It is clear that his creations are the origin of the poet's pride, yet,
singularly enough, his arrogance sometimes reaches such proportions that
he grows ashamed of his art as unworthy of him. Of course this attitude
harks back to Shakespeare's sonnets. The humiliation which Shakespeare
endured because his calling was despised by his aristocratic young
friend is largely the theme of a poem, _Ben Jonson Entertains a Man
from Stratford_, by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Such a sense of shame
seems to be back of the dilettante artist, wherever he appears in verse.
The heroes of Byron's and Praed's poems generally refuse to take their
art seriously.[Footnote: See W. M. Praed, _Lillian, How to Rhyme for
Love, The Talented Man;_ Byron, _Childe Harold, Don Juan._] A few of
Tennyson's characters take the same attitude.[Footnote: See Eleanor, in
_Becket;_ and the Count, in _The Falcon._] Again and again Byron gives
indication that his own feeling is that imputed to him by a later poet:
He, from above descending, stooped to touch
The loftiest thought; and proudly stooped, as though
It scarce deserved his verse.
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