in the next, admits him to be a scho- of Lord Byron and of his muse, we lar, or commends him as a poet.

sbould have heard no more, till time, Perhaps it will be thought unneces.

at least, and meditation, should have

enlarged the soul of the poet, and sary to have lacerated his lordship so mellowed the power of his song. But deeply, in the dissection of his works. a very few months since bis Lordship and But the noble author bas so identified the public parted in no very pleasant himself with bis theme, that it is next mood ; be called them forth not as arto impossible to sever him from bis feuds; they obeyed the summons, but.

bitrators, but as parties in his domestic subject. Besides, we had an object the cause which they espoused was not in making an anatomy of his lordship. that of his Lordship; they gave their It has been said, by one whose opinion sentence with justice and entorced it deserves consideration, that none but with spirit; and from that decision,

after a vain, and, in our opinion, a paltry a good man can be a good orator.' Il appeal to their worst passions, he fled. the axiom be equally applicable to the We little thought that his Lordship poet, perhaps we have detected the would again have wooed so disdainful a secret of his lordship’s failure !-and it mistress, especially when that mistress

had begun to show some signs of lassimay be useful to point it out.

tude on the endless repetition of the We have protracted, beyond our in- same tedious and disgusting strain. And tention, what we designed merely as yet bis Lordship informs us,

" I have not loved the world, nor the world me; an introduction to a review which we

I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow'd bave extracted from the British Critic.

To its idolatries a patient knee

Nor coined my cheek to smiles-nor cried aloud lo resuming the exercise of those In worship of an echo." rights which she seemed for a time to

“ This is all vastly indignant and bave abdicated, Criticism enters on the vastly grand; yet we have now two

witnesses before us who speak a very duties of her office in sullen state, and different language, and we find ten more proceeds to arraign his lordship for a in Mr. Murray's catalogue, who tell the long arrearage of offences. We would same tale. The man who sends out not be understood as entirely accord- into the world a single poem, the labour ing with the decisions of the reviewer, pretence of probability, to scorn the

perhaps of years, may affect, with some though we think them nearly as dis- voice of public censure or approbation ; passionate, and quite as just, as such but he who, at intervals only of a few sentences generally are.

months, shall continue to court the ex

pectations of the world with the suc“We had cherished a hope, that cessive fruits of his poetic talent, not

only exists a pensioner upon public fame, ainger, besides being honoured with the epithet but lives even from hand to mouth upon above alluded to, is thus coupled a stanza with popular applause. Every poem which another worthy of the same school, Let simple Wordsworth chime his childish bows to the idolatry of the world a

he publishes is a living witness that he And brother Coleridge lull the babe at nurse.

patient knee, and that he worships the And yet in return for some paltry compliment

, very echo which he professes to scorn. his lordship has christened the Christabel,' the “The first publication of the noble most puling and drivelling of all • baby-nurse,' Lord which claims our attention is the Coleridge's bantlings, that wild and singularly third part of Childe Harold. As the priginal and beautiful poem

verse,

Arst and second parts of this poem ap- vastly superior both he and his genius
peared before we commenced our criti- are to the common herd of mankind;
cal labours, we shall pass no opinion on that he is a being of another and higher
their merits, except that they were too order, wbose scowl is sublimity, and
generally over-rated by the fashion of whose frown is majesty. We have the
the day. The poem before us is much noble Lord's word for this and for a
inore likely to find its level. The no- great deal more, and if he would bave
ble Lord has made such draughts upon been content with telling us so not more
public partiality, that little is now left than balf a dozen times, to please him,
him but the dregs of a cup which he we would have believed it. But he
once fondly thought to be inexhaustible. has pressed so unmercifully, that we
The hero of the poem is, as usual, bim- now begin to call for proof, and all
self: for he has now so unequivocally the proof we can find is in his own as-
identified himself with his fictitious hero, sertion. The noble Lord has written
that even in his most querulous moods, a few very fine, and a few very pretty
he cannot complain of our impertinence verses, which may be selected from a
in tracing the resemblance. We really heap of crude, barsh, unpoetical straing;
wish that the noble Lord would suppose farther than this we neither know nor
that there was some other being in the wish to know of his Lordship's fame.
world besides himself, and employ his His Lordship’s style, by a fortunate bit,
imagination in tracing the lineament of caught the favourable moment in the
some other character than his own. One turn of the public taste ; his gall was
would bave imagined that in twelve mistaken for spirit, bis affectation for
several and successive efforts of bis feeling, and his barshness for originality.
muse, something a little newer than this The world are now growing tired of
same inexhaustible self might have been their luminary, and wait only for the
invented. Wherever we turn, the same rise of some new meteor, to transfer
portrait meets our eye. We see it now their admiration and applause. The
glaring in oils, now sobered in fresco, noble Lord had talents, which if they
now dim in transparency. Sometimes had been duly husbanded, might have
it frowns in the turban of the Turk, ensured him a more permanent place
sometimes it struts in the buskins and in their estimation. His Lordship never
cloak of the Spaniard, and sometimes could have been a Milton, a Dryden, a
it descends to fret in its native costume ; Pope, or a Gray, but he might have
but frown, strut, or fret where it will, been a star of the third or fourth mag-
the face is still but one, and the features nitude, whose beams would bave shown
are still the same. Mungo here, even upon posterity with no contempti-
Mungo there, Mungo every where.” ble lustre. As the matter stands, be
We are ever ready to listen with all will now be too late convinced that he
due patience to a long story, provi- whose theme is only self, will find at
ded it be not too often repeated, but last that self bis only audience.
there is really a limit beyond which " The first sixteen stanzas of the Poem
buman patience ceases to be a virtue. before us are dedicated to this one
We must come at last to the question, everlasting theme, and contain, like a
What is Lord Byron to us, and what repetition pye, nothing more than the
bave we to do either with his sublimity scraps of his former strains, seasoned
or his sulks? It is bis poetical not his rather with the garlic of misanthropy
personal character which is the subject than the salt of wit. - Self-exiled
of our criticism, and when the latter is Harold” reaches the plain of Waterloo,
so needlessly obtruded upon our atten- but with a step not more auspicious
tion, it betrays at once poverty of in- than that of preceding, poets, who have
vention and lack of discretion. The trod that bloody plain. We know not what
noble Lord is ever informing us how strange fatality attends a theme so sia-

men ;

meet

cred, so sublime: whether it be that the cally mixed,” our only idea is that of grandeur of reality overpowers the faint a "Cordial compound.” The whole of gleam of fiction, or that there are deeds the address to Bonaparte is at once too mighty. to be sung by living bards, crude and common-place.

In one the plains of Waterloo will live in the stanza the noble Lord has clearly been records of history, not in the strains of a plagiarist froin W. Scott. poetry. The description of the dance

LI. preceding the morning of the battle is “ A thousand battles have assail'd thy banks, well imagined, and excepting the fourth But these and half their fame have pass'd away, dlat and rugged line, is happily expres. And slaughter heap'd on high his weltering

ranks ; sed.

Their very graves are gone, and what are they?

Thy tide wash'd down the blood of yesterday,
XXI.

And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream
" There was a sound of revelry by night, Glass'd with its dancing light the sunny ray;
And Belgium's capital had gathered then But o'er the blackened memory's blighting
Hler beauty and her chivalry, and bright

dream
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as

they seem.”

P. 28.
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music aroge with its voluptuous swell,

• Our readers will readily call to mind Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, the following beautiful lines in the Lay

And all went merry as a marriage bell; of the Last Minstrel.
But hush! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a
rising knell !

“ Sweet Teviot, on thy silver tide

The glaring bale fires blaze no more,
XXII.

No longer steel clad warriors ride
“ Did ye not hear it?-No; 'twas but the wind, Along thy wild and willowed shore,
Or the car rattling o'er the story street; As if thy waves since time was born,
On with the dance ! let joy be uuconfined; Since first they roll'd their way to Tweed,
No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure Had only heard the shepherd's reed,

Nor started at the bugle horn.
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet- Unlike the tide of human time,
But, hark !--that heary sound breaks in oace Which though it change in ceaseless flow,

Retains each grief, retains each crime,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat; Its earliest course was doom'd to know;

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before; And darker as it clownward bears
Arm! Arm! it is—it is--the cannon's opening Is stained with past and present tears."

P. 13.

• Here we have precisely the same • The noble Lord, as may easily be idea, but far better expressed; we imagined, is very indignant that order, scarcely know six better lines than those peace, and legitimate sovereignty should which close the simile. But when we have been restored to Europe. The read of " waves rolling o'er the blighted reflections which succeed partake as dream of a blackened memory, little of patriotism as of poetry ; let us are lost in the mazes of metaphorical take the following stanza for an ex- confusion. ample.

· The noble Lord cannot find it in bis XXXVI.

heart to pay the tribute even of a pass-
"There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, ing line to the heroic commander, who
Whose spirit antithetically mixt
One moment on the mightiest, and again

stands confessed, even by his very foes,
On little objects with like firmness fixt, the sword of Britain and the shield
Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt, of
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been; stands in far greater need of the name

Europe. The poetry of Byron
For viaring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st
Even now to re-assume the imperial mien, of Wellington, than the name of Wel.
And shake again the world, the thunderer of the lington does of the poetry of Byron.

P. 22.

: From Waterloo the noble Lord tra. If this be philosophy, it is unintelli- vels by Coblentz down the Rhine to gible ; if it be sentiment, it is unbear- Switzerland. able ; if it be poetry, it is unreadable. which the banks of that river prosent

The magnificent scevery When we come to “ spirits antitheti- B

Vol. 1. No. 1

more,

roar!”

we

scene !"

but tamely and ruggedly drawn: he is Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous
attended with better success when he A path to perpetuity of fame :
enters the territories of the Swiss. The They were of gigantic minds, and their steep aim,
following description of a night sail on Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile
the Lake of Lausanne is perhaps the Thoughts which should call down thunder, and
inost brilliant passage in the poem. Of Heaven again assail'd, if Heaven the while
LXXXV.

On man and man's research could deign to do

more than smile.
“Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wide world I dwell in, is a thing

CVI.
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake “ The one was fire and fickleness, a child,
Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring: Most mutable in wishes, but in mind,
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

A wit as various-gay, grave, sage, or wild,-
To waft me from distraction; once I loved Historian, bard, philosopher, combined ;
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring He multiplied himself among mankind,
Sounds sweet as if'a sister's voice reproved, The Proteus of their talents: But his own
That I with stern delight should e'er have been Breathed most in ridicule,—which, as the wind,
so moved.

Blew where it listed, laying all things prone,
LXXXVI.

Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a

throne.
" It is the blush of night, and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,

CVII.
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, " The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought,
Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear And hiving wisdom with each studious year,
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,

In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought,
There breathes a living fragance from the shore, And shaped his weapon with an edge severe,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear

Sapping a solemn creed with soleinn sneer:
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, The lord of irony,—that master-spell,
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from
more ;

fear,
LXXXVII.

And doom'd him to the zealot's ready Hell, "He is an evening reveller, who makes

Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well. His life an infancy, and sings his fill;

CVIII. Atintervals, some bird from out the brakes,

“Yet peace be with their ashes,-for by them, Starts into voice'a moment, then is still.

If merited, the penalty is paid ; There seems a floating whisper on the hill,

It is not ours to judge,---far less condemn; But that is fancy, for the starlight dews

The hour must come when such things shall be All silently their tears of love instil,

made Weeping themselves away, till they infuse

Known unto all,-or hope and dread allay'd
Deep into nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

By slumber, on one pillow,--in the dust,
LXXXVIII.

Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay'd;

And when it shall revive, as is our trust,
"Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate 'Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just."

P.57.
Of men and empires,-'tis to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great,

* To the sentiments contained in the Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,

last stanza, if not to the poetry, we And claim a kindred with you; for ye are A beauty and a mystery, and create

bow with unfeigned respect; but though In us such love and reverence from afar, we would not hastily condemn the frailThat fortune, fame, power, life, have named ties and the errors of others, yet we themselves a star."

P. 47.
The characters of Voltaire and Gib-

would not confound light and darkbon are drawn with more discrimina. ness, truth and falsehood, in one undis. tion than we had reason to expect. committed the sacred charge of truth to

tinguished mass. The same hand which What is the noble Lord's opinion of their success, he has not been pleased luted at our hands. To condemn the

our care, will demand it again unpolto impart. What his wishes are he has clearly shown by his anathema against the person we are forbidden.

error we are commanded; to condemn

That their conquerors.

final judgment rests in a higher tribuCV. • Lausanne ! and Ferney! ye have been the noble lord and of ourselves, will too

nal, which we fear, for the sake of the abodes Of names which unto you bequeath'd a name ; surely “deign do more than smile."

The Prisoner of Cbillon is the com- That for this planet strangers his memory task'd plaint of the survivor of three brothers Through the thick deaths of half a century;

And thus he answered—Well, I do not know confined within the Chateau of that “Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so ; name, which is situated between Cla- 'He died before my day of Sextonship, rens and Villeneuve. The verses are

• And I had not the digging of this grave.'

And is this all? I thought,-and do we rip in the eight syllable metre, and occa. The veil of immortality and carve sionally display some pretty poetry ; I know not what of honour and of light at all events there is little in them to Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?

So soon and so successless ? As I said, offend. We do not find any passage of The Architect of all on which we tread, sufficient beauty or originality to war- for earth is but a tombstone, did essay rant an extract, though the whole may Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's be read, not without pleasure by the thought admirer of this style of versification.

Were it not that all life must end in one, • The next poem that engages our no

Of which we are but dreamers ;-as he caught

As 'twere the twil. ht of a former Sun, tice is called DARKNESS, describing the Thus spoke he, - I believe the man of whom probable state of things upon earth You wot, who lies in this selected tomb; should the light and heat of the sun be Was a most famous writer in his day,

. And therefore travellers step from out their withdrawn. To so strange and absurd

way an idea we must of course ascribe the "To pay him honour,—and myself whate'er credit of vast originality.

• Your honour pleases,'—then most pleased I

shook “ The world was void, From out my pockets avaricious nook The populous and the powerful was a lump, Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, liteless- Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay.

So much but inconveniently ;- Ye smile, The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,

I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; Because my homely phrase the truth would tell. Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

You are the fools, not I- I did dwell And their masts fell down piecemeal ; as they With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye, dropp'd

On that Old Sexton's natural homily, They slept on the abyss without a surge

In which there was Obscurity and l'ame, The waves were dead; the tides were in their The Glory and the Nothing of a Name." P. 32.

grave, The moon, their mistress, had expired before;

- The noble Lord seems to be in the The winds were withered in the stagnant air, humour of Timon, to invite his friends And the clouds perish'd ; Darkness had no need to a course of empty dishes, which are Of aid from them-She was the universe."

P. 30. finally to be discharged at their heads. •We must confess that criticism is Profane enough we must own ourselves, unable to reach a strain so sublime

for never did we more heartily laugh this. If this be called genius, as we than at the conclusion of this burlesque ; suppose it must, we are of opinion that in which we think the noble Lord has the madness of that aforesaid quality is shown no ordinary talents. So much much more conspicuous than its inspi- for the “Visit to Churchill's ration. But after the noble Lord has

• The next poem, called

os The carried us with him in his air balloon to Dream,” contains as usual a long hisso high an eminence in the sublime, on tory of “my own magnificent self.” a sudden he discharges the gas, and At the conclusion' we are told down we drop to the lowest depth of The Wanderer was alone as heretofore, the bathos below.

as

grave.”