On February 15th he was seized with a convulsive fit,
which rendered him senseless for some time. On April 9th he got wet, took
cold and a fever, on the 11th he grew worse, and on the 19th he died,
inflammation of the brain having set in. Among the most remarkable
characteristics of Byron's poetry, two are deserving of particular notice.
The first is his power of expressing intense emotion, especially when it is
associated with the darker passions of the soul. "Never had any writer,"
says Macaulay, "so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn,
misanthropy and despair.... From maniac laughter to piercing lamentation,
there is not a single note of human anguish of which he was not master."
CAMPBELL, THOMAS, an eminent British poet, born at Glasgow in 1777. In 1799
he published _The Pleasures of Hope_, of which the success has perhaps
had no parallel in English literature. He visited the continent in 1800 and
witnessed the battle of Hohen-linden, which furnished the subject of one of
his most exquisite lyrics.
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