No More Learning

]

[D]["Le comte de Montross, Ecossais et chef de la maison de Graham, le
seul homme du monde qui m'ait jamais rappele l'idee de certains heros
que l'on ne voit plus que dans les vies de Plutarque, avail soutenu le
parti du roi d'Angleterre dans son pays, avec une grandeur d'ame qui
rien avait point de pareille en ce siecle. "--_Memoires du Cardinal de
Retz_, 1820, ii. 88. ]

[378] {339}[This appreciation of the _Mysterious Mother_, which he seems
to have read in Lord Dover's preface to Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace
Mann, provoked Coleridge to an angry remonstrance. "I venture to remark,
first, that I do not believe that Lord Byron spoke sincerely; for I
suspect that he made a tacit exception of himself at least. . . . Thirdly,
that the _Mysterious Mother_ is the most disgusting, vile, detestable
composition that ever came from the hand of man. No one with a spark of
true manliness, of which Horace Walpole had none, could have written
it. "--_Table Talk_, March 20, 1834. Croker took a very different view,
and maintained "that the good old English blank verse, the force of
character expressed in the wretched mother . . . argue a strength of
conception, and vigour of expression capable of great things," etc.
Over
and above the reasonable hope and expectation that this provocative
eulogy of Walpole's play would annoy the "Cockneys" and the "Lakers,"
Byron was no doubt influenced in its favour by the audacity of the plot,
which not only put _septentrional_ prejudices at defiance, but was an
instance in point that love ought not "to make a tragic subject unless
it is love furious, criminal, and hopeless" (Letter to Murray, January
4, 1821). He would, too, be deeply and genuinely moved by such verse as
this--

"Consult a holy man! inquire of him!
--Good father, wherefore? what should I inquire?
Must I be taught of him that guilt is woe?
That innocence alone is happiness--
That martyrdom itself shall leave the villain
The villain that it found him? Must I learn
That minutes stamped with crime are past recall?
That joys are momentary; and remorse
Eternal? . . .
Nor could one risen from the dead proclaim
This truth in deeper sounds to my conviction;
We want no preacher to distinguish vice
From virtue. At our birth the God revealed
All conscience needs to know. No codicil
To duty's rubric here and there was placed
In some Saint's casual custody. "

Act i.