth never saw
before, and perhaps may never see again, may be inclined to acquiesce
in the verdict, and believe that Byron had a discrimination in this
matter, as in a hundred more, far more acute than any of his
compeers, and had not eaten in vain, poor fellow, of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. In the meanwhile, we may perceive in the
poetry of the two men deep and radical differences, indicating a
spiritual difference between them even more deep, which may explain