opinions; a virulence the more absurd, since he expressed no convictions, and never attempted to impress even his doubts upon the minds of others. As a poet, Lord Byron was one of the first, and certainly one of the most extraordinary, that ever lived,―uniting in himself the qualities of two men, than whom no two in England were ever more celebrated or more opposed. The best passages in Comus are not more sublime than some in Manfred and Childe Harold; nor did the author of The Tale of a Tub ever display more wit and humour than are to be found in Beppo and Don Juan. No writer, of any age or country, ever succeeded so well in so many different styles.

The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, written when the author was nineteen, may be classed amongst the very best satirical compositions in our language. The Giaour, The Corsair, and The Bride of Abydos, are all poems original as well as powerful, and equally extraordinary in their language, their thoughts, and their conceptions. Childe Harold stands alone; Don Juan is without rival: and, if we wanted a new proof of the extraordinary genius of this great man, Mr. Moore has given it in a collection of letters to which I have once before alluded; letters which have all the wit of Horace Walpole's, without any of the affectation; and are not more remarkable for their humour than for their power.

As to the tendency of Byron's writings, no author of great celebrity, with the exception of Walter Scott, ever passed in England without, on this score, incurring reproach. Milton, Dryden, Swift, Pope, Smollett, Fielding, were all objects of abuse to the envious and canting hypocrites of their day, and with about as much justice as the poet of our own times. Don Juan, the most attacked of any of his works, is, on the ground of morality, perhaps, the least assailable, being one of the best and most useful satires on a vicious state of society which ever proceeded from human wit; and no more reprehensible, either for the things described, or for the manner of their description, than Don Quixote itself, which, for those who hunt after lewd readings and gross imaginings (witness the love-scene of Maritornes and the carrier), might furnish sufficient ground for snivelling reprehension.

Had Lord Byron chosen, or rather had he been driven by circumstances into, another career, I cannot help myself believing that he would have been equally successful in it; nor do his comparative failures in the House of Lords, at a time when his mind was delivered up to other pursuits, while his success in speaking, to which he had served no apprenticeship, was compared with his success in literature, which he had been long pursuing, offer any proof contradictory to this belief. Great energy, strong passions, a vivid imagination, and most excellent common sense, formed the ground-work of Lord Byron's poetical character, and suited him equally, and perhaps, as he

himself thought, better, for an active than a literary life. At the time he engaged in the former, however, his body had already begun to yield to the pressure of the many griefs and passions it had undergone. The vital essence had almost burnt out, and all that he did in Greece as a hero was to die-as best became the memory of a poet.

As to his feelings respecting money matters, and the advances he made to the Greek cause, no man ever seems to have made such sacrifices with a better or more generous spirit; and though he might expect, and expect fairly, that, if the Greeks obtained resources of their own, they would repay him-not the health and energy devoted to their cause; that they could never repay-not the income devoted to their cause, since that went from day to day without account or reckoning--but such sums as, under no ordinary circumstances of risk, he advanced in the way of loan-(I know of few who would have been inclined to do as much)—yet the feelings he had upon the subject were those of a man who considered himself and his fortune at the service of the cause he had espoused. "So far," says he, in a private and confidential letter to Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, Feb. 21, 1824, "I have succeeded in supporting the government of Western Greece, which would otherwise have been dissolved. If you have received the eleven thousand and odd pounds, these, with what I have in hand, and my income for the current year, to say nothing of contingencies, will, or might, enable me to keep the sinews of war properly strung. If the Deputies be honest fellows, and obtain the loan, they will repay the 4000l. as agreed upon; and even then I shall save little, or indeed less than little, since I am maintaining nearly the whole machine-in this place at least-at my own cost: but let the Greeks only succeed, and I don't care for myself."

The vulgar recklessness for money, which distinguished his early career, passed away, no doubt, in later life, and this change was marked, as all changes in people of warm temperament are marked, by a certain degree of enthusiasm in the new direction. His attention, for a time, to his expenses, keeping a slate by him constantly, on which the day's items were reckoned, never interfered with acts of charity or benevolence; and the debts which, in his former life, he had incurred, and which it was in every way desirable to pay, most fully excuse an economy which, if he adopted at all, he was sure to adopt with a certain poetical appearance of excess.

His most evident weakness was one to which I have alluded, and which, mentioned by all, has I think been too harshly dealt with by some of his biographersI mean a strong prejudice in favour of birth and fashion, and a high estimate of his own importance, for having once figured as a dandy, and been by birth elevated to the peerage. This was a weakness,

a vulgar weakness; but it naturally arose from his rank coming to him by accident, and from his position in the world having been obtained with difficulty. A peer, he had the faults of a parvenu, for he had laboured under many of the disadvantages, and derived many of the advantages, ordinarily attendant upon the circumstances of rising from a plebeian to a patrician station. In early youth, his mother, and the people surrounding his mother, must always have looked upon a peer of the realm as a mighty personage, and the ideas which the heir of Newstead thus imbibed could not but give him a high opinion of his lordly consequence, and a deep disgust with the world when it did not at once acknowledge it.

In the short literary connection which subsisted between Lord Byron and Mr. Hunt, less blame, as it appears to me, attaches to either party than the partisans of each have endeavoured to have it believed. The two persons were, from every circumstance of their lives, certain to be dissimilar; to have different ideas of gentlemanlike conduct, agreeable manners, and conversational ability. But there is this advantage to be given to Lord Byron--and no inconsiderable one it is-viz. that, of the two, he more appreciated the talents, and made more allowances for the feelings, of his coadjutor and companion.

And now, reader, you who, following me thus far, have sighed with a generous pity over the faults, and burnt with as generous an indignation at the wrongs, of my illustrious countryman, let the pages you have read inspire you with some kindly feeling for those in general, whose way to a reputation in after times is generally through the sneers and calumnies of their contemporaries.

Time has swept on; and the injured is in the tomb, and years, perchance, have effaced from the recollection of the injurers the aspersion and the scoff,-the whispered falsehood and the solemn wrong,-with which they wrung the heart that heaped upon them "the curse of its forgiveness!" But thou, O Nemesis! neither forgetting nor forgiving,-long after their worthless bones shall have rotted in the grave, wilt preserve their blasted fame, blackening by the side of that gentle and triumphant boast

"My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
And my frame perish even in conquering pain;
But there is that within me which shall tire
Torture and time, and breathe when I expire;
Something unearthly which they deem not of,
Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre,
Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move,
In hearts all rocky now, the late remorse of love."

is all I shall derive from these productions; and I shall never attempt to replace its fading leaves, or pluck a single additional sprig from groves where I am, at best, an intruder. Though accustomed in my younger days to rove, a careless mountaineer, on the Highlands of Scotland, I have not, of late years, had the benefit of such pure air, or so elevated a residence, as might enable me to enter the lists with genuine bards, who have enjoyed both these advantages. But they derive considerable fame, and a few not less profit, from their productions; while I shall expiate my rashness as an interloper, certainly without the latter, and in all probability with a very slight share of the former. I leave to others "virûm volitare per ora." I look to the few who will hear with patience ❝dulce est desipere in loco." To the former worthies I resign, without repining, the hope of immortality, and content myself with the not very magnificent prospect of ranking amongst "the mob of gentlemen who write"-my readers must determine whether I dare say "with ease,"—or the honour of a posthumous page in The Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, a work to which the Peerage is under infinite obligations, inasmuch as many names of considerable length, sound, and antiquity, are thereby rescued from the obscurity which unluckily overshadows several voluminous productions of their illustrious bearers.

With slight hopes, and some fears, I publish this first and last attempt. To the dictates of young ambition may be ascribed many actions more criminal and equally absurd. To a few of my own age the contents may afford amusement: I trust they will, at least, be found harmless. It is highly improbable, from my situation and pursuits hereafter, that I should ever obtrude myself a second time on the public; nor even, in the very doubtful event of present indulgence, shall I be tempted to commit a future trespass of the same nature. The opinion of Dr. Johnson on the Poems of a noble relation of mine, (1) "That when a man of rank appeared in the character of an author, he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed," (2) can have little weight with verbal and still less with periodical censors; but, were it otherwise, I should be loth to avail myself of the privilege, and would rather incur the bitterest censure of anonymous criticism, than triumph in honours granted solely to a title.

(1) The Earl of Carlisle, whose works have long received the meed of public applause, to which, by their intrinsic worth, they were well entitled.

(2) The passage referred to by Lord Byron occurs in Bos. well's Life of Johnson, vol. iv. p. 486. (Croker's edition, 1831.) Dr. Johnson's letter to Mrs. Chapone, criticising, on the whole favourably, the Earl's tragedy of The Father's Revenge, is inserted in the same work, vol. v. p. 136.-L. E. (3) The author claims the indulgence of the reader more for this piece than, perhaps, any other in the collection; but as it was written at an earlier period than the rest (being composed at the age of fourteen), and his first essay, he preferred submitting it to the indulgence of his friends in its present state, to making either addition or alteration. (4) "My first dash into poetry was as early as 1800. It was the ebullition of a passion for my first cousin, Margaret Parker (daughter and grand-daughter of the two Admirals Parker), one of the most beautiful of evanescent beings. I have long forgotten the verse; but it would be difficult for me to forget her-her dark eyes-her long eye-lashes-her completely Greek cast of face and figure! I was then about twelve-she rather older, perhaps a year. She died about a year or two afterwards, in consequence of a fall, which injured her spine, and induced consumption. Her sister, Augusta (by some thought still more beautiful), died of the

HOURS OF IDLENESS.

ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY, COUSIN TO THE author, and veRY DEAR TO HIM. (3) HUSH'D are the winds, and still the evening gloom, Not e'en a zephyr wanders through the grove, Whilst I return, to view my Margaret's tomb, And scatter flowers on the dust I love. Within this narrow cell reclines her clay,

That clay, where once such animation beam'd; The King of Terrors seized her as his prey, Nor worth, nor beauty, have her life redeem'd. Oh! could that King of Terrors pity feel,

Or Heaven reverse the dread decrees of fate! Not here the mourner would his grief reveal, Not here the muse her virtues would relate. But wherefore weep? Her matchless spirit soars Beyond where splendid shines the orb of day; And weeping angels lead her to those bowers Where endless pleasures virtue's deeds repay. And shall presumptuous mortals Heaven arraign, And, madly, godlike Providence accuse? Ah! no, far fly from me attempts so vain;— I'll ne'er submission to my God refuse. Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear,

Yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face; Still they call forth my warm affection's tear, Still in my heart retain their wonted place. 1802. (4)

TO E. (5)

LET Folly smile, to view the names

Of thee and me in friendship twined;
Yet Virtue will have greater claims
To love, than rank with vice combined.
And though unequal is thy fate,

Since title deck'd my higher birth!
Yet envy not this gaudy state;

Thine is the pride of modest worth.

same malady; and it was, indeed, in attending her, that Margaret met with the accident which occasioned her death. My sister told me, that when she went to see her, shortly before her death, upon accidentally mentioning my name, Margaret coloured, throughout the paleness of mortality, to the eyes, to the great astonishment of my sister, who knew nothing of our attachment, nor could conceive why my name should affect her at such a time. I knew nothing of her illness-being at Harrow and in the country-till she was gone. Some years after, I made an attempt at an elegya very dull one. I do not recollect scarcely any thing equal to the transparent beauty of my cousin, or to the sweetness of her temper, during the short period of our intimacy. She looked as if she had been made out of a rainbow-all beauty and peace."- Byron's Diary, 1821.-L. E.

In this practice of dating his juvenile poems, Byron followed the example of Milton, who (says Johnson), "by affixing the dates to his first compositions, a boast of which the learned Politian had given him an example, seems to commend the earliness of his own compositions to the notice of posterity." -Moore.-P. E.

(5) This little poem, and some others in the collection, refer to a boy of Lord Byron's own age, son of one of his tenants at Newstead, for whom he had formed a romantic attachment, of earlier date than any of his school friendships.-L. E.