Byron's position in English literature is a much disputed matter. Foreigners, influenced by the spell cast by his genius upon the ro mantic writers of their own countries as well as by his devotion to freedom and by the fact that his work in translation does not offend by its slipshod features, almost unanimously— whether they be Frenchmen, or Germans, or Italians, or Spaniards, or Russians,—place him only below Shakespeare. The English-speak ing world knows the work of Chaucer, Spenser and Milton too well to admit such a high esti mate of his genius; but it seems to have gone farther astray in depreciation than foreigners have in appreciation of his extraordinary gifts and achievements. With a few honorable ex ceptions like Matthew Arnold, English critics have magnified Byron's plain moral and artistic delinquencies and have minimized his powerful intelligence, his great range of work—he is one of the best of letter writers and the most brilliant of satirists, as well as the arch-roman tic and revolutionary poet, and a notable de scriptive and lyric one — his copius creative power, and his great and strength.• They have judged him as somewhat finicky connoisseurs of verse rather than as impartial appraisers of literature. They have under estimated the hold he has kept upon youth and the attraction which his later work, especially 'Don Juan,' so frequently exercises upon in telligent men of mature years. Whether he will ever receive his due from the more cul tured of his countrymen is problematical; but there have been indications of late that a less banal attitude is being taken toward both him and his works. He may not be the greatest English poet of modern times, but he is cer tainly the most effective of all the enemies of cant. See CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE; DON
JUAN ; MANFRED; VISION OF JUDGMENT.
The bibliography of Byron is naturally immense. His memoirs, given to Moore, were burned, after many family com plications, in 1824. Moore's 'Life, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron) (1830) is the stand ard biography. It was included in Murray's edition of the collected 'Life and Works> (1832-35; 17 vols., 1837). The number of separate editions of the poems and of trans lations is enormous, all previous editions being superseded by Murray's edition of the works in 13 volumes (6 of prose, edited by R. E. Prothero, 1898-1901; 7 of verse. edited by E. H. Coleridge, 1898-1904). The best one volume edition of the poems is that by Cole ridge (1905); the [American] Cambridge edi tion by P. E. More (1905) is also good. The large list of memoirs and books of biographical value may be represented here by Karl Elze's 'Lord Byron) (1870), Emilio Castelar's 'Vida de Lord Byron' (1873), J. C. Jeaffreson's 'The Real Lord Byron' (1883), John Nichol's 'Byron' in the 'English Men of Letters) (1880) and Roden Noel's volume in the 'Great Writers' series (1887). Reminiscences by Lady Blessington, Medwin, the Countess Guic cioli, E. J. Trelawny, Hobhouse, Leigh Hunt and many others should also be consulted. Of critical essays, favorable and unfavorable, those by Arnold, Charles Kingsley, Maz zini, Macaulay, John Morley, J. A. Symonds and Swinburne may be mentioned. Among more recent studies are 'Byron: The Last by Richard Edgcumbe (1909) and a work in two volumes by Ethel Colburn Mayne (1912-13). The mass of continental criticism is very large and is steadily increasing.