eBooks Base 2000

Landor insinuates that this persecution is extended to all
geniuses:
Alas! what snows are shed
Upon thy laurelled head,
Hurtled by many cares and many wrongs!
Malignity lets none
Approach the Delphic throne;
A hundred lane-fed curs bark down Fame's
hundred tongues.
[Footnote: _To Southey_, _1833_.]
The ill-treatment of Burns has had its measure of denunciation. The
centenary of his birth brought forth a good deal of such verse.
Of course Byron's sufferings have had their share of attention, though,
remembering his enormous popularity, the better poets have left to the
more gullible rhymsters the echo of his tirades against persecution,
[Footnote: See T. H. Chivers, _Lord Byron's Dying Words to Ada_, and
_Byron_ (1853); Charles Soran, _Byron_ (1842); E. F. Hoffman, _Byron_
(1849).] and have conceived of the public as beaten at its own game by
him. Thus Shelley exults in the thought,
The Pythian of the age one arrow drew
And smiled. The spoilers tempt no second blow,
They fawn on the proud feet that laid them low.


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