SIR,--The criticisms of Byron cited by Mr. Nicolson well exemplify
the variety of impressions made by that strange genius on his contem- poraries. More striking still is the divergence from Gocthe's dictum of a comment by F. T. Palgrave on the Elegy on Thyrza included in the Golden Treasury. He sees in it " A masterly example of Byron's C0113- mand of strong thought and close reasoning in verse." Elizabeth Barrett was no doubt, too near the mountain's base when, in x826, she wrote of Byron as " The Mont Blanc of intellect "; but what are we to say of the splendid lines in A Vision of Poets, written some fifteen years later? :
" And poor, proud Byron,—sad as grave And salt as life ; forlornly brave, And quivering with the dart he drave."
Which is the more essential Byron: this, or Mr. Nicolson's " weak, humorous, touchy, unscrupulous, but on the whole agreeable hedonist "?
—Yours very truly, G. CYRIL ARMSTRONG.
Windrush, Babraham Road, Cambridge.
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