In 1885, being neither disciple nor encomiast of Lord Byron, Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said that the narrative strength and thematic range of "Don Juan" are how Byron's poetical writing excites the reader: “Across the stanzas . . . we swim forward as over the ‘broad backs of the sea’; they break and glitter, hiss and laugh, murmur and move like waves that sound or that subside. There is in them a delicious resistance, an elastic motion, which salt water has and fresh water has not. There is about them a wide wholesome air, full of vivid light and constant wind, which is only felt at sea. Life undulates and Death palpitates in the splendid verse. . . . This gift of life and variety is the supreme quality of Byron's chief poem.”