greater degree than in him" (vol. i. p. 205).

"Lord Byron is to be regarded as a man, as an Englishman, and as a great
talent. His good qualities belong chiefly to the man, his bad to the
Englishman and the peer, his talent is incommensurable. All Englishmen
are, as such, without reflection properly so-called; distractions and
party-spirit will not permit them to perfect themselves in quiet. But
they are great as practical men. Thus, Lord Byron could never attain
reflection on himself, and on this account his maxims in general are not
successful. . . . But where he will create, he always succeeds; and we
may truly say that, with him, inspiration supplies the place of
reflection. He was always obliged to go on poetizing, and then
everything that came from the man, especially from his heart, was
excellent. He produced his best things, as women do pretty children,
without thinking about it, or knowing how it was done. He is a great
talent, a born talent, and I never saw the true poetical power greater
in any man than in him. In the apprehension of external objects, and a
clear penetration into past situations, he is quite as great as
Shakespeare. But as a pure individuality, Shakespeare is his superior"
(vol. i. p. 209).

We see now what Goethe means by "reflection." It is the faculty of
self-separation, or conscious CONSIDERATION, a faculty which would have
enabled Byron, as it enabled Goethe, to reply successfully to a charge
of plagiarism. It is not thought in its widest sense, nor creation, and
it has not much to do with the production of poems of the highest order-
-the poems that is to say, which are written by the impersonal thought.

But again--