Note 40 — LORD BYRON: (continued 4)

In venturing this judgment upon Shakspeare, Lord Byron but followed in the footsteps of his great idol Pope. "It was mighty simple in Rowe," says this poet, "to write a play now professedly in Shakspeare's style, that is, professedly in the style of a bad age."—Spence, sect. 4. 1734-36. Of Milton, too, Pope seems to have held pretty nearly the same opinion as that professed by Lord Byron in some of these letters. See, in Spence, sect. 5 1737-39, a passage on which his editor remarks—"Perhaps Pope did not relish Shakspeare more than he seems to have done Milton."