utters the complaint; and heart and voice, all over Europe, loudly and
at once respond to it. True, it prescribes no remedy; for that was a far
different, far harder enterprise, to which other years and a higher
culture were required; but even this utterance of the pain, even this
little, for the present, is ardently grasped at, and with eager sympathy
appropriated in every bosom. If Byron's life-weariness, his moody
melancholy, and mad stormful indignation, borne on the tones of a wild
and quite artless melody, could pierce so deep into many a British
heart, now that the whole matter is no longer new,--is indeed old and
trite,--we may judge with what vehement acceptance this /Werter/
must have been welcomed, coming as it did like a voice from unknown
regions; the first thrilling peal of that impassioned dirge, which, in
country after country, men's ears have listened to, till they were deaf
to all else. For /Werter/ infusing itself into the core and whole
spirit of Literature, gave birth to a race of Sentimentalists, who have
raged and wailed in every part of the world, till better light dawned on
them, or at worst, exhausted Nature laid herself to sleep, and it was
discovered that lamenting was an unproductive labour. These funereal
choristers, in Germany a loud, haggard, tumultuous, as well as tearful
class, were named the /Kraftmaenner/ or Power-men; but have all long
since, like sick children, cried themselves to rest. Byron was our
English Sentimentalist and Power-man; the strongest of his kind in
Europe; the wildest, the gloomiest, and it may be hoped the last. For
what good is it to 'whine, put finger i' the eye, and sob,' in such a
case? Still more, to snarl and snap in malignant wise, 'like dog
distract, or monkey sick?' Why should we quarrel with our existence,
here as it lies before us, our field and inheritance, to make or mar,
for better or for worse; in which, too, so many noblest men have, even
from the beginning, warring with the very evils we war with, both made
and been what will be venerated to all time?