...uncertainty of the times has made heroism an ephemeral quality, Byron suggests in the opening to Don Juan: 1 want a hero, an uncommon want, When every year and...with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one (1:1, 1-4). He quickly dismisses a host of would-be heroes, including "Vernon, the butcher Cumberland,...

...further from the Dark Ages. ERNEST H. CROSBY. HEROES TO ORDER. " I want a hero : an uncommon want Where every year and month sends forth a new one, Till,...one ; Of such as these I should not care to vaunt I " —Don Juan, Canto 1. THE last half of the present century has developed an extraordinary mania...

...a land of heroes, to use Byron's words, which I quote from memory — " When every week, at least, sends forth a new one, Till after cloying the gazettes with cant, At last they find that he is not the true one," the old English air, "See the conquering Hero comes,"...