Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott are among writers now living[139] the two,
who would carry away a majority of suffrages as the greatest geniuses of
the age. The former would, perhaps, obtain the preference with fine
gentlemen and ladies (squeamishness apart)--the latter with the critics
and the vulgar. We shall treat of them in the same connection, partly on
account of their distinguished pre-eminence, and partly because they
afford a complete contrast to each other. In their poetry, in their prose,
in their politics, and in their tempers, no two men can be more unlike.