Within this limited space it has been possible to touch only upon one or two phases of the many which this poem, perhaps the greatest in English since _Paradise Lost_, presents to the reader. Byron’s satire, in assuming a wider scope and a greater breadth of view, in growing out of the insular into the cosmopolitan, has also blended itself with romance and realism, with the lyric, the descriptive, and the epic types of poetry until it has created a new literary form and method suitable only to a great genius. His satiric spirit, in assailing not only individuals, but also institutions, systems, and theories of life, in concerning itself less with literary grudges and personal quarrels than with momentous questions of society, in progressing steadily from the specific to the universal, has undergone a striking evolution. The tone of his satire has become less formal and dignified, and more colloquial, while a more frequent use of irony, burlesque, and verbal wit makes the poem easier and more varied. Byron joins mockery with invective, raillery with contempt, so that _Don Juan_, in retaining certain qualities of the old Popean satire, seems to have tempered and qualified the acrimony of _English Bards_. The inevitable result of this development was to make _Don Juan_ a reflection of Byron’s personality such as no other of his works had been. _Don Juan_ is Byron; and in this fact lies the explanation of its strength and weakness. CHAPTER IX “THE VISION OF JUDGMENT” Byron’s _Vision of Judgment_, printed in the first number of _The Liberal_, October 15, 1820, was the climax of his long quarrel with Southey, the complicated details of which have been related at length by Mr. Prothero in his edition of the _Letters and Journals_.[357] Byron’s hostility to Southey was due apparently to several causes, some personal, some political, and some literary. He believed that Southey had spread malicious reports about the alleged immorality of his life in Switzerland with Jane Clermont, Mary Godwin, and Shelley; he considered the laureate to be an apostate from liberalism and a truckler to aristocracy; and he had no patience with his views on poetry and his lack of respect for Pope. The two men were, in fact, fundamentally incompatible in temperament and opinions, Southey being firmly convinced that Byron was a dissipated and dangerous debauchee, while Byron thought Southey a dull, servile, and somewhat hypocritical scribbler.