Everybody read him; he was admired not only by the multitude and by his equals, but by at least one who was his superior, the German poet Goethe, who did not hesitate to say of him that he was the greatest talent of the century Though this exalted opinion still persists on the Continent, hardly anyone could be found in England to subscribe to it now.

Without insularity, we may claim to be better judges of authors in our own tongue than foreign critics, however distinguished and comprehending.

How then shall be explained Lord Byron's instant popularity and the position he won?
What were the qualities which gave him the power he enjoyed?
In the first place he appealed by virtue of his subject-matter--the desultory wanderings of _Childe Harold_ traversed ground every mile of which was memorable to men who had watched the struggle which had been going on in Europe with scarcely a pause for twenty years.

Descriptive journalism was then and for nearly half a century afterwards unknown, and the poem by its descriptiveness, by its appeal to the curiosity of its readers, made the same kind of success that vividly written special correspondence would to-day, the charm of metre super-added.

Lord Byron gave his readers something more, too, than mere description.