“We see how the inadequate dogmas of the Church work upon a free mind
like Byron’s and how by such a piece (‘Cain’) he struggles to get rid
of a doctrine which has been forced upon him” (vol. i. p. 129).
“The world to him was transparent, and he could paint by way of
anticipation” (vol. i. p. 140).
“That which I call invention I never saw in any one in the world to a
greater degree than in him” (vol. i. p. 205).
“Lord Byron is to be regarded as a man, as an Englishman, and as a
great talent. His good qualities belong chiefly to the man, his bad
to the Englishman and the peer, his talent is incommensurable. All
Englishmen are, as such, without reflection properly so-called;
distractions and party-spirit will not permit them to perfect
themselves in quiet. But they are great as practical men. Thus,
Lord Byron could never attain reflection on himself, and on this
account his maxims in general are not successful. . . . But where he
will create, he always succeeds; and we may truly say that, with him,
inspiration supplies the place of reflection. He was always obliged
to go on poetizing, and then everything that came from the man,
especially from his heart, was excellent. He produced his best
things, as women do pretty children, without thinking about it, or
knowing how it was done. He is a great talent, a born talent, and I
never saw the true poetical power greater in any man than in him. In
the apprehension of external objects, and a clear penetration into
past situations, he is quite as great as Shakespeare. But as a pure
individuality, Shakespeare is his superior” (vol. i. p. 209).
We see now what Goethe means by “reflection.” It is the faculty of
self-separation, or conscious _consideration_, a faculty which would have
enabled Byron, as it enabled Goethe, to reply successfully to a charge of
plagiarism. It is not thought in its widest sense, nor creation, and it
has not much to do with the production of poems of the highest order—the
poems that is to say, which are written by the impersonal thought.