TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, Esq.
SIB,!
ALTHOUGH

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a southron" by birth and residence, I have visited the north ern division of this island, and have not failed to admire the romantic beauties of its landscape, and the steady, intelligent character of its people. I have indeed viewed the Land of Cakes with some sensation of that raptured glee with which its aspect fired Lord Marmion's gallant squire, Fitz-Eustace. Nor have those intellectual rays escaped ine, which emanate from the good town," its sublime and interesting capital. You cannot suppose, Mr North, that I allude to that ignis fatuus, whose coruscations issue forth four times in every year from the cloudiest atmosphere of "Auld Reekie," tempting unwary wanderers into the sloughs of sedition, and bewildering them in the quagmires of sceptical metaphysics. You anticipate that I mean the softly brilliant aurora borealis, which plays round the dark brow of the sage Buchanan. I should rather, perhaps, compare these beams to the bright, celestial luminary, which every month gives pleasure to our eyes, and light to our ways. It is the property of your lamp of knowledge to dissipate the clouds of error, without misleading us from the path of constitutional loyalty, and rational religion, or perverting the natural sensations of good taste. I rejoice to see that its beneficent influence is not confined to the north of the Tweed, but is diffused through every part of the British dominions. To you, then, Sir, I transmit some thoughts, which have struck me on perusing certain poems lately laid before the public, on which I think my sentiments will not differ very widely from yours.

The high reputation which Lord Byron has acquired from the splendid imagery, and forcible language scattered over his former productions, carrying away the fancy with irresistible force, has effectually concealed from the generality of his readers the glaring defects of this prolific writer. Such are not disposed to observe the hasty negligence which deforms the very best of his poetry. His genius strikes out at a single effort some shi

ning conception. He appears to be captivated with the beauty of this his mental offspring; and blind to its defects, he never condescends to the labour of correcting or polishing the rough creation of his energetic mind. Hence it is that the darkest obscurity, or, what would be called in an inferior writer, unintelligible nonsense, prevails in many passages of his poems, particularly in the cantos of Childe Harold. Nay, it seems probable, that this darkness and incomprehensibility are the very causes of praise with some of his admirers, who, viewing the author's indistinct idea through the foggy medium with which he has surrounded it, mistake it for real magnitude, and believe it to be truly sublime.

I will not dwell on the demerits of Don Juan, which have been, perhaps, much exaggerated by the fastidious prudery of this age. Whether our times are better or not than those which have preceded, I will not take on me to determine. At present, there is at least an affectation of superior sanctity, an attempt to preserve the appearance of greater delicacy and decorum.. The cantos of Don Juan.are of a light and playful description for the most part; and serious subjects may be therein treated with too great a degree of levity; but it cannot be denied that this work indicates prodigious powers of language, and mastership of rhyme. It might have escaped much of the censure which has fallen on its immoral tendency, which is certainly not beyond what might be extracted from the productions of poets by no means branded with the stamp of profligacy, had not the noble author shewn himself on all occasions the armed champion of libertinism, and, as it were, boasted of some of the worst propensities of human nature. The character of Don Juan has been drawn by Moliere, who copied from the Spanish writers; he is represented as so desperately abandoned, so loaded with crime as well as vice, that his very name must meet with reprobation, without nicely examining the detail of his deeds, as they have at present appeared on Lord Byron's record. By giving his hero this name, he is supposed to possess all the qua

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polygamy been, from the earliest ages, the practice of the East, and have not a bevy of submissive beauties been the regular and constant appendage to the seraglios of oriental princes? Some heart-burnings and jealousies may naturally be expected to exist in such an association, but when have they been found to excite disturbance without the walls of their prison, or to occupy the serious consideration of statesmen and warriors? Why, then, should the mild Zarina, the sound of whose name, by the way, transports us from the Euphrates to the Kremlin of Moscow, feel herself so excessively aggrieved? The two Foscari are beings still farther removed from the common form and fashion of real life. Whatever the annals of Venice may say of the imperturbable calmness of the octogenarian Doge, his invincible reverence for the institutions of his country, it is impossible to hear of a father who presides over the counsels of the state, whilst he views with seeming apathy the horrible tortures inflicted on his beloved and innocent son; and afterwards see this sensitive stoic actually die with the shock of the tolling of a bell, which announces his own degradation, and the appointment of a rival successor. Can any one look on this as a picture of human nature? Or what shall we say to the indelible attachment of the younger Foscari to the mere soil of his native Venice, when the "seed of the soil" have treated him with the most barbarous injustice? Neither the phlegm of the father, nor the inconceivable patriotism of the son, can engage our affection, or excite our sympathy. We feel that they do not bear the stamp of nature, but are held up in order to astonish us, as with the exhibition of some monstrous beings, which have no prototype amongst heaven's creation. Our tragedian seems to have for his object to elevate and surprise, after the manner of Mr Bayes in the Rehearsal. The noble author, indeed, with some degree of self-gratulation, assumes the merit of having composed pieces which cannot possibly be acted. He has perfectly fulfilled his intention. The experiment was decisive. The taste of the town operated with even more force than the potent injunction of the Lord Chancellor. But what is the praise which belongs to a drama which cannot be represented? It has been said, and perhaps with truth, that a good

tragedy gives greater pleasure in the closet than when it is performed on the stage. The imagination of the reader, if he possesses that faculty in a superior degree, exceeds all possible means of embodying the thought of the poet, and of presenting the events of the drama to the eye and the ear, even when aided by the talents of the best actors. In order, however, to impart this power of creation to the mind, we must not be contented with beautiful description, or even with correct delineation of character. The plot must be managed with consummate art; the situations must be stri king; the feelings of those who act and suffer must be strongly and hap pily pourtrayed in their language and expression. Instead of toiling through fatiguing orations, the reader's senses must be rapt by the ideas of the poet; the cunning of the scene must set before him the personages of the drama in such lively colours, that he melts at their distress, and trembles for their danger. In short, whether the piece is ever intended to be acted or not, the reader must be sensible that it could be acted so as to have a powerful effect on the passions of an audience. If this is not its character, it must inevitably prove dull and tiresome; and of all the kinds of writing, we are well told by a witty French critic, the genre ennuyant is the most intolerable. Tragedies are made to be acted; if not, they are like the caps of Sancho Panza's Baratarian tailor, produced in numbers with unexpected facility, but not made to be wornthey resemble the razors recorded by the facetious Peter Pindar,-not made to shave, but to sell.

Smooth poetry, and felicitous expression, the noble bard can bestow on his readers when he is so minded; but he is not always disposed to take the trouble of giving them this gratification.

We find occasionally, too, various phrases enriching his lines, of which it may be said, as of the opening speech of Puff's mysterious Beef-eater in the Critic," Two people happened to hit on the same thought-Shakespeare made use of it first, that's all."

These sparks, however, like the jailor's torch, or captive fire-fly in poor Jacopo's dungeon, only shew more plainly the darkness which surrounds them. Abundant, indeed, are the instances of lame and prosaic lines which

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are given, for the most part accurate ly measured into the length of blank verse. If his better skill had not been proved in many parts of these metrical dialogues, we should be tempted to be lieve that the poet conceived the counting of ten syllables on his fingers, was all that was required to constitute this species of rhythm, We continually meet with lines terminating most unhappily in some miserable conjunction or preposition-with some feeble auxiliary of a verb, or by some presuming adjective, which usurps this post in the verse, and suffers its tardy substantive lamely to limp behind in the following line. For example, in Sardanapalus,

"If at this moment, for we now are on ‹The brink, thou feel'st an inward shrinking from This hap. Again,

It is only pushing these convenient divisions one step farther, and the ingenious expedient might be adopted from the imitation of the German drama in the Antijacobin, where the words themselves are subjected to the dislocation of this metrical strapado. The stanzas can hardly be forgotten, which the imprisoned Rogero so pathetically sings, of which the following lines are a specimen :

"Here doom'd to starve on water-gruel, never shall I see the University of Gottingen." The following example of measured prosing, taken from the tragedy of the Foscari, cannot be easily exceeded. The termination of the lines is mark ed with a perpendicular stroke, without which convenient direction, it would be a difficult matter to re-ar range these " disjecta membra poeta.".

""Tis decreed, that without farther repetition of the question, or continuance of the trial, which only tends to shew how stubborn guilt is, (The Ten dispensing with the stricter law | which still scribes the question till a full | confession, and the prisoner partly having | avowed his crime in not denying that the letter to

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Such are these two tragedies. To give a stimulus to the reader's appetite, after being a little alloyed with Assyrian sweets and Venetian acids, he is regaled with the mystery of Cain as the satiated Gourmand, at the dubious feast, is presented with a well-peppered gizzard after the confectionary and goure-mangé. This, indeed, may very properly be called a literary devil, not only because Lucifer himself is a leading character of the drama, but that it is perhaps of all the effusions of the Satanic school, the best entitled to that distinction. Much art is evinced in the manner of conveying the deleterious particles to the mind of the reader, for it will be found that in this cookery, like that described by Mr Accum, red precipitate and arsenic is copiously mingled with the cayenne in the composition. The office of drugging the dainties is naturally given to the apostate arch-angel, who may be supposed to preach doctrines worthy himself. The poet imagines that he cannot be censured for making his dramatis personæ speak in their proper characters, and supposes that he shelters himself from all blame in disseminating unreproved blasphemy, by asserting that he cannot make Lucifer Our first "talk like a clergyman." parents, and their amiable son Abel, with their two daughters, are pleasingly drawn. The noble Lord has sufficient capabilities for this sort of painting, if it were more to his taste; but here it is introduced for the purpose, as it seems, of giving contrast and relief to the favourite figures of Lucifer and Cain. In the delineation of the first murtherer, he has, however, as on most other occasions, overstepped the modesty of nature. Cain is represented as innately, and inconceivably bad, though possessing a high degree of conjugal and parental affec tion. He violates the conclusions of probability and experience, which declare that bad men must gradually be drawn to the acme of wickedness. Adam is shewn to have inculcated good principles, and particularly a respectful veneration for the great Crea