Milton is endowed with that quality which is possessed by all great
poets--the power to keep in contact with the soul of man.



THE MORALITY OF BYRON'S POETRY. "THE CORSAIR."



[This is an abstract of an essay four times as long written many years
ago. Although so much has been struck out, the substance is unaltered,
and the conclusion is valid for the author now as then.]

Byron above almost all other poets, at least in our day, has been set
down as immoral. In reality he is moral, using the word in its proper
sense, and he is so, not only in detached passages, but in the general
drift of most of his poetry. We will take as an example "The Corsair."

Conrad is not a debauched buccaneer. He was not -


"by Nature sent
To lead the guilty--guilt's worst instrument."


He had been betrayed by misplaced confidence.


"Doom'd by his very virtues for a dupe,
He cursed those virtues as the cause of ill,