The
Greeks were struggling for independence from Turkish tyranny: Byron threw
himself heart and soul into the movement, received a commission from the
Greek government, recruited a band of Suliotes, and set forth gallantly to
do or die in the cause of Grecian freedom: he died, but not in battle. He
caught a fever of a virulent type, from his exposure, and after very few
days expired, on the 19th of April, 1824, amid the mourning of the nation.
Of this event, Macaulay--no mean or uncertain critic--could say, in his
epigrammatical style: "Two men have died within our recollection, who, at
a time of life at which few people have completed their education, had
raised themselves, each in his own department, to the height of glory. One
of them died at Longwood; the other at Missolonghi."
ESTIMATE OF HIS POETRY.--In giving a brief estimate of his character and
of his works, we may begin by saying that he represents, in clear
lineaments, the nobleman, the traveller, the poet, and the debauchee, of
the beginning of the nineteenth century.
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