Note 137 — CANTO THE SECOND
Reading edition
[Compare the description of the thunderstorm in the Alps (Canto III. stanzas xcii.-xcvi., pp. 273-275); and Manfred, act ii. sc. 2—
"My joy was in the wilderness; to breathe The difficult air of the iced mountain-top— In them my early strength exulted; or To follow through the night the moving moon, The stars and their development; or catch The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim."
Beattie, who describes the experiences of his own boyhood in the person of Edwin in The Minstrel, had already made a like protestation—
"In sooth he was a strange and wayward youth. Fond of each gentle and each dreadful scene. In darkness and in storm he found delight; Not less than when on ocean-wave serene The Southern sun diffus'd his dazzling sheen; Even sad vicissitude amus'd his soul."
Kirke White, too, who was almost Byron's contemporary, and whose verses he professed to admire—
"Would run a visionary boy When the hoarse tempest shook the vaulted sky."
This love of Nature in her wilder aspects, which was perfectly genuine, and, indeed, meritorious, was felt to be out of the common, a note of the poetic temperament, worth recording, but unlikely to pass without questioning and remonstrance.]