CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 LORD BYRON. 
 
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REVIEW 
 
 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 LORD BYRON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 ^SHERWOOD GILBERT AND PIPER, 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 M.D.CCC.XXVI. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE following Critique on Lord Byron's Clia- 
 racter and Writings, is reprinted from "The North 
 American Review," a critical Journal which sus- 
 tains a pre-eminent rank in the periodical literature 
 of America, and which will not sustain any loss in 
 its reputation, from the circulation of this reprint 
 in England. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 JLHE motive which has induced 
 the republication of the following 
 masterly review of the Character and 
 Writings of Lord Byron, originated 
 in a wish to promote the most exten- 
 sive circulation of a work, in which 
 the justest estimate appears to have 
 been formed of the poetical character 
 and moral influence of the productions 
 of that noble, but ill-fated Bard. 
 Fascinated by the brilliant corusca- 
 tions of his genius, multitudes have 
 
Viii PREFACE. 
 
 been intoxicated by his corrupting 
 and withering sentiments, without any 
 suspicion of their awful tendency or 
 ultimate end : — 
 
 ** Virtue he makes ridiculous, and vice 
 
 Sets forth in lovely garb, a thing of worth : 
 
 Exerting all his powers and artifice 
 
 To fill our hearts with vicious baneful mirth : 
 
 Our good desires he strives to sacrifice 
 
 To evil passions which have filled the earth 
 
 Already with enough of ill, to melt 
 
 Ev'n his hard heart, could he for once have felt.** 
 
 Mischievous and destructive as 
 ill themselves the greater portion of 
 the writings of Byron have been, 
 they are rendered doubly so by 
 
PREf'ACE. IX 
 
 the ingenious and elaborate apologies 
 which have been offered for his 
 aberrations, and the specious glosses 
 which have been drawn over his 
 sentiments. The method generally 
 adopted by his friends, to screen the 
 advocate of error and licentiousness 
 jVom the punishment which he had 
 justly merited, has been to present 
 to the w^orld the most highly- 
 wrought picture of his misfortunes 
 and sufferings, and thus gain the 
 possession of our hearts in his favour 
 by the deepest and most intense 
 sympathy. His sufferings have been 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 represented either as the mysterious 
 visitations of Providence, or as the 
 unmerited inflictions of those with 
 whom he has been connected in life ; 
 and these, in all their intensity, have 
 been offered as an atonement, or 
 rather as a justification of the poet's 
 career. They have adopted his own 
 pathetic, but falsely sentimental lan- 
 guage— 
 
 Ah, little do they know 
 
 That what to them seemed vice might but be woe. 
 Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze, 
 Is fixed for ever, to detract or praise."* 
 
 ♦ Monody on the death of Sheridan. 
 
PREFACE. ati 
 
 The writers who have dared to tear 
 aside the flimsy veil thus thrown over 
 the seductive and deadly polluting 
 writings of the Bard, have been 
 branded to the world as every thing 
 mean and contemptible. Again, and 
 again, has it been said, that the 
 author is to be separated from the 
 man, and that these intrusions, as 
 they have been called, into his 
 private and domestic character, are 
 only to be tolerated by the scandal- 
 loving part of mankind. This would 
 be well enough were it true. But, 
 alas! the want of this requisite is 
 
XII PREFACE. 
 
 fatal to the argument. Who was it 
 that blazoned abroad his private and 
 domestic vices and calamities? — who 
 invited the gaze of the thoughtless 
 and the giddy, to scenes around 
 which an impenetrable veil should 
 have been drawn? — it was the poet, 
 —it was Byron ! His poetical career 
 was commenced and terminated with 
 the most apparent anxiety to invite 
 the attention of the world to the 
 vices and misfortunes of the author. 
 Who then is to blame? — Let the 
 accusation recoil upon its authors! 
 Then, as to the caveat which these 
 
PREFACE. Xni 
 
 gentlemen put in, against identifying 
 the man with his writings, we say 
 that from the circumstance just 
 alluded to, this was impossible in the 
 case of Byron. To the most careless 
 reader of his productions, it must 
 be apparent, that his great and 
 growing anxiety was to cause the 
 perception of such an identity, and 
 it is well known to those who have 
 been the most intimate with him, 
 that his gratification was in proportion 
 as this object was accomplished. If 
 Lord Byron has made his writings 
 
XIV PREFACE, 
 
 the vehicle in which to embody his 
 own feelings, and to argue his own 
 sentiments, let not his friends — his 
 best friends — accuse those of unfair- 
 ness, or of hypocrisy, who dare to 
 judge of him by this standard. 
 The evident tendency of his writings 
 is to evil ; to evil of the most 
 lamentable kind ; and it is with a 
 view to counteract this in some 
 measure, that the following work is 
 reprinted on this side the Atlantic. 
 The poetical career of Byron is here 
 traced by the hand of a master, and 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 the character and qualities of his 
 writings, are exhibited in a just and 
 convincing light. 
 
 Painful as is the duty of dwelling 
 upon dark shades in the character 
 of the dead, it is a duty which man 
 owes to man, to make an effort to 
 save from being engulphed in the 
 same vortex, those who have just 
 embarked upon the sea of life, and 
 who are in danger of following the 
 tract of those who have thus perished. 
 
 " The man who walks astray through 
 ignorance and darkness, and frailty 
 of intellect; may be forgiven ' seventy 
 
XVI Preface. 
 
 times seven ;' but he who walks 
 astray in the clear sunshine, and 
 against the remonstrances of the 
 monitor within, richly deserves, and 
 ought to suffer all the odium of his 
 guilt and folly." The sufferings 
 which are the fruit of his vices, 
 will not rescue him from more 
 condign punishment ; nor will the 
 occasional beauties which present 
 themselves in his writings, deter us 
 from reminding his admirers — 
 
 ** Nor florid prose, nor honied lines of rhyme, 
 Can blazon evil deeds, nor consecrate a crime/' 
 
THE 
 
 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 LORD BYRON. 
 
 There are few individuals who, during 
 the age in which they lived, have excited 
 stronger interest than Lord Byron. His 
 character and writings are a subject well 
 worthy of attention. On the former, some 
 light is thrown, by the publications which 
 have appeared since his death. 
 
 Among these, Mr. Dallas' Recollec- 
 tions, though the work of a weak and vain 
 
2 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 man, has a certain degree of value. It 
 illustrates the history of Lord Byron's cha- 
 racter. Mr. Dallas, who was an author by 
 profession, has been known principally as 
 the writer of some indifferent novels, and 
 the translator of Bertrand de Moleville's 
 Annals of the French Revolution. He was 
 connected with the family of the Byrons ; his 
 sister having been married to an uncle of the 
 poet. His acquaintance with Lord Byron, 
 however, commenced after the latter had 
 published his juvenile poems, entitled Hours 
 of Idleness. Upon this occasion, Mr. Dallas 
 addressed a letter to him, saying, that " he 
 felt irresistibly impelled to pay him a tribute, 
 on the effusions of a noble mind in strains so 
 truly poetic." Having commenced in this 
 manner, he continued to administer his admir- 
 ation liberally, at a time when such admir- 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 3 
 
 ation was of more value to Lord Byron, 
 than it afterwards became. The acquaint- 
 ance strengthened; and Mr. Dallas super- 
 intended the publication of the English Bards 
 and Scotch Reviewers ; and of the first two 
 cantosofChilde Harold; acting, at once, as 
 critic and corrector of the press. For these 
 and for other services, he was rewarded, 
 but not, as he thought, repaid by the copy- 
 right of several of Lord Byron's publications. 
 Their friendship, however, was not formed to 
 last, and was broken off long before the death 
 of Lord Byron. 
 
 Captain Medwin's intimacy with Lord By- 
 ron commenced at a late period in the life 
 of the latter, when he had not an extensive 
 choice of associates. The authenticity of 
 his bpok has been controverted. Mr. Murray^ 
 b2 
 
4 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 Lord Byron's publisher, has proved, that 
 much of the conversation, reported to have 
 passed respecting himself, is incorrect and 
 injurious. Still the question arises, whether 
 this want of correctness is to be charged 
 upon Lord Byron or Captain Medwin ; and 
 there seems to be no satisfactory ground for 
 deciding against the latter. Inaccuracies of 
 statement, likewise, have been pointed out 
 by a writer in a late number of the West- 
 minster Review, supposed to be Lord Byron's 
 friend, Mr. Hobhouse. As to some of them, 
 there may be a doubt, as in the former case, 
 which of the two individuals concerned is 
 responsible. For others, however. Captain 
 Medwin must be regarded as solely account- 
 able. The ajticle, which has been referred 
 to, proves that he has not always been care- 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 5 
 
 ful in the statement of facts, that he has com- 
 mitted some blunders;''^ and, perhaps, that 
 he has sometimes ascribed to Lord Byron, 
 rather what he might have said, than what 
 he did say. But, on the whole, this attack 
 upon Captain Medwin's book may serve ra- 
 ther to confirm than to weaken one's belief 
 in its general credibility. With an evident 
 perception on the part of the writer, that its 
 statements are not honorable to Lord Byron, 
 and a strong inclination to detect mistakes, 
 still little is disproved or contradicted, which 
 would much affect our estimate of Lord 
 
 * Captain Medwin represents Byron as saying that the words, '* TkoU 
 tremblest''—" * Tis with age then," which occur in his Marino Faliero. 
 "were taken from the Old Bailey proceedings. Some judge observed 
 to the witness, * Thou tremblest'— * 'lis with cold then,' was the reply." 
 
 "Who does not know," asks his reviewer, "that this famous speech, 
 which the Conversation writer made his Lord Byron say, was made in 
 the Old Bailey, was uttered by Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, on his way 
 to the scaffold. That the real Lord Byron should make so ludicrous 
 H blunder is morally impossible," Lord Byron refers to the reply of 
 Bailly in his note on the passage. 
 
() CHARACTER AN IJ WRITINGS 
 
 Byron's character, or even manners. No 
 motive is assigned by the reviewer, to explain 
 why the author should have reported the 
 conversation of Lord Byron falsely, except 
 one, a desire to appear more intimate with 
 him, than he really was. The accounts of 
 Medwin correspond to the impression, which 
 Byron has given of himself by his writings, 
 and by the notorious facts in his life. His 
 conversation, as reported by the former, is 
 in general such as one might suppose it would 
 be. The style of expression corresponds 
 with that of his prose writings. The remarks 
 upon almost all subjects, even those of mere 
 literature, are superficial ; the result of un- 
 settled principles of judgment and taste. 
 The temper discovered is characteristic. He 
 is represented as talking much of himself and 
 his works ; as full of spleen toward others^ 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 7 
 
 especially those who had been most nearly 
 allied to him, and as hardly concealing his 
 contempt for his few remaining associates, 
 such as Shelley, *'the snake," as he was 
 pleased to call him, and Leigh Hunt, *' the 
 author of Nimini Pimini, and Follyage," 
 titles which he applied to his poems. He 
 appears as a thorough libertine, devoid of 
 all the proper feelings of a man, toward his 
 wife, his mother, and it may be added, for 
 the case is glaring, toward the degraded 
 females with whom he had been connected. 
 He seems to have regarded woman, only as 
 an object of sensuality and insult. The same 
 character is obvious in some of his later 
 writings. 
 
 Supposing, however. Lord Byron's con- 
 versation to be, in general, correctly reported 
 in this book, still it is questionable how far 
 
^ CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 his statements are to be depended upon, 
 Captain Medwin's visits were frequently, as 
 he says, at eleven o'clock in the evening; and 
 considering the accounts which he gives of 
 Lord Byron's habits of life, the latter could 
 not always, at that hour, be expected to 
 recollect or to state facts with great accuracy. 
 The general air of his conversation, as re- 
 ported, may lead one to suspect, likewise, that 
 his vanity sometimes betrayed him into ex- 
 travagancies. Disposed, therefore, as one 
 may be, from the present stat^ of the evi- 
 dence, to regard the book as, in the main, 
 a credible narrative of Lord Byron's conver- 
 sations; yet on account of the probable 
 inaccuracies both of the speaker and the 
 reporter, it is to be appealed to with caution ; 
 but with proper caution some use may be 
 made of it. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 9 
 
 The conversations reported by Medwin, 
 took place during two of the last years of 
 Lord Byron's life. But in the degradation 
 into which he fell, when he had become the 
 author of Cain and Don Juan, we must not 
 forget his extraordinary powers. At that 
 period, " all that gives gloss to sin had 
 passed away," 
 
 "And rooted stood in manhood's hour, 
 The weeds of vice without the flower.** 
 
 The moral change between youth and middle 
 age, was perhaps, only such as might have 
 been anticipated ; but there were seasons in 
 his life, when the passions and vices, which 
 at last completed their work of ruin, seem 
 to have lost something of their force ; and 
 the evil spirit, of which he was the prey, 
 seems to have been driven off, by the strong 
 action of his genius and his better nature. 
 
10 characterTand writings 
 
 He had the power, beyond almost any other 
 poet, of uttering deep tones of feeling, which 
 dwelt upon the mind, and called forth strong 
 sympathy, even when connected with a per- 
 verted ostentation of lamentable defects of 
 character. His life, too, forms a melancholy 
 story, melancholy enough in reality, without 
 our being deceived by the affectation of 
 wretchedness, which he assumed for the 
 purpose of poetical display. He was unfor- 
 tunate in the moral influences which operated 
 upon his character. Much of compassion, 
 therefore, some lingerings of sympathy, and 
 admiration for his genius, though his intel- 
 lectual powers were great only within a 
 limited sphere, mingle with the reprobation, 
 with which his life and writings must on the 
 whole be regarded. At one period of his 
 course, an observer, ignorant of the evil to 
 
OF LORD &YRON. 11 
 
 which he had been exposed, might have 
 applied to him the lines of his favorite poet — • 
 
 *' Blest with each gift of nature and of art, 
 And wanting nothing but an honest heart." 
 
 With more kindness, however, and, perhaps, 
 more justice, one might have ascribed to 
 him a character, which he himself has drawn, 
 as that of his Manfred. — 
 
 This should have been a noble creature ; he 
 
 Hath all the energy which would have made 
 
 A goodly frame of glorious elements, 
 
 Had they been wisely mingled ; as it is, 
 
 It is an awful chaos — light and darkness — 
 
 And mind and dust — and passions and pure thoughts. 
 
 Mixed, and contending without end or order, 
 
 All dormant or destructive. 
 
 Lord Byron's father, who was notorious 
 for his profligacy, died while his son was a 
 child. The marriage of his father with his 
 
12 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 mother was preceded by an elopement, and 
 appears to have alienated the families of both 
 parties. It was, as may be supposed, an 
 unhappy one. His mother, in whose care 
 he was left, appears to have been unfit to 
 form or influence his character in a proper 
 manner. He is represented by Medwin, as 
 speaking of her without feeling or reserve; 
 and his letters to her discover little tender- 
 ness or respect. This is the more remark- 
 able, as his mother and himself seem to have 
 been almost alone in the world. According 
 to Dallas, they were, during his youth, 
 neglected by his other relations. 
 
 At the University he fell, according to 
 every account, including his own ; into a 
 course of reckless profligacy. The following 
 is an extract from his reply to Mr. Dallas' 
 first letter, written in his twentieth year. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 13 
 
 '* My pretensions to virtue are unluckily 
 so few, that though I should be happy to 
 merit, I cannot accept your applause in that 
 respect. One passage in your letter struck 
 me forcibly; you mention the two Lords 
 Lyttleton in the manner they respectively 
 deserve, and will be surprized to hear the 
 person, who is now addressing you, has been 
 frequently compared to the latter, I know 
 I am injuring myself in your esteem by this 
 avowal but the circumstance was so remark- 
 able from your observation, that I cannot 
 help relating the fact. The events of my 
 short life have been of so singular a nature, 
 that, though the pride commonly called 
 honour has, and I trust ever will, prevent 
 me from disgracing my name by a mean or 
 cowardly action, I have been already held up 
 as the votary of licentiousness, and the 
 
14 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 disciple of infidelity. How far justice may 
 have dictated this accusation I cannot pre- 
 tend to say, but, like the gentleman to whom 
 my religious friends, in the warmth of their 
 charity, have already devoted me, I am 
 made worse than I really am." 
 
 The following is from a subsequent letter 
 to Mr. Dallas. 
 
 *'I once thought myself a philosopher, 
 and talked nonsense with great decorum ; 
 I defied pain, and preached up equanimity. 
 For some time this did very well, for no one 
 was in pain for me but my friends, and none 
 lost their patience but my hearers. At last, 
 a fall from my horse convinced me that 
 bodily suffering was an evil ; and the worst 
 of an argument overset my maxims and my 
 temper at the same moment, so I quitted 
 Zeno for Aristippus, and conceive that 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 15 
 
 pleasure constitutes the ro xocXov. In mo- 
 rality, I prefer Confucius to the Ten Com- 
 mandments, and Socrates to St. Paul, though 
 the two latter agree in their opinion of 
 marriage. In religion, I favor the Catholic 
 emancipation, but do not acknowledge the 
 pope; and I have refused to take the 
 sacrament, because I do not think eating 
 bread or drinking wine from the hand of an 
 earthly vicar will make me an inheritor of 
 heaven. I hold virtue in general, or the 
 virtues severally, to be only in the dispo- 
 sition, each a feeling, not a principle. I 
 believe truth the prime attribute of the 
 Deity ; and death an eternal sleep, at least 
 of the body. You have here a brief com- 
 pendium of the sentiments of the wicked 
 George Lord Byron ; and, till I get a new 
 suit, you will perceive I am badly clothed." 
 
16 CHARACTER AKD WRITINGS 
 
 While at the University, he became inti- 
 mate with one, whom he thus celebrates in 
 the concluding- note to the first canto of 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 **I should have ventured a verse to the 
 memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, 
 Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, 
 were he not too much above all praise of 
 mine. His powers of mind, shown in the 
 attainment of greater honours, against the 
 ablest candidates, than those of any graduate 
 en record at Cambridge, have sufficiently 
 established his fame on the spot where it 
 was acquired, while his softer qualities live 
 in the recollection of friends, who loved 
 him too well to envy his superiority." -^ 
 
 Of Mr. Matthews, however, he speaks in 
 the following terms in a letter to Mr. Dallas. 
 
 **You did not know M''^'^; he was a 
 
OF LORD BYROiX. 17 
 
 man of the most astonishing powers, as he 
 sufficiently proved at Cambridge, by carrying 
 off more prizes and fellowships, against the 
 ablest candidates, than any other graduate 
 on record ; but a most ' decided atheist, 
 indeed, noxiously so, for he proclaimed his 
 principles in all societies/' 
 
 Lord Byron early experienced some of 
 those consequences, which a mind of much 
 feeling, and of much compass of thought, 
 must suffer from the opinions he had 
 adopted, and the course of conduct he 
 pursued ; satiety, loathing of the world, 
 remorse, and misanthropy. He formed 
 friendships with the worthless, and finding 
 them worthless, in his disappointment and 
 despite, he denied the existence of all 
 disinterested feeling. His most craving 
 passion was the desire of fixing npon himself 
 c 
 
18 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 the admiration and sympathy, or at least the 
 wonder and gaze of men. He was desirous 
 of possessing some extraordinary distinction, 
 which should separate him from all others, 
 as one entitled to peculiar regard. He 
 wished to exhibit himself as standing alone, 
 ** among men, but not of them ;" — 
 
 t( jjj ^ shroud of thoughts, 
 
 Which were not their thoughts." 
 
 But this is a passion, the most irritating, and 
 the most liable to disappointment. Its natu- 
 ral tendency is to misanthropy. He, whom 
 it possesses, is led to look upon those around 
 him as selfish, low minded, cold, and unjust ; 
 because they do not view him as an object 
 of particular interest. He is utterly discon- 
 tented with that small portion, which most 
 of us can fairly claim, of the general regard 
 of others ; of the regard of any, except those 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 19 
 
 few, whom we may have attached to us by 
 virtue, kindness, and equal returns of sym- 
 pathy. He feels as if he were defrauded of 
 his rights by his fellow- men, when they suffer 
 him to remain unnoticed. The strong work- 
 ings of this passion at last made Byron a 
 poet ; and a poet, whose principal subject, 
 presented either with or without disguise, 
 was himself. The passion attained its 
 object; but not its gratification, for that is 
 impossible. Byron had, at last, few rivals 
 in fame, and was as miserable, and more 
 degraded than before. 
 
 While yet at the University, at the age of 
 nineteen, he published his first volume of 
 poems. There is much in them which shows 
 tin unformed mind, an unpractised hand, and 
 a want of good taste. But, considering the 
 age at which they were written, they are 
 c 2 
 
20 CHARACTKR AND WRITINGS 
 
 uncommon productions. To say the least, 
 and that is saying but little, they are as 
 good as three quarters of the verses, to be 
 found in those monumental depositories, 
 called bodies of English poetry. What is 
 most remarkable, with but a few exceptions, 
 they discover little of that peculiar moral 
 character, and of those dark feelings, which 
 afterward were among the most striking 
 characteristics of his poetry. They express, 
 for the most part, common sentiments and 
 affections. Several of them are addressed 
 to youthful friends, and written with much 
 appearance of feeling. The volume, in 
 general, hardly connects itself with the 
 subsequent exhibitions of his mind. We 
 will give a few extracts, not so much for 
 the sake of the poetry, as to illustrate the 
 poetical character, in which Byron, at this 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 21 
 
 time, wished to appear, corresponding, pro- 
 bably, in a considerable degree, to the yet 
 unfixed state of his real character. 
 
 Oh ! yes, I will own we were dear to each other, 
 
 The friendships of childhood, though fleeting, are true; 
 
 The love, which you felt, was the love of a brother. 
 Nor less the affection 1 cherish'd for you. 
 
 But Friendship can vary her gentle dominion, 
 Tlie attachment of years, in a moment expires ; 
 
 Like Love, too, she moves on a swift waving pinion, 
 But glows not, like Love, with unquenchable fires. 
 
 FbU oft have we wander' d through Ida together. 
 And blest were the scenes of our youth, I allow ; 
 
 In the spring of our life, how serene is the weather ! 
 But winter's rude tempests are gathering now. 
 
 No more with Affection shall Memory blending 
 The wonted delights of our childhood retrace ; 
 
 When Pride steels the bosom, the heart is unbending, 
 And what would be Justice, appears a disgrace. 
 
22 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 However, dear S , for I still must esteem you, 
 
 The few, whom I love, I can never upbraid, 
 The chance, which has lost, may in future redeem you. 
 
 Repentance will cancel the vow you have made. 
 
 1 
 
 I will not complain, and though chill'd is affection, 
 With me no corroding resentment shall live ; 
 
 My bosom is calmed by the simple reflection, 
 
 That both may be wrong, and that both should forgive. 
 
 You knew, that my soul, that my heart, my existence. 
 If danger demanded were wholly your own ; 
 
 You knew me unalter'd, by years or by distance, 
 Devoted to love and to friendship alone. 
 
 You knew, but away with the vain retrospection. 
 
 The bond of affection no longer endures ; 
 
 Too late you may droop o'er the fond recollection. 
 And sigh for the friend who was formerly yours. 
 
 For the present, we part, — I will hope not for ever. 
 For time and regret will restore you at last ; 
 
 To forget our dissension we both should endeavour, 
 I ask no atonement, but days like the past. 
 
OK LORP BYRON. 23 
 
 What follows are the concluding verses 
 of a poem addressed to the Earl of . 
 
 Not for a moment may you stray 
 From Truth's secure, unerring way, 
 
 May no delights decoy ; 
 O'er roses may your footsteps move, 
 Your smiles be ever smiles of love, 
 
 Your tears be tears of joy. 
 
 Oh ! if you wish, that happiness 
 
 Your coming days and years may bless, 
 
 And virtues crown your brow ; 
 Be, still, as you were wont to be. 
 Spotless as you've been known to me. 
 
 Be, still, as you are now. 
 
 And though some trifling share of praise, 
 To cheer my last declining days. 
 
 To me were doubly dear ; 
 Whilst blessing your beloved name, 
 I'd wave at once a poet's fame, 
 
 To prove a prophet here. 
 
24 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 The next extract is from a poem to 
 E. N.L. Esq. 
 
 Though Vouth has flown on rosy pinion, 
 And Manhood claims his stern dominion, 
 Age will not every hope destroy, 
 But yield some hours of sober joy. 
 
 Yes, I will hope that Time's broad wing. 
 Will shed around some dews of spring ; 
 But, if his scythe must sweep the flowers, 
 Which bloom among the fairy bowers, 
 Where smiling youth delights to dwell, 
 And hearts with early rapture swell ; 
 If frowning Age, with cold control. 
 Confines the current of the soul. 
 Congeals the tear of Pity's eye. 
 Or checks the sympathetic sigh. 
 Or hears unmov'd, Misfortune's groan, 
 And bids me feel for self alone ; 
 Oh ! may my bosom never learn, 
 
 To sooth its wonted heedless flow. 
 Still, still despise the censor stern. 
 
 But ne'er forget another's woe. 
 Yes, as you knew me in the days. 
 O'er which Remembrance yet delays. 
 Still may I rove, untutor'd, wild. 
 And evcH in age, at heart a child. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 25 
 
 Other similar passages might be quoted. 
 But with all this occasional difference of 
 feeling, there are breakings forth of the 
 same spirit, which afterwards displayed 
 itself; and it is remarkable that where these 
 appear, the expression becomes more ener- 
 getic. 
 
 Few are my years, and, yet I feel 
 
 The world was ne'er designed for me ; 
 Ah ! why do darkening shades conceal 
 
 The hour when man must cease to be ? 
 Once I beheld a splendid dream, 
 
 A visionary scene of bliss ; 
 Truth I — wherefore did thy hated beam 
 
 Awake me to a world like this ? 
 
 I lov'd — but those I lov'd are gone ; 
 
 Had friends — my early friends are fled ; 
 How cheerless feels the heart alone. 
 
 When all its former hopes are dead ! 
 Though gay companions, o'er the bowl, 
 
 Dispel awhile the sense of ill. 
 Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul. 
 
 The heart — the heart is lonely still. 
 
26 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 How dull ! to hear the voice of those, 
 
 Whom rank, or chance, — whom wealth, or power, 
 Have made, though neither friends nor foes. 
 
 Associates of the festive hour I 
 Give me again, a faithful few. 
 
 In years and feelings still the same, 
 And I will fly the midnight crew. 
 
 Where boisterous joy is but a name. 
 
 One poem relates to a romantic story of 
 an attachment, which he had felt, while a 
 boy, to a lady considerably older than 
 himself; and the disappointment of which 
 he was fond of representing, as having had 
 a very melancholy effect upon his morals 
 and happiness. It is the same story to 
 which he alludes in his '* Dream." The 
 following is from the poem first mentioned. 
 
 Ah ! since thy angel form is gone. 
 My heart no more can rest with any ; 
 
 But what it sought in thee alone, 
 Attempts, alas ! to find in many. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 27 
 
 Then, fare thee well, deceitful maid, 
 Twere vain and fruitless to regret thee ; 
 
 Nor Hope, nor Memory yield their aid. 
 But Pride may teach me to forget thee. 
 
 Yet all this giddy waste of years, 
 This tiresome round of palling pleasures, 
 
 These varied loves, these matrons* fears. 
 
 These thoughtless strains to passion's measures — 
 
 If thou wert mine, had all been husb'd ; 
 
 This cheek, now pale from early riot, 
 With Passion's hectic ne'er had flush'd, 
 
 But bloom'd in calm domestic quiet. 
 
 Yes, once the rural scene was sweet, 
 For nature seem'd to smile before thee ; 
 
 And once my breast abhorr'd deceit. 
 For then it beat but to adore thee. 
 
 But, now, I seek for other joys. 
 
 To think, would drive my soul to madness ; 
 In thoughtless throngs, and empty noise, 
 
 I conquer half my bosom's sadness. 
 
 Yet, even in these, a thought will steal. 
 
 In spite of every vain endeavour ; 
 And fiends might pity what I feel. 
 
 To know, that thou art lost for ever. 
 
28 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 The lady referred to in this poem, and in 
 the ** Dream," could not have been the same, 
 Avhom he designated as Thyrza ; and in the 
 one case or the other, therefore, he seems to 
 have made an unnecessary demand upon 
 public sympathy. 
 
 Upon the publication of his poems, they 
 were reviewed in the Edinburgh Review, 
 in that style of flippant, unfeeling, insulting 
 criticism, which at one time contributed as 
 much to the celebrity of that work, as the 
 talent actually displayed in it ; though since 
 its novelty has passed away, it begins to 
 be regarded in its true character, as equally 
 offensive to right principles and good taste. 
 The effect of such a review upon feelings' 
 like those of Byron, may be easily imagined. 
 All his passions were thrown into commo- 
 tion, and poured their gall through his mind. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 29 
 
 It, probably, had a far more important 
 influence upon his future character, than 
 the disappointed affection, which has just 
 been referred to. It served to blast those 
 feelings, by which he might have been allied 
 to his fellowmen, and to render him the 
 proud, insulated, unhappy being, which he 
 subsequently became. It was administering 
 poison to one in a fever. According to 
 Medwin, he said respecting it, — 
 
 " When I first saw the review of my 
 ^ Hours of Idleness,' I was furious ; in such 
 a rage as I never have been since. I dined 
 that day with Scrope Davies, and drank 
 three bottles of claret to drown it ; but it 
 only boiled the more. That critique was 
 a masterpiece of low wit, a tissue of scur- 
 rilous abuse. I remember there was a great 
 deal of vulgar trash in it, which was meant 
 
30 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 for humour, ' about people being thankful for 
 what they could get' — 'not looking a gift 
 horse in the mouth,' and such stable expres- 
 sions/' 
 
 For the wrong which he had suffered, 
 Byron endeavoured, in the first shock of 
 his feelings, to revenge himself, not merely 
 upon the editor of the review and his 
 associates, but upon almost all his contem- 
 poraries who had been more favoured than 
 himself in gaining praise as poets. He was 
 sufficiently enraged *' to run a muck, and 
 tilt at all he met." He produced his 
 *' English Bards and Scotch Reviewers/' 
 But his satire is violent, indiscriminating, 
 and undignified. It is full of the coarse 
 common places of abuse, with little range 
 of thought or allusion. His blows are 
 random and ineffectual. There is not much 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 31 
 
 which has even the appearance of being 
 characteristic of the individuals whom he 
 assails. His epithets, and accessory ideas, 
 have often no relation to his main purpose. 
 His attack on Jeffrey, in which he might be 
 expected to put forth his strength, is, we 
 presume, commonly regarded as neither 
 witty nor powerful. Let us take another 
 short passage, which is a fair specimen of 
 the poem. 
 
 Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, 
 
 The golden crested haughty Marmion, 
 
 Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, 
 
 Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight ; 
 
 The gibbet or the field prepared to grace, 
 
 A mighty mixture of the great and base. 
 
 And think 'st thou, Scott ! by vain conceit perchance. 
 
 On public taste to foist thy stale romance. 
 
 Though Murray with his Miller may combine 
 
 To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line ? 
 
 No 1 when the sons of song descend to trade. 
 
 Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade. 
 
32 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 Let such forego the poet's sacred name, 
 
 Who rack their brains for hicre, not for fame ; 
 
 Low may they sink to merited contempt, ' > 
 
 And scorn remunerate the mean attempt ! 
 
 Such be their meed, such still the just reward 
 
 Of prostituted Muse and hirelinsr bard ! 
 
 For this we spurn Apollo's venal son, 
 
 And bid a long * good night to Mar m ion.' 
 
 These arc the themes that claim our plaudits now, 
 
 These are the bards to whom the Muse must bow; 
 
 While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot. 
 
 Resign their hallow'd bays to Walter Scott. ^ 
 
 It requires no great exercise of generosity 
 to forgive such an attack. Byron had not 
 the qualifications of a satirist. He wanted 
 wit, facility of allusion, and quick percep- 
 tion of character. He wanted truth, or its 
 substitute, probability, and just principles 
 of taste and moral judgment. In the latter 
 part of his life, he attempted this style of 
 writing again, and produced a poem, called 
 the Age of Bronze, which hardly emerged 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 33 
 
 into notice. On the whole, perhaps, it is 
 better than his first effort; but how far he 
 had improved by age, may be judged of in 
 .some degree by its conclusion. 
 
 But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home. 
 And sketch the group — the picture's yet to come. 
 My Muse 'gan weep, but ere a tear was spilt, 
 She caught Sir William Curtis in a kilt ! 
 While thronged the chiefs of every Highland clan 
 To hail their brother, Vich Ian Alderman ! 
 Guildhall grows Gael, and echoes with Erse roar. 
 While all the common Council cry, * Claymore 1 ' 
 To see proud Albyn's Tartan's as a belt 
 Gird the gross sirloin of a City Celt, 
 She burst into a laughter so extreme. 
 That I awoke — and io ! it was no dream I 
 
 Here, reader, will we pause ; — if there's no harm in 
 This first — ^you'll have, perhaps, a second * Carmen.' 
 
 Byron, in his first satire, talks of treading 
 
 * the path which Pope and Gifford trod 
 
 before.' The question, whether he be equal 
 
 to Giffbrd, is not worth discussing ; but his 
 
 D 
 
34 CI1ARACT1!^R AND WKITINGS 
 
 resemblance to Pope is that of a 'satyr,' 
 butting with his horns, to * Hyperion with 
 his: glittering shafts of war.' The Vierses of 
 Pope are vivid with meaning. Single words 
 open a view of a train of thoughts, or throw 
 a flash of light upon some striking image. 
 There is a consistency in his conceptions 
 of character, and in all the figures and 
 epithets by which they are emblazoned, 
 which makes us feel a conviction at once, 
 of the sincerity of the writer, and of the 
 correctness of his perceptions. This con- 
 viction is, for the most part, just, for Pope 
 was a conscientious satirist, and proud of 
 his adherence to truth ; 
 
 *' Truth guai'ds the poet, sanctifies his line. 
 If, And makes immortal, verse as mean as mine.** 
 
 It . has contributed to make his verses im- 
 mortal ; for in satire, our natural sentiments 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 35 
 
 require justice. The characters of most of 
 those, against whom he directed his wit or 
 his indignation, remain fixed in the memories 
 of men, as he has drawn them. No poem 
 of the kind can be compared in vigour and 
 effect with that in which he made a common 
 slaughter of the low, profligate, but, some 
 of them, noted and mischievous writers of 
 his times — 
 
 Its great fault is the gross indecency of 
 some passages ; but the age, in wWch Pope 
 wrote, was not civilized, like the present, 
 by the influence of female taste and litera- 
 ture. 
 
 Byron's suppression of his ' English Bards 
 and Scotch Reviewers' was no loss to his 
 
 ♦ Dreadful was the clang of the silver bow. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 reputation, and little favour to those whom 
 he had made the objects of his satire ; for 
 his attacks were not of a kind to be felt or 
 remembered even by them, except as mere 
 intended insults or expressions of ill will. 
 He himself, however, appears to have looked 
 back upon the work with considerable satis- 
 faction ; and alludes to it repeatedly in 
 that poem, in which he gave the last exhi- 
 bition of his character. He was, professedly 
 a warm admirer of Pope ; and, in the 
 latter years of his life, defended his poetical 
 merit against the attack of Bowles; but 
 there is hardly more of philosophical criticism 
 in his defence, than in the writings of his 
 opponent. His admiration of Pope, was 
 natural; not merely from a perception of 
 the real power of that poet, but also from 
 the circumstance, that he stood alone in 
 
OF LORD BYRON. ei7 
 
 his age, enjoying that preeminent distinction, 
 to possess which, in some form or another, 
 was Byron's strongest passion. There was 
 a rank granted to Pope, which has hardly, 
 if at all, been conceded to any other writer. 
 He, was looked up to as the moral and 
 literary censor of his age. We are, at first 
 view, struck with passages in his poetry, as 
 written in a tone of great assumption, but 
 when we examine the history of his life and 
 writings, we find that he assumed no more 
 than was conceded. 
 
 But, whatever might be the intrinsic merit 
 of the 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' 
 still, a satire well versified, the production 
 of a young, profligate nobleman, and abound- 
 ing in personality, would find many readers 
 and admirers. It soon ran through three 
 editions, to the last of which was annexed 
 
39 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 a postscript, which is curious, as a specimen 
 of Lord Byron's character and wit ; that 
 character, about which so much sentiment 
 has been lavished; and that wit which has 
 been thought so spirited and entertaining. 
 The postscript was evidently written in a 
 state of elation from the success of his 
 work. He says, 
 
 '* I have been informed, since the present 
 edition went to the press, that my trusty 
 and well beloved cousins, the Edinburgh 
 Reviewers, are preparing a most vehement 
 critique on my poor, gentle, unresisting 
 Muse, whom they have already so bedeviled 
 with their ungodly ribaldry. 
 
 " Tantaene animis coelestibus ira»V,, 
 
 *'I suppose I must say of Jeffrey, as 
 Sir Anthony Ag^echeek saith; 'An I had 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 39 
 
 known he was so cunning of fence, 1 had 
 seen him damned ere I had fought him. 
 What a pity it is, that I shall be beyond 
 the Bosphorus before the next number has 
 passed the Tweed. But I yet hope to light 
 my pipe with it in Persia. 
 
 " My northern friends have accused me, 
 with justice, of personality towards their 
 great literary Anthropophagus, Jeffrey ; hut 
 what else was to be done with him and his 
 dirty pack, who feed by ' lying and slander- 
 ing/ and slake their thirst by 'evil speak- 
 ing?' I have adduced facts already well 
 known, and of Jeffrey's mind I have stated 
 my free opinion, nor has he thence sustained 
 any injury ;— what scavenger was ever soiled 
 by being pelted with mud ? It may be said 
 that I quit England because I have censured 
 there, 'persons of honour and wit about 
 
40 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 town;* but I am coming back again, and 
 their vengeance will keep hot till my return. 
 Those who know me can testify, that my 
 motives for leaving England are very differ- 
 ent from fears, literary or personal; those 
 who do not, may one day be convinced. 
 Since the publication of this thing, my name 
 has not been concealed ; I have been mostly 
 in London, ready to answer for my trans- 
 gressions, and in daily expectation of sundry 
 cartels ; but, alas ! * the age of chivalry is 
 'over,' or, in the vulgar tongue, there is no 
 spirit now-a-days. 
 
 ** There is a youth ycleped Hewson Clarke, 
 (subaudi. Esquire,) a sizer of Emmanuel 
 college, and I believe a denizen of Berwick 
 upon Tweed, whom I have introduced in 
 these pages, to much better company than 
 he has been accustomed to meet; he is. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 41 
 
 notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and for no 
 reason, that I can discover, except a per- 
 sonal quarrel with a bear, kept by me at 
 Cambridge, to sit for a fellowship, and whom 
 the jealousy of his Trinity cotemporaries 
 prevented from success, has been abusing 
 me, and what is worse, the defenceless 
 innocent abovementioned, in the Satirist, for 
 one year and some months. I am utterly 
 unconscious of having given him any provo- 
 cation ; indeed, I am guiltless of having 
 heard his name till coupled with the Satirist. 
 He has therefore no reason to complain, and 
 I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Plagiary, he 
 is rather pleased than otherwise. I have 
 now mentioned all, who have done me the 
 honour to notice me and mine, that is, my 
 bear and my book, except the editor of the 
 Satirist, who, it seems, is a gentleman, God 
 
42 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 wot! I wish he could impart a little of his 
 gentility to his subordinate scribblers/' 
 . All this Byron insisted upon publishing, 
 though Mr. Dallas, in an exercise of good 
 sense and friendship, uncommon on his part, 
 urged its suppression in the strongest terms. 
 
 The following passage, from Dallas' 
 Recollections, relates to Lord Byron's cha- 
 racter, feelings, and mode of life, about the 
 period of which we are speaikiag, 
 
 ''Very soon after this, the satire appeared 
 in its new form, but too late for its author 
 to enjoy his additional Ifiurels before he Irft 
 England. I was with him almost ev^ry day 
 while he remained in London, Misanthropy, 
 disgust of life leading to scepticism and 
 impiety, prevailed in his heart and embittered 
 his existence. He had, for ftocie time past, 
 been grossly attacked in ftev^rfil Ipw publi- 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 43 
 
 cations, which he bore, however, with more 
 temper than he did the blind headlong assault 
 on his genius, by the Edinburgh Review. 
 Unaccustomed to female society, he at once 
 dreaded and abhorred it ; and spoke of 
 women, such I mean ^s he neither dreaded 
 nor abhorred, more as playthings than com- 
 panions. As for domestic happiness, he had 
 no idea of it. *A large family,' he said, 
 * appeared like opposite ingredients mixed 
 perforce in the same salad, and he never 
 relished the composition.' Unfortunately, 
 having never mingled in family circles, he 
 knew nothing of them; and, from bieing at 
 first left out of th^ra by his rel^tijows, he was 
 so completely disgusted that he avoided 
 them, especially the female part. * I con- 
 sider,' said he, * collateral ties as the work 
 of prejudice, and not th^ b.oi|d of the heart, 
 
44 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 which must choose for itself unshackled/ 
 It was in vain for me to argue that the 
 nursery, and a similarity of pursuits and 
 enjoyments in early life, are the best foun- 
 dations of friendship and of love ; and that, 
 to choose freely, the knowledge of home was 
 as requisite as that of wider circles. In 
 those wider circles he had found no friend, 
 and but few companions, whom he used W 
 receive with an assumed gaiety, but real 
 indifference at his heart, and spoke of with 
 little regard, sometimes with sarcasm. He 
 used to talk of one young man, who had 
 been his schoolfellow, with an affection, 
 which he flattered himself was returned. I 
 occasionally met this friend at his apartments, 
 before his last excursion to Newstead. 
 Their portraits, by capital painters, were 
 elegantly framed, and surmounted with their 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 46 
 
 respective coronets, to be exchanged. How- 
 ever, whether taught by ladies in revenge 
 to neglect Lord Byron, or actuated by frivo- 
 lous inconstancy, he gradually lessened the 
 number of his calls, and their duration. 
 Of this, however, Lord Byron made no 
 complaint, till the very day I went to take 
 my leave of him, which was the one previous 
 to his departure. I found him bursting with 
 indignation. * Will you believe it,' said he, 
 *I have just met ^^^, and asked him to 
 come and sit an hour with me ; he excused 
 himself; and what do you think was his 
 excuse ? He was engaged with his mother 
 and some ladies, to go shopping ! And he 
 knows I set out to-morrow, to be absent for 
 years, perhaps never to return ! Friendship ! 
 — I do not believe I shall leave behind me, 
 yourself and family excepted, and perhaps 
 
46 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 my mother, a single being who will care 
 what becomes of me. 
 
 "At this period of his life, his mind was 
 full of bitter discontent. Already satiated 
 with pleasure,, and disgusted with those com- 
 panions who have no other resource, he had 
 resolved on mastering his appetites: he broke 
 up his harems; and he reduced his palate 
 to a diet the most simple and abstemious ; 
 but the passions of the heart were too 
 mighty, nor did it ever enter his mind to 
 overcome them ; resentment, anger, and 
 hatred, held full sway over him, and his 
 greatest gratification, at that time, was in 
 overcharging his pen with gall, which flowed 
 in every direction, against individuals, his 
 country, the world, the universe, creation, 
 and the Creator." 
 
 His misfortunes in regard to his early 
 
Ol LORJJ IJYJION. 47 
 
 friends^ according to Med win, were not 
 confined to the estrangement of their affec- 
 tions. The latter represents him as saying, 
 ''Almost all the friends of my youth are 
 dead; either shot in duels, ruined, or in the 
 gallies." On another occasion, Byron said 
 to him : — 
 
 '' I was at this time a mere Bond-street 
 lounger; a great man at lobbies, coffee and 
 gambling-houses ; my afternoons were passed 
 in visits, luncheons, lounging and boxing — 
 not to mention drinking ! If I had known 
 you in early life, you would not have been 
 alive now. I remember Scrope Davies, 
 
 H , and myself, clubbing nineteen 
 
 pounds, all we had in our pockets, and 
 losing it at a hell in St. James's-street, at 
 chicken-hazard, which may be called fowl ; 
 and afterwards getting drunk together till 
 
48 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 H. and S. D. quarrelled. Scrope after- 
 wards wrote to me for my pistols, to shoot 
 himself; but I declined lending them, on 
 the plea that they would be forfeited as a 
 deodand. I knew my answer would have 
 more effect than four sides of prosing. 
 
 *' Don't suppose, however, that I took 
 any pleasure in all these excesses, or that 
 
 parson A. K. or W , were associates 
 
 to my taste. The miserable consequences 
 of such a life, are detailed at length in my 
 Memoirs. My own master at an age when 
 I most required a guide, and left to the 
 dominion of my passions when they were 
 the strongest, with a fortune anticipated 
 before I came into possession of it, and a 
 constitution impaired by early excesses, I 
 commenced my travels in 1809, with a joy- 
 less indifference to a world that was all 
 before me." 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 49 
 
 Leaving England, as mentioned in the 
 last extract, in his twenty-second year, Lord 
 Byron was absent for two years. Of his 
 travels one may find a sort of journal in the 
 first two cantos of Childe Harold. During 
 his absence, his mother seems to have been 
 almost his only correspondent. There are 
 twenty letters to her, which fill about fifty 
 duodecimo pages. In giving them to Mr. 
 Dallas, the latter reports him to have said, 
 ' Some day or other they will be curiosities.' 
 Considering what might have been expected 
 from the writer, perhaps they are such ; for 
 these and the other letters, published by 
 Dallas, as the * Correspondence of Lord 
 Byron,' form a collection, as intrinsically 
 trifling and worthless, as was ever given to 
 the world. Their value, if any, is acci- 
 dental, arising from the illustration which 
 E 
 
50 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 they afford of the mind and character of 
 their author. 
 
 On his return from his travels, he published 
 the first two cantos of Childe Harold. Of 
 the general level of the poetry in this 
 production, the following stanzas are a fair' 
 specimen. 
 
 So deem'd the ChiUle, as o'er the mountains he 
 Did take his way in solitary guise ; 
 Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee, 
 More restless than the swallow in the skies ; 
 Though here awhile he learn'd to moralise, 
 For Meditation fix'd at times on him ; 
 And conscious Reason whisper'd to despise 
 His early youth, misspent in maddest whim ; 
 But as he gaz'd on truth his aching eyes grew dim. 
 
 To horse I to horse ; he quits, for ever quits 
 A scene of peace, though soothing to his soul ; 
 Again he rouses from his moping fits, 
 But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl. 
 Onward he flies, nor fixed as yet the goal 
 Where he shall rest him on his pilgrimage ; 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 51 
 
 And o'er him many changing scenes must roll 
 Ere toil his thirst for travel can asstiage, 
 Or he shall calm his breast, or learn experience sage. 
 
 Vet Mafra shall one moment claim delay, 
 WTiere dwelt of yore the Lusian's luckless queen ; 
 And church and court did mingle their array, 
 And mass and revel were alternate seen ; 
 Lordlings and freres — ill sorted fry I ween ! 
 But here the Babylonian whore halli built 
 A dome, where flaunts she in such glorious sheen, 
 That men forget the blood which she hath spilt, 
 And bow the knee to pomp that loves to varnish guilt. 
 
 O'er rales that teem with fruits, romantic hills, 
 (Oh that such hills upheld a free-born race I ) 
 Whereon to gaze the eye with joyaunce fills, 
 Childe Harold wends through many a pleasant place. 
 Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, 
 And marvel men should quit their easy chair. 
 The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace. 
 Oh I thete is sweetness in the mountain air, 
 And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share. 
 
 e2 
 
62 CHARACTKR AND WRITINGS 
 
 More bleak to view the hills at length recede, 
 And, less Itixttfiant, smoother vales extend ; 
 Immense horizon^bounded plains sacceed l 
 Far as the eye discerns, without an end, 
 Spain's realms appear whereon her shepherds tend 
 flocks, whose rich fleece right well the trader knows. 
 Now must the pastor's afm his lambs defend ; 
 For Spain is Compass'd by unyielding foes, 
 And all must shield their all, or share Subjection's woes. 
 
 Where Lusitania and her sister meet. 
 Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide ? 
 Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet, 
 Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide ? 
 Or dark Sierras rise in craggy pride ? 
 Or fence of art, like China's vasty wall ? 
 Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide, 
 Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall, 
 Rige like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gaul j 
 
 Stit these between a silver streamlet glides, 
 And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook, 
 Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides i 
 Here leaoc the idle shepherd on his crook/ 
 
OP LORD BYRQN. 53 
 
 And vacant on tli« rippling wares dotU look. 
 That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foeman flow ; 
 For proud each peasant as the noblest duke ; 
 Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know 
 •Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low. 
 
 The above extract is from the first canto, 
 i?rhat follows is from the second. 
 
 Fair Greece '. sad relic of departed worth I 
 Immortal, though no more ; though fallen, great ! 
 Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth. 
 And long-accustomed bondage uncreate ? 
 Not such thy sons who whilome did await. 
 The hopeless warriors of a willing doom. 
 In bleak Thermopylas's sepulchral strait— 
 Oh ! who that gallant spirit shall resume. 
 Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb ? 
 
 Spirit of Freedom I when on Phyle's brow 
 Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, 
 Could'st thou forbode the dismal hour which now 
 Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plsdn ! 
 
S4 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, • ' ^>"^ 
 
 But every carle can lord it o'er thy land ; 
 Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, 
 Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish band, 
 From birth till death enslaved ; in word, in deed, unmannM . 
 
 In all save form alone, how chang'd ! and who 
 That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye, 
 Who but would deem their bosoms burn'd anew 
 With thy unquenched beam, lost liberty I 
 And many dream withal the hour is nigh 
 That gives tliem back their fathers' heritage ; 
 For foreign arnis and aid they fondly sigh. 
 Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage. 
 Or tear their name defil'd from Slavery's mournful page. 
 
 Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not 
 Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ? 
 By their right arms the conquest must be wrought. 
 Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye ? no ! 
 True, they may lay your proud despoilers low. 
 But not for you will Freedom's altars flame. 
 Shades of the Helots I triumph o'er your foe I 
 Greece ! change thy lords, thy state is still the same ; 
 Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 55 
 
 When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood, — 
 When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, — 
 When Athen's children are with arts endued, — 
 When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, 
 Then may'st thou be restored ; but not till then. 
 A thousand years scarce serve to form a state ! 
 An hour may lay it in the dust ; and when 
 Can man its shattered splendor renovate. 
 Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate '. 
 
 And yet how lovely in thine age of wo, 
 Land of lost gods and godlike men ! art thou ] 
 ITiy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow 
 Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite now. 
 Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow, 
 Commingling slowly with heroic earth, 
 Broke with the share of every rustic plough ; 
 So perish monuments of mortal birth. 
 So perish all in turn, save well recorded Worth. 
 
 These are long extracts. They have been 
 given in the hope of their being read in 
 connexion with the subsequent remarks. 
 At no very distant time, verses such as 
 
56 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 these were regarded by many, as among the 
 most admirable productions of the age. 
 But, if we are not altogether mistaken, the 
 principal difference between them, and prose 
 too dull to find a reader, consists in the 
 circumstance of their being written in stanzas. 
 Some passages in these cantos rise above, 
 and others fall below what we have quoted; 
 for what is quoted is merely tame and 
 prosaic, while the wit attempted, and the 
 moral feeling discovered, are offensive. Pass- 
 ing over the lamentable parade of vulgar 
 vice and common place infidelity, it may be 
 asked whether sentiments such as the follow- 
 ing, from the Albanian song, introduced into 
 the second canto, are adapted to produce 
 any feeling but disgust ; or what is the 
 purpose of putting such thoughts into rhymfe! 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 67 
 
 I ask not the pleasures which riches supply, 
 My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy ; 
 Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair, 
 And many a maid from her mother shall tear. 
 
 I love the fair face of the maid in her youth, 
 Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe ; 
 Let her bring from the chambers her many toned lyre. 
 And sing us a song on the fall of her sire. 
 
 But in these first two cantos, there is 
 sometimes an energy of conception and 
 expression, which their author afterwards, 
 displayed more fully. They were accom- 
 panied, likewise, with a number of minor 
 poems, some of which are among the most 
 powerful and interesting of his productions. 
 Such are the verses beginning — 
 
 lady when I left the shore, 
 
 The distant shore which gave me birth, 
 
 1 hardly thought to grieve once more, 
 To quit another spot on earth. 
 
58 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 Such, too, are the verses addressed to 
 Thyrza, and which apparently relate to the 
 same real or imaginary object of affection. 
 
 And didst thou not, since death for thee 
 
 Prepared a light and pangless dart, 
 Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see. 
 
 Who held, and holds thee in his heart ? 
 Oh ! who like him had watch'd thee here? 
 
 Or sadly mark'd thy glazing eye. 
 In that dread hour ere death appear. 
 
 When silent sorrow fears to sigh, 
 Till all was past ? But when no more 
 
 *Twas thine to reck of human wo, 
 Affection's heart drops, gushing o'er. 
 
 Had flow'd as fast as they now flow. 
 * » ♦ * 
 
 Ours was the glance none saw beside ; 
 
 The smile none else might understand ; 
 Tlie whisper'd thought of hearts allied. 
 
 The pressure of the thrilling hand ; 
 The kiss so guiltless and refined 
 
 That Love each warmer wish forbore; 
 Those eyes proclaim 'd so pure a mind, 
 
 Even passion blush'd to plead for more. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 59 
 
 The tone that taught me to rejoice, 
 When prone, unlike thee, to repine ; 
 
 The song, celestial from thy voice. 
 But sweet to me from none but thine ; 
 
 » * * * 
 
 But^f in worlds more blest than this 
 
 Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere, 
 Impart some portion of thy bliss. 
 
 To wean me from mine anguish here. 
 Teach me — too early taught by thee ! 
 
 To bear, forgiving and forgiven; 
 On earth thy love was such to me ; 
 
 It fain would form my hope in heaven ! 
 
 Other passages might be quoted equally 
 touching. No one had raore power than 
 Byron, to utter that thrilling voice, which 
 speaks a mind desolate, but unbroken. In 
 these poems it is connected with the most 
 passionate and tender expressions of affec- 
 tion for the dead, and with a moral purity 
 and elevation of sentiment, which he has 
 scarcely elsewhere discovered. But even 
 
60 CHAHACTBR AND WRITINGS 
 
 these poems are polluted by his libertinism. 
 With singular perversion of taste, he has 
 thought it worth while to find a place for a 
 stanza from one of his earlier productions, 
 which has been already quoted. 
 
 Though gay companions o'er the bowl, 
 
 Dispel awhile the sense of ill ; 
 Though pleasure fire the maddening soul. 
 
 The heart — thg heart is lonely still. 
 
 It may be objected, likewise, that the gene- 
 ral tone of feeling is too much that of one. 
 
 Who will not look beyond the tomb, . ** 
 
 And dares not hope for rest before. 
 
 There were various circumstances, which 
 contributed to the popularity of this publi- 
 cation. It was written by a young noble- 
 man, a circumstance, which, if it possessed 
 any merit, was alone sufficient to give it 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 61 
 
 celebrity. Its author was, or soon became, 
 a man of the first notoriety in the highest 
 circles of fashion. He had travelled, where 
 few Englishmen had travelled before, having 
 visited Ali Pacha in his den. The poem of 
 Childe Harold was thought to shadow forth 
 his own wayward, gloomy, wicked, but very 
 interesting character. It contained much 
 concerning Greece; and the "woods that 
 wave o'er Delphi's steep," the '* isles that 
 crown the -^gean deep," the ** streams that 
 wander in eternal light," are poetical in their 
 very names ; and of these names there is a 
 profusion in the second canto of Childe 
 Harold. The favourable judgment ofGifford 
 had been secured by the most lavish flattery 
 in Byron's former poetry ; and it is strange, 
 and almost ludicrous, to observe the import- 
 ance attached to his critical opinions, both 
 
62 CHARACTBR AND WRITINGS 
 
 by Mr. Dallas and Lord Byron. The latter, 
 in one of his letters to Mr. Dallas, says, 
 M^ GifTord has ever been my Magnus 
 Apollo, any approbation such as you mention, 
 would, of course, be more welcome than, 
 /all Bokhara's vaunted gold, than all the 
 gems of Samarkand.* ** In a subsequent 
 letter, however, he seems to have viewed 
 the matter in a juster light. He says, 
 /'his praise is nothing to the purpose. What 
 could he say? He could not spit in the 
 face of one, who had praised him in everv 
 possible way/* But, without doubt, the 
 consideration in which Gifibrd was held, 
 depended much upon the circumstance of 
 his being, at tlmt time, the editor of the 
 Quarterly Review. In addition to all this* 
 the editor of the Edinburgh Review, upon 
 the appearance of this publication, notwith- 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 03 
 
 standing he had been so bitterly assailed by 
 its author, took occasion to show his magna- 
 nimity, his contempt, or his policy, in an 
 article in which it was highly praised, though 
 containing passages not adapted to gratify 
 one, to whom celebrity, in any sha]>e, was 
 not acceptable. 
 
 Among the minor faults of Childe Harold, 
 may be mentioned the puerile aftectation of 
 its title; and the occasional introduction of 
 obsoUtt^ >s ords into a poem essentially 
 modern in its character. In this, as in 
 Byron*s other works, the language is not 
 always grammatical, nor are words always 
 used in a correct meaning. Some passages 
 are obscure from indistinctness of thought, 
 and others from awkwardness of expression. 
 In Childe Harold there is another tault, 
 characteristic likewise of some of Lord 
 
64 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 Byron's other writings. It is the want of 
 coherence, of mutual relation of parts, and 
 of general purpose in the poem^ His tran- 
 sitions are singularly abrupt and harsh. The 
 train of thought, or feeling, in which we had 
 been indulging, is snapt without warning; 
 and something wholly foreign from it comes 
 in succession. The associations, which 
 introduce one part after another, seem often . 
 to be purely accidental. Subjects, which 
 have no natural connexion, are thus brought 
 together in strange confusion. The effect 
 is almost as bewildering and unpleasant, as 
 if a volume of sonnets were printed as a 
 single work. It is a poem, which resembles 
 the walls of some modern erection, composed 
 in part of ancient marbles, — friezes, inscrip- 
 tions, and relievos, — placed without order. 
 Lord Byron " told me," says Med win, 
 
OF LORD BYRON. TO 
 
 '* that when he wrote, he neither knew nor 
 cared what was coming next." This, adds 
 Med win, '* is the true inspiration of the 
 poet." The doctrine is comfortable for 
 those who are aspiring to be poets ; but, as 
 yet, it is supported only by the practice of 
 Lord Byron, and the authority of Captain 
 Medwin. 
 
 Of the life led by Lord Byron in London, 
 after the publication of the first two cantos 
 of Childe Harold, there are statements 
 and details enough in Dallas and Medwin. 
 Courted by trifling and profligate men, and 
 by fashionable and dissolute women, he 
 indulged, without restraint of any sort, in 
 the vices to which he was exposed. The 
 view that is given of fashionable society in 
 London, after every allowance which the 
 case may require, is such as should make us 
 
 F 
 
66 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 thankful, that we, of the new world, are free 
 from its folly and impurity. He who 
 chooses to look for anything in that poem, 
 may find a commentary upon the accounts 
 of Dallas and Medwin, in some of the cantos 
 of Don Juan. *' I had the reputation," 
 said Byron, '' of being* a great rake, and 
 was a great dandy;" and of this sort of 
 reputation, he is reported to have been as 
 Tain, as of the fame of being a great poet. 
 In January, 1815, he was married to Miss 
 Millbank. The next year, he deserted his 
 wife, and his native land. He subsequently 
 inherited a fortune, as the husband of the 
 lady whom he had abandoned ;* and seems 
 
 ♦ Medwin reports him to have said, on two different occasions, that 
 vrhen he paid back his wife's portion, he added a sum of equal amoui>t 
 viz. ^lO.OCO. This is stated to be false by Lord Byron's friend, the 
 yfeatminster Reviswer; who likewise contradicts another account of 
 Byron's generosity in voluntarily relinquishing the half of Lady Noel's 
 fortune after her death. According to Medwin, he said, " I mijiht 
 have claimed all the fortune for my life, if T had chosen to have 
 done so." One may reasonably doubt whether all this incorrectness 
 i» to be chariied on Medwin. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 67 
 
 to have felt no hesitation about regarding 
 the legal title which he had to it, as giving 
 him a moral right to its possession. He 
 continued to persecute Lady Byron after 
 their separation. He dragged her before 
 the world in his various works, for the sake 
 of changing, if possible, the strong current 
 of public sentiment, and directing it against 
 her. He endeavoured to represent himself 
 as the one, who *' had suffered things to be 
 forgiven," bitter wrongs ; but whose heavy 
 curse should be forgiveness.* At the same 
 time, with the disregard of consistency, 
 which marks his writings and character, he 
 announced that he married without love; 
 that even while he stood at the altar, the 
 vision of another came over his mind, and 
 
 • See Childe Ilarold, Cant. IV. stan. 135. 
 
 F 2 
 
OO CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 changed his countenance ; and that while he 
 ''spoke the fitting vows, he heard not his 
 own words."* Again, he represented his 
 'vife as teaching his child to hate him as a 
 duty;t and in his Don Juan, he directed 
 against her all the power of ridicule which 
 he possessed. 
 
 The necessary effect of Lord Byron's 
 course of life was to deprave and harden his 
 heart, and to deepen the natural gloom of 
 his temper. His thoughts seem to have 
 been, not unfrequently, directed to the sub- 
 ject of religion. He regarded its truths 
 with doubt, with dread, and with defiance. 
 Soon after his return from abroad, his 
 professed infidelity led Mr. Dallas to endea- 
 
 * See " The Dream." 
 
 i *' And Uiough dull hate as duty should be taught/' &c. Cbilde 
 Harold, Cant, III. stan. 117. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. (>9 
 
 vour to produce an impression, upon his mind 
 favourable to Christianity, or to what the 
 former regarded as Christianity, It is difii- 
 cult, however, to award the praise which 
 such an attempt might deserve, considering 
 the deplorable manner in which it was 
 executed. It is melancholy to know, that a 
 professed defender of our religion addressed 
 a mind like Lord Byron's, with language and 
 arguments such as follow. — 
 
 '* I compare such philosophers as you, and 
 Hume, and Gibbon, ( — I have put you into 
 company that you are not ashamed of — ) 
 to mariners wrecked at sea, buflPeting the 
 waves for life, and at last carried by a current 
 towards land, where, meeting with rugged 
 and perpendicular rocks, they decide that 
 it is impossible to land, and, though some of 
 their companions point out a firm beach, 
 
70 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 exclaim — ' Deluded things ! there can be 
 no beach, unless you melt down these tre- 
 mendous rocks — no, our ship is wrecked, 
 and to the bottom we must go — all we have 
 to do is to swim on, till fate overwhelms us/ 
 — You do not deny the depravity of the 
 human race — well, that is one step gained — 
 it is allowing that we are cast away — it is, 
 figuratively, our shipwreck. Behold us, then,, 
 all scattered upon the ocean, and all anxious 
 to be saved — all, at least, willing to be on 
 terra firma ; the Humes, the Gibbons, the 
 Voltaires, as well as the Newtons, the 
 Lockes, the Johnsons, &c. The latter make 
 for the beach ; the former exhaust their 
 strength about the rocks, and sink, declaring^ 
 them insurmountable. The incarnation of a 
 Deity; vicarious atonement! the innocent 
 suffering for the guilty ! the seeming in- 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 71 
 
 consistencies of the Old Testament, and 
 the discrepancies of the New ! &c. &c ! 
 are rocks which I am free to own are 
 not easily melted down ; but I am certain 
 that they may be viewed from a point on 
 the beach in less deterring forms, lifting their 
 heads into the clouds indeed, yet adding 
 sublimity to the prospect of the shores on 
 which we have landed, and by no means 
 impeding our progress upon it. In less meta- 
 phorical language, my lord, it appears to me, 
 that freethinkers are generally more eager 
 to strengthen their objections than solicitous 
 for conviction ; and prefer wandering into 
 proud inferences, to pursuing the evidences 
 pf facts ; so contrary to the example given 
 to us in all judicial investigations, where tes- 
 timony precedes reasoning, and is the ground 
 of it. The corruption of human nature being 
 
72 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 self-evident, it is very natural to inquire the 
 cause of that corruption, and as natural to 
 hope that there may be a remedy for it. The 
 cause and the remedy have been stated. 
 
 **How are we to ascertain the truth of 
 them? not by arguing mathematically, but 
 by first examining the proofs adduced ; and 
 if they are satisfactory, to use our reasoning 
 powers, as far as they will go, to clear away 
 the difficulties which may attend them."* 
 
 It is easy to imagine, how " such a phi- 
 losopher " as Lord Byron, would be affected 
 by such rhetoric and such reasoning. It 
 tended, without doubt, more than anything 
 else, which could have been written by a man 
 of Mr. Dallas' powers, to strengthen him in 
 his scepticism. Mr. Dallas proceeds to relate. 
 
 ** Lord Byron noticed, indeed, what I had 
 
 • pp. 88, 89. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 73 
 
 written, but in a very discouraging manner. 
 He would have nothing to do with the sub- 
 ject, — we should all go down together, he 
 said, * So,' quoting St. Paul, ' let us eat and 
 drink, for to-morrow we die ;' — he felt satis- 
 fied in his creed, for it was better to sleep 
 than to wake."'* 
 
 Such as we have seen, being the character 
 of Lord Byron, it could not be expected, 
 that his poetry would have much tendency 
 to raise and improve mankind, much moral 
 beauty, or much that could be agreeable to 
 our higher and purer feelings. It has not. 
 The energy of his passions, and his intense 
 egotism, made him a poet. They demanded 
 for their expression the vehement and 
 piercing tones, which are sometimes uttered 
 in hia verses. He excels in the exhibition 
 
 • pp. 90. 
 
74 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 of pride, resolution, obstinacy, and solitary 
 self dependence. No one could express 
 with more force the corroding reflections of 
 a perverted and degraded mind ; nor add to 
 the bitterness with which he pours out his 
 loathing of life, and what were regarded by 
 him as its purposes. He puts forth the 
 whole strength of his soul in giving a voice 
 to fierce and wicked passions, in the agony 
 of their self inflicted torment. There are 
 few passages, for instance, in his poetry, 
 more powerful than the confession of the 
 Giaour. 
 
 Now nothing left to love or hate. 
 No more with hope or pride elate, 
 I'd rather be the thing that crawls 
 Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls, 
 Than pass my dull, unvarying days 
 Condemn'd to meditate and gaze. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 75 
 
 Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain 
 I wish she had not loved again. 
 She died — I dare not tell thee how ; 
 But look — 'tis written on my brow 1 
 1 here read of Cain the curse and crime, 
 In characters unworn by time. 
 
 He died too in the battle broil. 
 
 I search'd, but vainly searched, to find 
 The workings of a wounded mind ; 
 Each feature of that sullen corse 
 Betray'd his rage, but no remorse. 
 Oh, what had Vengeance given to trace 
 Despair upon his dying face ! 
 The late repentance of that hour, 
 When Penitence hath lost her power 
 To tear one terror from tlie grave. 
 And will not soothe, and cannot save. 
 
 And she was lost — and yet I breathed. 
 
 But not the breath of human life ; 
 A serpent round my heart was wreathed. 
 And stung my every thought to strife. 
 Alike all time, abhorr'd all place, 
 Shuddering I shrunk from Nature's face. 
 Where every hue that charm'd before 
 The blackness of my bosom wore. 
 
76 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 The rest thou dost already know, 
 And all my sins, and half my wo. 
 
 Tell me no more of fancy's gleam, 
 No, father no, *twas not a dream ; 
 Alas ! the dreamer first must sleep, 
 I only watch'd, and wish'd to weep ; 
 But could not, for my burning brow 
 Throbb'd to the very brain as now : 
 I wish'd but for a single tear, 
 As something welcome, new, and dear, 
 1 wish'd it then, I wish it still. 
 Despair is stronger than my will. 
 Waste not thine orison, despair 
 Is mightier than thy pious prayer ; 
 I would not, if I might, be blest, 
 I want no paradise, but rest. 
 
 A great part of what is most forcible in 
 his poetry consists in the display of his own 
 passions, indulged in imagination without 
 restraint. Throughout almost the whole of 
 it, there is an exhibition, direct or indirect, 
 of his personal feelings and character, either 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 77 
 
 such as they really were, or most commonly 
 modified in such a manner, as seemed to him 
 best adapted to give others that conception 
 of him, which he wished them to entertain ; 
 as of an individual, who, as he describes one 
 of his impersonations of himself, his Lara, 
 
 soared beyond, or sunk beneath, 
 
 The men with whom he felt condemned to breathe. 
 And longed by good or ill to separate 
 Himself from all, who shared his mortal state. 
 
 The characteristics described, mark 
 strongly all his higher poems, such as the 
 last two cantos of Childe Harold, Manfred, 
 the Corsair, and Lara. When the " strong 
 vigour" of his egotism was not *' working at 
 the root," his poetry is often imperfectly 
 conceived and expressed, tame, extravagant, 
 sometimes heavily elaborate, and sometimes 
 
78 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 employed about unfit subjects. Examples 
 of one or another of these faults might be 
 quoted, from the first two cantos of Childe 
 Harold, from that portion of the Giaour 
 which precedes the confession, the Bride of 
 Abydos, the Siege of Corinth, Parasina, the 
 Hebrew Melodies, and some of those pro- 
 ductions of his later years, which, not being 
 remarkable for any extraordinary exhibition 
 of depravity, even his name could not force 
 into notice. Such passages, indeed, may be 
 found in all his writings. The following are 
 from the Siege of Corinth, neither one of the 
 best, nor one of the worst of his poems, hi?! 
 
 '■lb 
 
 There is a temple in ruin stands, 
 Fashion*d by long forgotten hands ; 
 *• Two or three columns, and many a stone, 
 Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown ! 
 Out upon Time ! it will leave no more 
 Of the things to come than the things before ! :ea 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 70 
 
 Out upon Time ! who for ever will leave 
 
 But enough of the past for the future to grieve 
 
 O'er that which hath been, and o'er that which must be; 
 
 What we have seen our sons shall see ; 
 
 Remnants of things that have pass'd away, 
 
 Fragments of stone, rear'd by creatures of clay ! 
 
 The tame description in the first four lines, 
 the triteness and exaggeration of the senti- 
 ment which follows, the strange exclamation, 
 *' Out upon time," and the tripping versifi- 
 cation, render the whole passage almost 
 burlesque. 
 
 And he saw the lean dogs, beneath the wall, 
 
 Hold o'er the dead their carnival, 
 
 Gorging and growling o'er carcase and limb ; 
 
 They were too busy to bark at him ! 
 
 From a Tartar's skull they had stripp'd the flesh, 
 
 As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh ; 
 
 And their white tusks crunch'd o'er the whiter skull 
 
 As it slipp'd through their jaws, ^v hen their edge grew dull. 
 
 As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead, 
 
 When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed. 
 
80 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 The scalps were in the wild dog's maw, 
 The hair was tangled round his jaw. 
 
 If this style of writing, in which the dis- 
 gusting and the loathsome are assumed as 
 proper subjects for description, should 
 become popular, and we have lately had 
 much of it both in poetry and in prose, we 
 may expect before long to be entertained, 
 with striking poetical details of the symptoms 
 and sufferings of the Elephantiasis or Plica 
 Polonica. 
 
 The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein; 
 Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane ; 
 White is the foam of their champ on the bit ; 
 The spears are uplifted ; the matches are lit ; 
 The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar, 
 And crush the wall they have crumbled before ; 
 Forms in his phalanx each Janizar ; 
 Alp at their head ; his right arm is bare, 
 So is thfe blade of his scimitar. , ,.,,,, > , , 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 81 
 
 This, and some of the passages which 
 follow it, have the air of being written in 
 sport, as examples for a new treatise on the 
 Bathos. 
 
 Nothing there, save death, was mute ; 
 
 Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry 
 
 For quarter, or for victory. 
 
 Mingle there with the volleying thunder. 
 
 Which makes the distant cities wonder 
 
 How the sounding battle goes. 
 
 If with them, or for their foes ; 
 
 If they must mourn, or may rejoice 
 
 In that annihilating voice. 
 
 Which pierces the deep hills through and through 
 
 With an echo dread and new ; 
 
 You might have heard it, on that day, 
 
 O'er Salamis and Megara ; 
 
 (We have heard the hearers say,) 
 
 Even unto Piraeus bay. 
 
 There stood an old man — his hairs were white, 
 But his veteran arm was full of might ; 
 So gallantly bore he the brunt of the fray, 
 The dead before him, on that day, 
 In a semicircle lay. 
 
82 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 ^] To return, however, to Lord Byron's more 
 powerful poetry, it may be observed, that 
 though his feelings and passions were in 
 their combination and general character, such 
 as to repel the sympathy of the better part 
 of mankind, yet there are passages of great 
 power, in which some personal emotion is 
 expressed, without offence to moral senti- 
 ment. 
 
 Once more upon the waters J yet once more ! 
 And the waves bound beneath me as a steed 
 That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar ? 
 Swift be their guidance, whereso'er it lead ! 
 Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed. 
 And the rent canvass fluttering strew the gale. 
 Still must I on ; for I am as a weed. 
 Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail 
 Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. 
 
 There is something glorious in the energy, 
 which can regard the ocean as a managed 
 
op LORD BYRON. 83 
 
 steed, welcome its roar, and abandon itself 
 to the storm ; and the feeling which this is 
 adapted to excite, is rendered deeper by the 
 accompanying expression of suffering and 
 solitariness. 
 
 The two last cantos of Childe Harold 
 display much higher poetical powers, than 
 the two preceding. Their author, likewise, 
 has chosen to exhibit his character under a 
 somewhat different and less unamiable aspect. 
 There is more of moral feeling; there i.^ 
 sometimes, even an approach to religious 
 sentiment. 
 
 All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep, 
 But breathless, as we grow when feeling most ; 
 And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep ; — 
 All heaven and earth are still ; from the high host 
 Of stars, to the luU'd lake and mountain coast. 
 All is concentred in a life intense, 
 Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 
 
 g2 
 
84 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 But hath a part of being, and a sense 
 Of that which is of all Creator and defence. 
 
 The admiration and flattery which he had 
 received, the court which had been paid him, 
 the real kindness he had experienced, the 
 readiness of every one to allow his claims to 
 their full extent, and to forget his offences^ 
 and the high rank which he had attained as 
 a popular writer, had all contributed to 
 soften the asperity of his passions, and to 
 take off the edge of his misanthropy. At 
 the same time, when in the full sunshine of 
 favour, he had darkened his own prospects, 
 he had, by his misconduct, separated himself 
 from society and from his country, and he- 
 come a just object of general reprobation. 
 He had, through his evil passions, humbled 
 himself even in the eye of the world. He 
 could not but feel his situation; and he 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 85 
 
 appears, likewise, to have felt something of 
 compunction, and to have admitted the en- 
 trance of better and more serious thoughts, 
 than those with which he had been familiar. 
 It was not for one so circumstanced to assume 
 a tone of defiance, and to talk, very broadly, 
 of contemning his fellow men ; for society 
 had passed on him a sentence of exile ; and 
 he could not glory in what had become an 
 involuntary separation. The world, however, 
 was still wooing him back to its favour ; he 
 was still " begged to be glad, entreated to 
 aspire ;" and to secure that favour, which 
 was his life, he was stimulated to a more 
 splendid exertion of his powers, and led to 
 accommodate himself more to the moral sen- 
 timents of mankind. The last two cantos of 
 Childe Harold, therefore, take precedence 
 of his other works, and afford a fair example 
 
86 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 of his great powers, and some of his great 
 defects as a poet. 
 
 His real character, and his assumed 
 poetical character, which was moulded upon 
 the former, prevented him from feeling or 
 expressing any very extended sympathy with 
 his fellow-men. He could not be a disin- 
 terested sharer in their joys. He had no 
 power of throwing a poetic charm over com- 
 mon scenes and objects, the common interests 
 and hopes of life. He was as little able to 
 compose L' Allegro, or II Penseroso, as the 
 Analogy of Butler. He professed to regard 
 with contempt the ordinary purposes and 
 passions of men, and those powers which are 
 displayed in their gratification and accom- 
 plishment. He felt no enthusiasm in con- 
 templating the energy of high and self- 
 denying virtue. He disbelieved, or affected 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 87 
 
 to disbelieve, its existence. Above all, he 
 was destitute of that faith and those hopes^ 
 which connecting man, in intimate union, 
 with the unseen and the infinite, raise him 
 not less as an intellectual and imaginative, 
 than as a moral, being; and present him 
 under those relations, through which alone 
 he becomes an object of deep and permanent 
 interest. 
 
 Some scenes, however, the gloomy cha- 
 racter of Byron gave him power to conceive 
 strongly ; and with some feelings, it enabled 
 him to sympathise. The distant roar of 
 eannon breaking upon the gaiety of the 
 young and the beautiful, heard first in silence 
 and suspense, and then calling away the 
 devoted to battle and death ; the terror and 
 agony of such a parting ; and the unavailing 
 lamentation over .those spatobed from life, 
 
OO CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 when life is in its bloom and promise, were 
 subjects suited to his temper and powers. 
 The latter, accordingly, are displayed in all 
 their force throughout that passage, which 
 no one who has read it can forget, beginning, 
 
 There was a sound of revelry by night. 
 And Belgium's capital had gathered then 
 Her Beauty and her Chivalry. 
 
 In his description of the sorrow of those 
 who mourn for the dead, gloomy and striking 
 images are accumulated, with a profusion 
 unusual in his poetry ; for in general he has 
 more of passion and strong conception, than 
 of that power of mind, which apprehends 
 resemblances and illustrations, imparting a 
 moral type to material things. 
 
 They mourn, but smile at length ; and, smiling, mourn ; 
 The tree will wither long before it fall ; 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 89 
 
 The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn ; 
 The roof tree sinks, but moulders on the hall, 
 In massy hoariness ; the ruin'd wall 
 Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone ; 
 The bars survive the captive they enthral ; 
 The day drags through though storms keep out the sun ; 
 And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on ; 
 
 Even as a broken mirror, which the glass 
 In every fragment multiplies ; and makes 
 A thousand images of one that was. 
 The same, and still the more, the more it breaks ; 
 And thus the heart will do which not forsakes. 
 Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold. 
 And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches. 
 Yet withers on till all without is old, 
 Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold. 
 
 It was in the same spirit, and with equal 
 power, that he had already described the 
 death of Lara, and the agony of Kaled. 
 
 A breathing but devoted warrior lay ; 
 *Twas Lara bleeding fast from life away. 
 
90 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 His follower once, and now his only guide, 
 Kneels Kaled watchful o'er, his welling side, 
 And with his scarf would staunch the tides that rush. 
 With each convulsion, in a blacker gush ; 
 And then, as his faint breathing waxes low, 
 In feebler, not less fatal trickling flow ; 
 He scarce can speak, but motions him 'tis vain, 
 And merely adds another throb to pain. 
 He clasps the hand that pang which would assuage, 
 And sadly smiles his thanks to that dark page. 
 Who nothing fears, nor feels, nor heeds nor sees. 
 Save that damp brow which rests upon his knees ; — 
 Save that pale aspect, where the eye, though dim. 
 Held all the light that shone on earth for him. 
 
 That deep sense of the quietness, beauty, 
 and still sublimity of nature, which is pro- 
 fessed so strongly in the last two cantos of 
 Childe Harold, seems rather assumed than 
 real. It does not appear to be, as their 
 author professes, a true "love," if such may 
 exist, '* of earth only for its earthly sake;" 
 but rather a factitious sentiment, inteaded to 
 strengthen, by contrast, the impression which 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 91 
 
 he wished to give of his indisposition for 
 human converse. He would have it thought, 
 that he was so separated in character from his 
 fellowmen, that though he "had filed" (that 
 is, defiled) '* his mind," and brought it nearer 
 to their level, still his soul could not bear to 
 hold communion with them, and fled from 
 their intercourse to the solitudes of nature. 
 *'Tome,"he tellsus, 
 
 " High mountains are a feeling, but the hum 
 Of human cities torture ;" 
 
 though, in fact, they were his chosen places 
 of residence. Regarded in any other light, 
 the sentiment of which we are speaking was 
 inconsistent with his character. We accord- 
 ingly find that much of the language, in 
 which it is expressed, is misty and unmeaning, 
 artificial and extravagant. 
 
92 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 I Ye stars ! that are the poetry of heaven ! ^^ 
 
 If in your bright leaves we would read the fat« 
 Of men and empires, — 'tis to be forgiven, 
 That in our aspirations to be great, 
 Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, 
 And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are 
 A beauty and a mystery, and create 
 In us such love and reverence from afar. 
 That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves 
 a star. 
 
 No one, whose mind was really elevated 
 and purified by the solemn grandeur of a 
 midnight sky, would think of expressing his 
 feelings by an allusion to the forgotten folly 
 of astrology, or to the metaphorical uses of 
 the word star. To the latter, the last line 
 may be conjectured to refer; but one can 
 hardly feel certain, that he has divined its 
 meaning. 
 
 But in his descriptions of the loveliness of 
 nature, there is sometimes great beauty, — 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 93 
 
 The mom is up again> the dewy morn. 
 
 With breath all incense, and witli cheek all bloom, 
 
 Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn. 
 
 And living as if earth contained no tomb, — 
 
 And glowing into day ; we may resume 
 
 The march of our existence. 
 
 There are few passages in poetry more 
 richly coloured than the following. 
 
 The Moon is up, and yet it is not night — 
 Sunset divides the sky with her — a sea 
 Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
 Of blue Friuli's mountains ; Heaven is free 
 From clouds, but of all colours seems to be 
 Melted to one vast Iris of the West, 
 Where the Day joins the past Eternity ; 
 While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
 Floats through the azure air — an island of the blest ! 
 
 A single star is at her side, and reigns 
 With her o'er half the lovely heaven ; but still 
 Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains 
 RoU'd o'er the peak of the far Rhaetian hill. 
 As Day and Night contending were, until 
 Nature reclaim 'd her order ; — gently flows 
 The deep dyed Brenta, where their hues instil 
 
94 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 The odorons pttrpte bf a new bom rose, 
 Which streams tipon'her stream, and glass*d within it 
 glows, 
 
 Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar. 
 Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues. 
 From the rich sunset to the rising star. 
 Their magical variety diffuse ; 
 And now they change ; a paler shadow strews 
 Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day 
 Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
 With a new colour, as it gasps away. 
 The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — and all is gray. 
 
 Even in this passage, however, the con- 
 struction is awkward and embarrassing, and 
 the simile of a dying dolphin is disagreeable, 
 both from his triteness, and from its want of 
 moral harmony with the scene described. 
 
 But Byron's descriptions of nature, though 
 they are gemmed with brilliant expressions, 
 yet, taken each as a whole, are, for the most 
 part, unsatisfactory and faulty. They have 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 95 
 
 often the air of being written as a task. 
 There is in his pictures, a want of clearness, 
 of truth, and of a suitable disposition of the 
 parts to each other. The description neither 
 conveys distinct images of what is visible, nor 
 a just impression, of the emotions, which the 
 scene is adapted to produce. There is some- 
 times an exaggeration of false sentiment, 
 which shows a want of true perception and 
 of natural feeling; as for instance in the 
 passage about *' Clarens, sweet Clarens,'' 
 which was intended to be so very sweet: 
 but in writing which the author mistook ex- 
 travagance, and want of meaning for poetry ; 
 the key note of the whole being found in the 
 following words — 
 
 Thy air is the young breath of passionate thought ; 
 Thy trees take root in love. 
 
96 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 The same want of real harmony of mind 
 with the works of nature appears in his des- 
 cription of the cataract of Velino. 
 
 The roar of waters ! — from the headlong height, 
 Velino cleaves the wave worn precipice ; 
 The fall of waters ! rapid as the light, 
 The flashing mass foams, shaking the abyss ; 
 The hell of waters ! where they howl and hiss, 
 And boil in endless torture ; while the sweat 
 Of their great agony, wrung out from this 
 Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet, 
 That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set. 
 
 In aiming at sublimity, Byron here pro- 
 duces only conceptions of disgust and horror. 
 He applies images of bodily torture, and 
 muscular force and convulsion, to a subject 
 to which they are wholly unsuitable. The 
 waters of a cataract are compared to living 
 beings in an agony of pain. There is little 
 external resemblance between their struggles. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 97 
 
 and the overwhelming rush of a torrent ; and 
 none between the feelings, which the one 
 spectacle and the other are adapted to pro- 
 duce. The offensiveness of the passage is 
 in some degree aggravated by the confusion 
 of literal and metaphorical language, and by 
 representing the waters as in a cold sweat. 
 
 Following those just quoted, there are, 
 however, some lines which may remind one 
 of the rich metaphorical language of Shaks- 
 peare. The spray of the torrent, 
 
 With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, 
 Is an eternal April to the ground. 
 Making it all one emerald. 
 
 These lines, however, are in no accordance 
 with what precedes or follows. The turmoil 
 of description is continued through several 
 stanzas ; but the real tameness of feeling, 
 H 
 
98 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 which runs through the whole, betrays itself 
 ia the concluding line of one of them ; 
 
 Look buck ! 
 Lo ! where it comes like an eternity, 
 As if to sweep down all things in its tract, 
 Charming the eye with dread, — a matchless cataract. 
 
 A passage relating to the Appenines, im- 
 mediately follows the description of the cata- 
 ract of Velino. It consists, with one excep- 
 tion, in a not very forcible dilation of the 
 thought, that the author would have admired 
 these mountains more, if he had not beheld 
 others of greater sublimity. The following 
 is a part — 
 
 I have looked on Ida with a Trojan's eye, 
 Athos, Olympus, JEtna., Atlas, made 
 These hills seem things of lesser dignity. 
 
 The exception referred to, is a figure in the 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 99 
 
 highest degree picturesque; *'lone Soracte*s 
 height" 
 
 -from out the plain. 
 
 Heaves like a long swept wave about to break, 
 And [which] on the curl hangs pausing. 
 
 The following is another specimen of 
 Byron's powers of description, from Manfred. 
 
 It is not noon — the sun-bow's rays still arch 
 The torrent with the many hues of heaven, 
 And roll the sheeted silver's waving column 
 O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular, 
 And fling its lines of foaming light along. 
 And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail. 
 The giant steed, to be bestrode by Death, 
 As told in the Apocalypse. 
 
 This passage, which has been admired, 
 would be finer, if it were more intelligible. 
 It is often easy to discover a writer's mean- 
 ing, even where he does not express it 
 h2 
 
IdO CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 correctly ; but this is not the case with the 
 lines before us. What is said is, that the 
 sun-bow's rays roll the waving column, and 
 fling its lines of foaming light along ; what 
 was intended to be said, we cannot conjec- 
 ture. It is clear, however, that the waterfall 
 is first described as a column bf sheeted 
 silver, arched by a rainbow ; and, afterWarSs,, ^ 
 compared to the 
 
 Pale courser's tail. 
 The giant steed [steed's] , to he bestrode by DeatH. 
 
 But this does not seem to be the language , 
 of an accurate observer of nature. It may ) 
 be doubted, whether the appearances sup- 
 posed can coexist at the same point of view. 
 A.V'a "distance from a waterfall, where itt* 
 white foam, in apparently retarded motiotK ' 
 and spreading as it descends, is alooe ^dsible,.. 
 
 ■"%. 
 
 \ 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 101 
 
 the comparison may be admitted; but at 
 such a distance, we see nothing of rainbows, 
 or of sheeted silver, glittering in the sun- 
 beams. 
 
 The effect of what is beautiful and grand 
 in nature, depends 50 much upon the purest 
 moral and religious associations, that he 
 whose mind is destitute of these, can have 
 but little sensibility to her power. It is 
 natui^ji as animated by the imagination, and 
 endued with moral life ; it is nature, as peo- 
 pled with real and imaginary inhabitants, 
 whose joys and interests are blended with 
 t\\e visible scene before us ; it is nature, as 
 the work of God, penetrating us with a 
 feeling of his love, and connecting us with 
 his. infinity ; it is nature in her eternal magni- 
 ficence, calling up images of what is past 
 
102 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 and what is to come, and raising us above 
 the passions of the present hour ; it is nature 
 thus contemplated, and thus acting upon us, 
 that inspires the poet, and elevates the philo- 
 sopher. There is no harmony between her 
 and the misanthropist, the disbeliever in 
 virtue, the man who is the slave of his lusts, 
 or haunted by remorse, or harassed by bitter 
 and angry passions ; him who can talk of the 
 ** skies "as *' raining plagues on men like 
 dew." It was with a very different character 
 from that of Byron, that another poet thus 
 expressed himself: *' I am growing fit, I 
 hope, for a better world, of which the light 
 of the sun is but a shadow ; for 1 doubt not 
 but God's works here are what come nearest 
 to his works there ; and that a true relish of 
 the beauties of nature is the most easy prepa- 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 103 
 
 ration, and gentlest transition to an enjoyment 
 of those of heaven."'* The want of real feel- 
 ing, in many of the descriptions of Byron, is 
 often not merely a deficiency, but makes 
 itself felt as the cause of artificial sentiment, 
 an unnatural straining after effect, and harsh 
 and incongruous images. 
 
 But he has great vividness of conception, 
 and great power of expression ; and where 
 the aspects of nature corresponded to the 
 gloom and storminess of his own mind, there 
 is sometimes a burst of poetry, which will 
 never be excelled. The thunder storm 
 among the Alps — every one recollects it. 
 
 The sky is changed I — and such a change ! Oh night. 
 And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong. 
 
 * This passage is from a letter of Pope to Miss M. Blount ; one of 
 those letters on which Bowles has founded a gross attack upon the 
 morals of that eminent man. The defect of good sense, in Mr. Bowles' 
 reasoning on this subject, is almost as remarkable as his strange malig- 
 nity against the dead. 
 
104 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 Vet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
 Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, 
 From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
 Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud, 
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 
 And Jura answers^ through her misty shroud. 
 Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 
 
 Nothing can be more magnificent. There 
 is here no imperfect personification. The 
 mastery of the poef s spell is complete ; and 
 the thunder and the mountains are alive. 
 
 We may feel more fully the wonderful 
 power of this passage, by comparing it with 
 another description of the same kind, which 
 has been, perhaps, more celebrated than any 
 other, that of Virgil, in his first Georgic. 
 
 Ipse Pater, media nimborum in nocte, corusc4 
 Fulmina molitur dextra ; quo maxima motu 
 Terra tremit ; fugere ferae ; ct mortalia corda 
 Per gentes hunxilis stravit pavor ; ille flagranti 
 
OF LORD BYRON, 105 
 
 Aut Atho, aut Rhodopen, aut alta Ceraunia telo 
 Dejicit ; ingeminant austri et densissimus imber ; 
 Nunc nemora ingenti vento, nunc littora, plangunt.* 
 
 It may be curious to observe, that the 
 superiority of the former passage arises, in 
 part, from its greater conformity to nature. 
 The thunder storm of Virgil, by which the 
 whole earth is shaken, and mortal hearts 
 prostrated with fear through the nations, is 
 far too extensive and powerful in its effects. 
 
 * Of such a passage, it is in vain to attempt to give a satisfactory 
 translation. The following is somewhat more literal than any other 
 we have seen. 
 
 Amid a night of storms, the Almighty Sire 
 Wields the fierce thunder, his right arm on fire; 
 The huge earth trembles; tlie wild beasts have fled; 
 Throughout the nations, men are bowed with dread. 
 He, with his flaming dart, meanwhile strikes down 
 The crest of Rhodope, or Athos' crown. 
 Or the Ceraunian summits. The deep roar 
 Of wind and rain redoubles. On the shore. 
 The raving billows dash with ceaseless sound. 
 And groaning forests answer far around. 
 
106 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 His description does not give us that feeling 
 of reality, for the want of which no poetical 
 language can compensate. In addition to 
 this, Virgil's sole agent is Jupiter ; and we 
 do not perceive why he acts. There is no 
 moral character connected with the display 
 of what may be called his physical power. 
 The conception, for anything which appears, 
 may be that of a capricious tyrant. But in 
 the verses of Byron, the phenomena of 
 nature are indued with forms of life, fully 
 corresponding to the powerful impressions, 
 which they are adapted to produce. 
 
 In the passage from Byron, it is true, 
 that " the light of a dark eye in woman," is 
 out of place, not being in accordance with 
 the gigantic sublimity and force of the 
 images, among which it is introduced. The 
 description, likewise, is continued through 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 107 
 
 another stanza of inferior merit, and which 
 concludes with an imagination, than which 
 there is scarcely anything more burlesque in 
 his Beppo or Don Juan — 
 
 -and now the glee 
 
 Of the loud hills shakes with their mountain mirth, 
 As if they did rejoice o'er a youn^ earthquake's birth. 
 
 The disproportion and incongruity between 
 the powers of Byron's mind, and especially 
 the want of strong moral sentiment, corres- 
 ponding to and sustaining the vigour of his 
 conceptions, appear equally in other passages 
 of his writings, as in his descriptions of 
 nature. His force is sometimes that of a 
 blind Cyclops, aimless and purposeless. 
 Without religious faith, regarding himself 
 and others as mere beings of this world, 
 taking pleasure in representing himself as 
 
108 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 degraded and miserable, and his fellow men 
 as creatures with whom he was unwilling to 
 be ranked, he excluded from his poetry all 
 the infinite variety of thoughts and feelings, 
 which belong to the higher part of our nature. 
 He did not recognise those great truths, 
 with which all just sentiments are connected. 
 In his mind, the source of intellectual day 
 was darkened, and he perceived not the 
 beautiful colouring, and the ever varying 
 lights and shadows, which it spreads over the 
 objects of thought and imagination. The 
 scepticism of a depraved heart is not incon- 
 sistent with the vehement expression of 
 strong passions, or of deep gloom ; but it is 
 inconsistent with all generous and invigorat- 
 ing purposes and sentiments, and with all 
 those emotions, which are most sublime and 
 ennobling. The poetry of Byron is the 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 109 
 
 poetry of earth only ; where it is not, as in 
 his Cain, the poetry of hell. His mind, 
 strongly acted upon by a few objects, reacted 
 strongly upon them. But the sphere within 
 which his intellect exerted itself was narrow. 
 Scarcely any writer has so much of what is 
 essentially repetition. Every one begins to 
 grow weary at last of being told of his 
 misanthropy and his misery, his passions and 
 his pride, the worthlessness of man and the 
 worthlessness of life. 
 
 From the causes which have been men- 
 tioned, there is often a striking contrast 
 between the grandeur of Byron's concep- 
 tions, and the poverty and deadness of the 
 sentiment, with which they are connected. 
 The latter resembles some worthless corpse, 
 lying in state, surrounded by the insignia of 
 nobility, and with banners hanging over iU 
 
110 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 Let us take, for example, one of his most 
 striking passages. 
 
 Oh Rome ! my country ! city of the soul 1 
 The orphans of the heart must turn to thee. 
 Lone mother of dead empires ! and control 
 In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
 What are our woes and sufferance ! Come and see 
 The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
 O'er steps of broken thrones and temples. Ye I 
 Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
 A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 
 
 The Niobe of nations ! there she stands, 
 Childless and crownless, in her voiceless wo ; 
 An empty urn within her wither'd hands, 
 Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago ; 
 The Scipios* tomb contains no ashes now ; 
 The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
 Of their heroic dwellers ; dost thou flow, 
 Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? 
 Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. 
 
 There is nothing in poetry more colossal 
 and imposing, than some of the expressions 
 
OF LORD BYRON. Ill 
 
 in this passage — *' Lone mother of dead 
 empires " — 
 
 The Niobe of nations ! there she stands, 
 Childless and crownless. 
 
 In what follows, images of desolated great- 
 ness are brought before us with powerful 
 effect — 
 
 The Scipios* tomb contains no ashes now ; 
 The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
 Of their heroic dwellers ; dost thou flow, 
 Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? 
 
 What, then, is the defect of this passage ? 
 We answer, the unnatural and false senti- 
 ment, which is arrayed with all this magnifi- 
 cence. Rome is personified, and represented 
 as standing overwhelmed with her voiceless 
 wo ; and we are called upon, in contemplat- 
 ing the misery felt by this personification, to 
 
112 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 repress the expression of our own sufferings. 
 The figure itself is carried too far, and its 
 effect weakened, when the imagination of 
 distress is distinctly introduced. But the 
 thought becomes altogether incongruous, 
 when this imaginary distress is applied to 
 the moral purpose of enforcing patience 
 upon those, whose agonies are represented 
 as nothing in comparison, being but the evils 
 of a day. Strong sympathy, even with the 
 real sufferings of those who have lived during 
 past ages, is not the feeling, which a con- 
 templation of the ruins of human glory is 
 ndturally adapted to produce. With the 
 false sentiment, which runs through the pas- 
 sage, is connected the tame extravagance of 
 the concluding apostrophe to the Tiber— 
 
 HUe with tiiy yellow waves, and mantle her distres*. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 113 
 
 In the following stanza, Rome is still the 
 subject. 
 
 The double night of ages, and of her 
 Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap* 
 All round us ; we but feel our way to err ; 
 The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, 
 And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; 
 But Rome is as the desert, where we steer, 
 Stumbling o'er recollections ; now we clap 
 Our hands, and cry * Eureka?* it is clear — < 
 When but some false mirage of ruin rises n» . 
 
 Here, again, we have, as it were, an 
 Egyptian mausoleum for the remains of a 
 deified animal. The rich poetical language 
 rather conceals than expresses the meaning, 
 which, when discovered, is nothing more, 
 than that the antiquaries are in doubt about 
 tlie original names and purposes of some of 
 the ruins of Rome ; that it is a question, for 
 
 • JVraps is required by grammar. 
 
 I 
 
114 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 instance, whether the remains of a portico 
 belonged to a Temple of Mars, or a Basilic 
 of Antoninus Pius. This is not a fact to be 
 announced with such elaborate solemnity. 
 
 In some passages, the poverty of senti- 
 ment is such, that there is only the shadow 
 of a thought; nothing real and palpable. 
 
 The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust 
 The iron crown of laurel's mimic'd leaves ; 
 Nor was the ominous element unjust, 
 For the true laurel -wreath which Glory weave* 
 Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, 
 And the false semblance but disgraced his brow ; 
 Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves. 
 Know, that the lightning sanctifies below 
 Whate'er it strikes; yon head is doubly sacred now. 
 
 The semblance of meaning in this passage 
 must disappear in any attempt to express it 
 in prose. We can only arrange the thoughts 
 in succession. *' It was not unjust in the 
 
OP LORD BYRON. US 
 
 lightning which is ominous^ to strike the 
 iron crown from the bust of Ariosto, for 
 Ariosto himself was entitled, metaphorically 
 speaking, to a laurel crown ; and there is a 
 fable, that the laurel is not struck by light- 
 ning. Therefore, the crown on his bust, 
 being only made of metal, in imitation of 
 laurel, disgraced it. But if the superstitious 
 are still troubled, it may be added, that it 
 was the custom of the ancients to consecrate 
 to the gods what had been struck with light- 
 ning, therefore the bust of Ariosto is now 
 doubly sacred." The want of any proper 
 relation between the thoughts thus forced 
 together, renders the whole passage un- 
 meaning. 
 
 In the expression of abstract sentiment, in 
 all which might imply a philosophical spirit, 
 or just and comprehensive habits of thinking, 
 I 2 
 
116 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 Byron is equally deficient. He had no fixed 
 principles of belief or action ; and, in conse- 
 quence, there is much opposition and incon- 
 gruity of opinion and feeling, expressed 
 throughout his works. There is scarcely 
 any subject on which he appears to have 
 thought consistently or correctly. It may 
 be doubted, whether there is a single passage 
 in his writings, adapted to fix itself in the 
 memory, as a striking expression of any 
 general truth. The following is one of his. 
 most laboured efforts. 
 
 But quiet to quick boaoms is a hell, 
 And there Imth been thy bane ; there is a fire 
 And motion of tl>e soul which will not 4l\vell 
 In its own narrow being, but aspire 
 Beyond the fitting medium of desire ; 
 III And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, 
 ^« Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire 
 
 Of aught but rest ; a fever at the core, 
 Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 117 
 
 This makes the madmen who have made men mad 
 By their contagion ; Conquerors and Kings, 
 Founders of sects and systems, to whom add 
 Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things 
 Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, 
 And are themselves the Fools to those they fool ; 
 Envied, yet how unenviable ! what stings 
 Are theirs ! One breast laid open were a school. 
 Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule ; 
 
 Their breath is agitation, arwl their life 
 A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, 
 And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, ' 
 
 That should their days surviving perils past. 
 Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast 
 With sorrow and supineness, and so die ; 
 Even as ^ flame unfed, which runs to waste 
 With its own flickering, or a sword laid by 
 Wliich eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. 
 
 He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find 
 The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow ; 
 He who surpasses or subdues mankind. 
 Must look down on the hate of those below. 
 Though high above the sun of ^lory glow, 
 And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 
 Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
 
118 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 Contending tempests on his naked head, 
 And thn^ reward the toils which to those summits led. 
 
 The concluding simile is trite. The whole 
 sense of the passage is, that those who act 
 powerfully upon their fellowmen are all 
 governed but by one feeling, a feverish 
 restlessness, which leads them to aspire to 
 what is unlawful ; that they are all sources of 
 mischief to others, and objects of their hate ; 
 and that they are all peculiarly unhappy 
 themselves. The Edinburgh reviewer en- 
 tered into a formal refutation of the latter 
 doctrine. The other positions do not seem 
 to be more profound or tenable. 
 
 In the delineation of his heroes, either in 
 narrative or dramatic poetry, Byron is not 
 successful. They are, in general modifica- 
 tions of his poetical image of his own charac- 
 ter ; combinations, a little varied, of the 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 119 
 
 same elementary passions. In tracing, how- 
 ever, their resemblance to his imagination of 
 himself, we must take into account the gra- 
 dual changes of his mind and heart. In his 
 latter years, the fire of his passions was 
 smouldering; he was becoming a grosser 
 sensualist ; his feelings had lost their keen- 
 ness ; after his fashion, he speculated more 
 and imagined less. Thus Childe Harold 
 was the ideal picture of his youth, and 
 Sardanapalus was drawn from the same 
 character, when withered and decaying. 
 The first, in his predominant features, is a 
 misanthropist, sated with pleasure, yet per- 
 ceiving no other good ; the last, a. voluptuary, 
 who has learnt to philosophise, and is only 
 indifferent to everything but pleasure. 
 3yron was a magician, without the art of 
 ^evoking other spirits, but possessing, like 
 
120 CHARA.CTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 Kehania, the power of multiplying himself. 
 But when the inconsistencies of his own 
 fluctuating passions were fixed, and exagge- 
 rated, and made to coexist as permanent, 
 active qualities in his poetical creations^ 
 imaginary characters were produced, such as 
 nature never knew. There is a moral ab- 
 surdity in the confusion of qualities brought 
 together. In his Corsair, for instance, he 
 exhibits a pirate, who has *'a laughing devil 
 in his sneer," and whose frown of hatred 
 withered all hope of mercy, but whose 
 strongest feeling, at the same time, is the 
 purest and most tender affection. Hi^ sense 
 of honour is so exquisite,, that he prefers 
 being impaled himself to destroying an enemy 
 while asleep, whose life, whiFe awake, he 
 had just before assaulted in the character of 
 a spy. The inconsistency admits of no aggra- 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 121 
 
 vation ; or it might be added, that in the 
 continuation of the same story, this high- 
 minded pirate is guilty of cowardly assassina- 
 tion. The moral painting in this picture of 
 character, is as if one were to represent 
 tender and beautiful flowers springing up 
 among the ashes and scoriae, which form the 
 crater of a volcano. Where there is less of 
 incongruity in the qualities assigned by 
 Byron to his heroes, there is at least some 
 unnatural extravagance, irreconcilable with 
 moral probability. The consequence is, that 
 no clear and well defined impression of 
 character is left upon the mind. As individu- 
 als they possess no power over our sympathy. 
 They are only shadowy and monstrous shapes 
 of things, which never were, nor can be. 
 
 In his presentations of female character, 
 there is less inconsistency, but they, likewise. 
 
122 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 are formed after one model. They are very 
 beautiful, passionately fond, full of simplicity, 
 tenderness, and constancy. This is a very 
 interesting combination of qualities, which is 
 marred only by one uniform defect. They 
 have neither good sense, nor good taste, in 
 selecting the objects of their affection. They 
 are all possessed with the sentiment, ex- 
 pressed in one of Moore's songs — 
 
 ** I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in thy heart, 
 I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.*' 
 
 Byron's writings have throughout a personal 
 reference ; and of such affections he eould 
 conceive himself the object. 
 
 Some of the most striking characteristics 
 of his poetry belong rather to the age, than 
 to the individual. It is, or it assumes to be, 
 the expression of strong feeling and passion. 
 But poetry had been growing too mechanica,l 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 128 
 
 aa art. There was a tendency to address, 
 not so much the universal feelings of men, 
 as the artificial taste of connoisseurs. It had 
 been too much confined to merely arbitrary 
 rules. Its language was becoming vague, 
 unmeaning, traditionary. It abounded in 
 idle epithets, loosely applied. It was over- 
 run with conventional figures, conceptions, 
 and modes of thought, which had long ceased 
 to correspond to anything really existing in 
 men's hearts and mind, and which have now 
 become wholly obsolete. The muse was 
 still invoked, as she was by Homer, three 
 thousand years ago ; men thought that they 
 wrote of love, when they talked about Venus 
 and Cupid, wounds, flames, and darts ; the 
 heathen mythology still flourished in English 
 verae; heroes were arrayed in rhyme, in 
 ancient costume and armour ; and the shep- 
 
124 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 herds and shepherdesses of the golden days 
 were seen in vision in the streets of London. 
 Much that was admired in its day, as the 
 heroic plays of Dryden, the Henry and 
 Emma of Prior, the pastorals of Shenstone, 
 and, we must add, of Pope, the love elegies 
 of Hammond, and in fact, a great part 
 of the amatory poetry in our language, had 
 but little relation to human passions and 
 feelings, but seemed to be adapted to some 
 strange, grotesque, and often very disagree- 
 able race of beings, among whom the author 
 had transferred himself from the living world 
 around him. These remarks do not refer to 
 any particular school of poets, and still less 
 to all the poets of any particular period ; but 
 to certain prevailing faults in poetry, which 
 had gone unchecked for a considerable time, 
 and which were removing it, farther and 
 
>.r>/ OP LORD BYRON. 125 
 
 farther, from its true character. The decre- 
 pitude of the artificial style, which has been 
 described, appears in the writings of Hayley, 
 and some other poets of his day; and the 
 false taste, which had been nourished, is 
 proved by the temporary popularity which 
 these writers attained. Hayley was, for a 
 time, the greatest living poet of England, 
 But at the very period when poetry had 
 become most artificial and insipid, the intel- 
 lectual powers of men had begun to display 
 themselves in action and speculation, with a 
 force, which seemed to have been accumulat- 
 ing during a period of repose. One of those 
 eras had commenced, which mark the history 
 of mankind. The impulse was given in our 
 country, where the last half century has been 
 a period of almost uninterrupted improve- 
 ment. In Europe it has been a season^ of 
 
126 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 terrible contests and destruction ; of crimea 
 and madness, yet of high qualities and great 
 virtues ; of the overturn and re-establishment 
 of thrones ; of strong passions, good and 
 in array against each other ; of bold specu- 
 lations, true and false, conflicting with the 
 most established and authoritative prejudices ; 
 and of the natural feelings and desires of 
 men, struggling against artificial and oppres- 
 sive forms of society. But there too much 
 has been gained. Considering the human 
 character under its most favourable aspect, 
 we may say, that man has become a being 
 of bolder purposes, of wider views, of higher 
 principles of action, more consistent and 
 intrepid in his reasonings, more energetic in 
 his will, more tender, generous, and sincere 
 in his affections. 
 
 But poetry of the kind that has been 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 127 
 
 spoken of, was not suited to the character of 
 such an age. There was a demand for 
 something more true, natural and vigorous. 
 There was a still stronger demand for some- 
 thing more exciting and passionate. The 
 craving for poetry of the latter character was 
 so strong, that the most rude and extrava- 
 gant attempts were for a time received with 
 favour. The writers of the Delia Cruscan 
 school, now never mentioned but by way of 
 ridicule, enjoyed a temporary blaze of popu- 
 larity in England ; and the forgotten book. 
 The British Album, in which some of their 
 verses were collected, was republished and 
 extensively circulated in this country, at a 
 time when the reprinting of a literary work 
 was a rare event. Under the influences 
 described, a new spirit has been communi- 
 cated to English literature, conformed to the 
 
128 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 character of the age. All that was merely, 
 arbitrary, traditional, and factitious, has 
 fallen into contempt. So far the change has 
 been well. But the unalterable principles 
 of taste, founded in the nature of man, and 
 the eternal truths of morality and religion, 
 have, likewise, been neglected or outraged, 
 as antiquated prejudices. By some writers, 
 the highest excellence has been attained, in 
 accordance with the improved character of 
 man. By others, the vilest and grossest 
 passions, the worst part of human nature, 
 has been addressed without reserve. Some 
 have enlarged the sphere of our imagination 
 and feelings, conducting us to new prospects, 
 — avia Pleridum loca, nullius ante irita 
 solo. Others, for the sake of producing- 
 some effect, have hazarded anything, how- 
 ever strange and offensive. There have 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 120 
 
 been writers, who appeared to think, that 
 there is no proper distinction of our emotions 
 into agreeable and disagreeable ; and that if 
 their readers were but strongly moved it 
 was enough ; no matter whether with simply 
 painful sympathy, or disgust or horror. 
 Others, of great genius, like Wordsworth, 
 in their dislike of the artificial style of poetry, 
 have seemed to fancy that everything natural 
 must be pleasing ; and that he, who, even in 
 the most common language, should give an 
 account of his feelings, however trifling, or 
 however accidental in their origin, must 
 interest the feelings of his readers. They 
 have even caricatured the simplicity of nature. 
 We have had popular writers of every class, 
 from Edgeworth, and Scott, and the author 
 of Thalaba, down to the riotous swagger- 
 ers, who furnish the rank extravagances of 
 
130 CHARACTER AND WRITINGST 
 
 Blackwood's magazine. But there is no wri- 
 ter, whose works have corresponded more 
 than those of Byron, to the powerful, energet- 
 ic, and passionate character of the times, have 
 been more deeply stamped with the impres- 
 sion of its vices, or have been more adapted 
 to satisfy the morbid appetite, which has exist- 
 ed, for every kind of excitement. This has 
 been one of the accidental causes of his ex- 
 traordinary popularity. 
 
 Another cause, contributing much to the 
 great interest, which has been felt in his 
 works, is their egotism. Though they do 
 not bear the form, they have, in fact, the 
 character of ** Confessions." But he, who 
 writes of himself and his own emotions, is 
 secure of readers. By a natural delusion, 
 it seems as if the author were giving his 
 confidence to us individually, and we are 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 131 
 
 ready to make him a return of our sympathy 
 and regard. We are interested both in the 
 writer, and in the knowledge which we fancy 
 he may communicate. We are curious to 
 know the inward structure and motions of 
 another human mind, the secrets of another 
 heart like our own. He may tell tis, as it 
 seems, what we could not, or dared not tell 
 ourselves. But, in truth, such intimate 
 knowledge of another mind is not to be de- 
 rived from a confidence, which we share 
 only in common with all the rest of the 
 world. It is not humility, but vanity,, which 
 prompts the writer of confessions. They 
 may acknowledge much evil of themselves, 
 for this acknowledgment,^ instead of dimi- 
 nishing the interest of their readers, may 
 contribute to enhance it. There are many 
 sentiments of which men delight to be the 
 K 2 
 
132 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 objects, besides approbation ; and some of 
 them are rather increased than weakened 
 by vices and defects of character. Such 
 writers may, even with Rousseau and Byron, 
 avow actions of qualities, which in them- 
 selves are merely revolting, for this avowal 
 may be accompanied with the implication, 
 that their faults are intimately connected 
 with excellencies altogether peculiar ; and in 
 fact, are only marks of a moral idiosyncrasy, 
 by which the individual is distinguished from, 
 and raised above other men. Vices may 
 even be feigned or exaggerated, as we find 
 in real life, for the sake of bringing out some 
 favourite trait of character in bolder relief; 
 or of giving stronger solicitude to the sympa- 
 thy, which has been excited by other qualities. 
 But whatever is told, the simple truth is not 
 told. The author conforms his accounts. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 133 
 
 and his expressions of feeling, to some 
 imaginary conception of himself, which he 
 secretly admires, and fancies others will 
 admire. The popularity, therefore, of such 
 w^ritings, is not lasting. In a little time, 
 men find that they have been deceived, and 
 cheated out of their sympathy and admira- 
 tion. The author betrays himself in his own 
 writings ; the facts of his life, as they are 
 more known and attended to, are perceived 
 to be inconsistent with his exhibition of him- 
 self; and some Grimm, some Marmontel, or 
 some Medwin, some enemy or some friend, 
 springs up to give the literal prose story of 
 what had appeared only in poetical and 
 picturesque guise. Thus the true character 
 of the individual gradually displaces his the- 
 atrical personation of himself. In the age 
 after that in which it is written, his book, 
 
134 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 like the Confessions of Rousseau, ceases to 
 be an object of feeling and enthusiasm. 
 Its vitality is gone, and it remains only as a 
 subject of moral analysis to the student of 
 human nature. The life and writings of 
 Byron corresponded less with each other, thaa 
 those of Rosseau; and in the poetry of the 
 former, there are grosser incongruities, thaw 
 in the prose of the latter, Byron was con- 
 tinually calling upon men in the most moving 
 language, to inform them, that he did not 
 wish for their notice or concern ; he wa» 
 pouring out unremitted wailings, and avow- 
 ing, at the same time, that he had learnt, 
 with stern resolution, to suffer in solitude and 
 silence ; he was professing his dislike and 
 contempt of the world in constant efforts to^ 
 secure its admiration and favour. 
 
 That he truly suffered, from a gloomy 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 135 
 
 temperament, and from the natural effects of 
 his vices, there can be no doubt. But this 
 is vulgar misery, very different from that 
 '* sublime sadness, breathed from the myste- 
 ries of our mortal existence,"* with which 
 his more enthusiastic admirers thought him 
 to be possessed. As he lived longer, his 
 feelings became more callous, and he ac- 
 quired more of selfish recklessness. Every 
 one now knows, that Lord Byron, as a man, 
 was a different personage from the Lord Byron 
 of his own poetry. The accounts of his life 
 and his conversations, the levity of his prose 
 writings, and the last employment of his 
 days, his Don Juan, have left few believers 
 in his sublime and mysterious melancholy. 
 
 Lord Byron's course of life, while on the 
 continent, after leaving England, answered to 
 
 • Edinburgh Review, vol. 30. p. 98. Am. Ed. 
 
136 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 that which he before led. His last mistress 
 was a married woman, the daughter of an 
 Italian coimt, whose family, with an insen- 
 sibility to infamy, not, we hope, to be found 
 out of Italy, did not feel the connexion a& 
 disgraceful. The character of the few com- 
 panions with whom he principally associated, 
 is well known. He produced various works, 
 some of which cannot be spoken of with 
 too severe reprobation ; while others had 
 not striking qualities of any kind, sufficient 
 to attract much notice. He perceived that 
 his fame was sinking under him, that he 
 was beginning to be regarded with but 
 little of poetical enthusiasm, and that he 
 had outraged too far the moral sentiments 
 of mankind. He felt this state of things 
 with abundant irritability, which he express- 
 ed in verses as spirited as the following, — 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 1^7 
 
 the only extract we shall give from his Don 
 Juan. 
 
 Dogs or men ! (for I flatter you in saying 
 That ye are dogs — your betters far) ye may 
 
 Read, or read not, what I am now essaying. 
 To show ye what ye are in every way. 
 
 As little as the moon stops for the baying 
 
 Of wolves, will the bright muse withdraw one ray 
 From out her skies — tlien howl your idle wrath I 
 While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path. 
 
 Under such circumstances, weary of life^ 
 disgusted with his pursuits, sensible that he 
 had wantonly perverted his extraordinary 
 powers, and become an object of universal 
 disapprobation; yet desirous, as ever, of 
 being distinguished by the admiration of 
 the world, he was led to change the scene, 
 and undertake his expedition to Greece. 
 The romance of his admirers was revived 
 
138 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 for a time by this event. But no one, we 
 suppose, imagines that he rendered, or was 
 capable of rendering, any important services 
 to the cause of that country. If the Greeks 
 are, as we hope, to recover their freedom, 
 it may be well for their posterity, that he 
 had not the power. The examples of those 
 distinguished in the history of a nation, as 
 its benefactors, are likely to have much 
 influence upon the national character. Our 
 own country has, in that respect, been pecu- 
 liarly fortunate. It would have been unhappy 
 for Greece, if Lord Byron had been her 
 Lafayette. 
 
 There is a passage in Medwin's work, 
 which is striking, both from the scene des- 
 cribed, and from the view which it gives of 
 Lord Byron's desertion during his residence 
 in Italy ; and still more from the light, which 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 139 
 
 it throws upon the state of his feelings and 
 character. The writer himself is apparently 
 unconscious of what he has thus contributed 
 to bring before us. Shelley, who seems to 
 have been almost domesticated with Lord 
 Byron, was drowned by the upsetting of an 
 open boat. His body was found fifteen days 
 afterwards. The following is the relation 
 of Medwin. 
 
 " 18th August, 1822.— On the occasion 
 of Shelley's melancholy fate, I revisited Pisa, 
 and on the day of my arrival learnt that 
 Lord Byron was gone to the seashore, to 
 assist in performing the last offices to his 
 friend. We came to a spot marked by an 
 old and withered trunk of a fir tree ; and 
 near it, on the beach, stood a solitary but 
 covered with reeds. The situation was well 
 calculated for a poef s grave. A few weeks 
 
140 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 before, I had ridden with him and Lord 
 Byron to this very spot, which I afterwards 
 visited more than once. In front was a 
 magnificent extent of the blue and windless 
 Mediterranean, with the Isles of Elba and 
 Gorgona, — Lord Byron's yacht at ^anchor in 
 the offing ; on the other side, an almost 
 boundless extent of sandy wilderness, uncul- 
 tivated and uninhabited, here and there inter- 
 spersed in tufts with underwood curved by 
 the sea breeze, and stunted by the barren 
 and dry nature of the soil in which it grew. 
 Ait equal distances along the coast stood 
 high square towers, for the double purpose 
 of guarding the coast from smuggling, and 
 enforcing the quarantine laws. This view 
 was bounded by an immense extent of the 
 Italian Alps, which are here particularly 
 picturesque from their volcanic and manifold 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 141 
 
 appearances, and which being composed of 
 white marble, give their summits the resem- 
 blance of snow. 
 
 ** As a foreground to this picture appeared 
 as extraordinary a group. Lord Byron and 
 Trelawney were seen standing over the burn- 
 ing pile, with some of the soldiers of the 
 guard ; and Leigh Hunt, whose feelings and 
 nerves could not carry him through the scene 
 of horror, lying back in the carriage, the four 
 post horses ready to drop with the intensity 
 of the noonday sun. The stillness of all 
 around was yet more felt by the shrill scream 
 of a solitary curlew, which, perhaps, attracted 
 by the body, wheeled in such narrow circles 
 round the pile, tliat it might have been struck 
 with the hand, and was so fearless that it 
 could not be driven away. Looking at the 
 corpse, Lord Byron said, 
 
 'Why that old black silk handkerchief 
 
142 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 retains its form better than that human body !' 
 ** Scarcely was the ceremony concluded, 
 ■when Lord Byron, agitated by the spectacle 
 he had witnessed, tried to dissipate, in some 
 degree, the impression of it by his favourite 
 recreation. He took off his clothes there- 
 fore, and swam off to his yacht, which was 
 riding a few miles distant." * * * 
 
 '* The next morning he was perfectly re- 
 covered. When I called, I found him sitting 
 in the garden under the shade of some orange 
 trees, with the Countess. They are now 
 always together, and he is become quite 
 domestic. He calls her Piccinina, and be- 
 stows on her all the pretty diminutive epithets 
 that are so sweet in Italian. His kindness 
 and attention to the Guiccioli have been 
 invariable/''^ 
 
 » pp. 178-luC. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 143 
 
 The bad taste of the execution does not 
 much injure the effect of this picture. Misery 
 produces strange companionship. Lord 
 Byron, attending the funeral of one of his 
 few associates, who was still more an outcast 
 from society than himself; the gloomy cir- 
 cumstances of Shelley's death ; the solitude 
 of the scene; the commencement of decay 
 in the body, still clothed in the dress worn 
 while in life ; Leigh Hunt dissolved in sei^ 
 timental tears in the back ground, and Byron 
 himself endeavouring to escape from all 
 thought, braTing the melancholy, which must 
 have forced itself upon him; and, the 
 next morning, found *' quite domestic" with 
 the wife of another man, who was his mistress. 
 
 A few months before the event mentioned 
 in the last extract. Lord Byron received a 
 letter from a Mr. Sheppard. It contained 
 
144 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 a prayer of intercession for him, written in 
 ibe year 1814, by Mrs. Sheppard, which her 
 husband had discovered among her papers, 
 more than two years after her death. This 
 lady was not personally acquainted with 
 Lord Byron ; she had only seen him, and 
 had been interested like the rest of the 
 world in his poetry. The circumstances 
 were adapted to affect any one. Lord Byron 
 was touched at once through his vanity and 
 his better feelings. His reply to Mr. Shep- 
 pard, defective as it is in sentiment and 
 reasoning, is more creditable to him in a 
 moral point of view, than any other compo- 
 sition of his which has been published. We 
 will give it entire.'^ 
 
 • It was originally published in a work entitleil. Thoughts thief y 
 i4signed as a Preparative or Persuasive to private Devotion, by John 
 Sheppard. This book we have not seen ; but copy the above from 
 the English Monthly Kepository, ^'o. 2C9. 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 146 
 
 "Pisa, December, 1821. 
 *'Sir, — I have received your letter. — I 
 need not say that the extract which it con- 
 tains has affected me, because it would imply 
 a want of all feeling to have read it with 
 indifference. Though I am not quite sure 
 that it was intended for me, yet the date, the 
 place where it was written, with some other 
 circumstances which you mention, render the 
 allusion probable. But for whomsoever it 
 was meant, I have read it with all the plea- 
 sure, which can arise from so melancholy a 
 topic. I say pleasure, because your brief and 
 simple picture of the life and demeanor of the 
 excellent person whom, I trust, that you will 
 again meet, cannot be contemplated without 
 the admiration due to her virtues, and her pure 
 and unpretending piety. Her last moments 
 were particularly striking; and I do not know, 
 L 
 
146 CHARACTER AND WRtTINGS 
 
 that in the course of reading the story of 
 mankind, and still less in my observations 
 upon the existing portion, I ever met with 
 anything so unostentatiously beautiful! In- 
 disputably, the firm believers in the *gospel 
 have a great advantage over all others, for 
 this simple reason, that if true, they will 
 have their reward hereafter, and if there be 
 no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel 
 in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance 
 of an exalted hope through life, without 
 disappointment, since (at the worst for them) 
 'out of nothing, nothing can arise,' not even 
 sorrow ! But a man's creed does not depend 
 upon himself. Who can say, I will believe 
 this, that, or the other, and least of all that 
 ^hich he least can comprehend? I have, 
 however, observed, that those who have 
 "begun life with extreme faith, have in the 
 .1 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 147 
 
 end greatly narrowed it, as Chillingworth, 
 Clarke, (who ended as an Arian,) Bayle and 
 Gibbon, (once a Catholic,) and some others ; 
 while, on the other hand, nothing is more 
 common than for the early sceptic to end in 
 a firm belief, like Maupertuis and Henry 
 Kirke White. But my business is to 
 acknowledge your letter, and not to make a 
 dissertation. I am obliged to you for your 
 good wishes, and more than obliged by the 
 extract from the papers of the beloved object, 
 whose qualities you have so well described 
 in a few words. I can assure you that all 
 the fame, that ever cheated humanity into 
 higher notions of its own importance, would 
 never weigh in my mind against the pure and 
 pious interest, which a virtuous being may 
 be pleased to take in my welfare. In this 
 point of view, I would not exchange the 
 L 2 
 
148 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 prayer of the deceased in my behalf for the 
 united glory of Homer, Caesar, and Napo- 
 leon, could such be accumulated upon a 
 living head. Do me at least the justice to 
 suppose that — 
 
 Video meliora proboque, 
 
 however the deteriora sequor may have been 
 applied to my conduct. I have the honour 
 to be your obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 *' Byron." 
 
 It is melancholy to think of the debase- 
 ment and inconsistencies of such a mind as 
 Lord Byron's, and a mind with such capaci- 
 ties for moral and intellectual excellence. 
 With how much deeper feeling, might he 
 have adopted the words of a less gifted 
 poet — 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 149 
 
 O gracious God ! bow far have we 
 Profaned thy heavenly gift of Poesy ? 
 Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, 
 Debased to each obscene and impious use. 
 
 Before the date of the letter just quoted, 
 he had composed his Cain ; and, previously 
 even to that work, he had abandoned himself 
 in his Doa Juan, to a course of writing, 
 which left nothing to be hoped. 
 
 Of these works we shall say but little. 
 The world, as has been already remarked, 
 had begun to grow weary of Byron's mono- 
 tonous wretchedness ; the dark cloud which 
 had enveloped him was dispersing, and no 
 longer hid from view the form and lineaments 
 of a man like other men ; the romantic con- 
 ceptions, which had been entertained con- 
 cerning him, were assuming a tinge of the 
 ridiculous ; his life had been such, and his 
 
150 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 character had become so deeply marked and 
 disfigured, that much of his former style of 
 sentiment was toa obviously incongruous 
 with either; and his powers seem to have 
 been weakened, both by the moral and 
 physical effects of his vices. Their influence 
 tended also to prevent that confidence in the 
 sympathy of others, which was necessary to 
 the successful exertion of his genius. But 
 he lived in the eyes of men, and their gaze 
 was still to be fixed upon hinjself in some 
 way or another. If he could not be the first 
 of poets, he could be the most unprincipled 
 and the most daring. It was in this state of 
 mind, that he produced bis Don Juan and 
 his Cain, and some of the other works of his 
 later years. 
 
 His thorough admirers have praised ever* 
 ^hese* But unless an age of deeper darkness 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 145 
 
 and evil, than has yet been known, is about 
 to settle upon the world, the prevailing sen- 
 timents concerning them will soon silence 
 all dissentient voices. His Cain is a poem 
 which has little in it, that is dramatic, except 
 its external form. It is an attack upon the 
 goodness of God, on the ground of the exist- 
 ence of evil. It represents him as the 
 tyrant of the universe, delighting in the 
 parasitical praises of his meaner creatures ; 
 but whom all nobler spirits must regard with 
 defiance. It is idle to say, by way of apo- 
 logy, that this attack upon the Divinity is 
 broken up into paragraphs, with the names 
 of Cain and Lucifer prefixed to them ; since 
 what has been stated is the only sentiment 
 of the work, unanswered and uncontradicted, 
 to the impression of which everything is made 
 to contribute. It accords but too well with 
 
152 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 earlier expressions of the feelings of the 
 author. We might justify what has been 
 said, by extracts from the poem; but it would 
 be necessary to quote passages which no 
 light occasion would excuse one for obtruding 
 upon notice. 
 
 We read the two first cantos of Don Juan 
 shortly after their appearance. The mass 
 of buffoonery and profligacy which followed, 
 we had not seen till about to prepare the 
 present article. It was the last product of 
 Byron's mind. The great merit aimed at in 
 the work, is drollery. The author drolls 
 upon everything ; giving, for instance, in the 
 first canto, a funny account of some ship- 
 wrecked sailors driven through hunger to 
 devour one of thieir companions. It is ram- 
 bling and incoherent, with frequent disre- 
 gard of grammar and prosody. It furnished. 
 
OP LORD BYRON. 153 
 
 however, a sort of commentary upon the 
 character and life of its author; for he could 
 not write long without writing about himself; 
 and in this wort, his disclosures seem to be 
 more liberal, unguarded, and prosaic, than 
 in any other. In reading it, we may be 
 reminded of what Medwin reports him to 
 have said ; ** Why don't you drink Medwin t 
 Gin arid water is the source of all my inspira- 
 tion." One might have conjectured, per- 
 haps, that a considerable part of it was written 
 under such inspiration. 
 
 This production, left unfinished, was the 
 concluding labour of the literary life of a man, 
 who might, in his old age, have been honoured 
 with passionate admiration, and have conti- 
 nued, after death, to pour forth a pure splen- 
 dour amid the eternal lights of poetry ; who 
 might have delighted and ennobled his fellow* 
 
154 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 men by glorious conceptions and beautiful 
 imaginations ; and who might have given all 
 that electric energy to the expression of high 
 and generous sentiments, which was wasted, 
 for the most part, in adding force to the lan- 
 guage of selfish melancholy, of misanthropy, 
 or of violent and wicked passions. As it is, 
 we have now to estimate, not what good, but 
 what evil, may be the general result of 
 his writings. There is much of his poetry, it 
 is true, which may be read without injury by 
 a tolerably healthy mind ; and there are pas- 
 sages of great strength and great beauty, free 
 from the expression of any wrong sentiment. 
 Nor is there much, which can be seducing to 
 any one in his exhibitions of vice and impiety. 
 He uses no gay colouring. He delights in 
 painting moral disease and insane passions, 
 rather than the loose and voluptuous banquet^ 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 155 
 
 which may precede them. Even in the writ- 
 ings of his later days, there is a truth and 
 coarseness in his immorality, which is any- 
 thing but attractive. But when such a wri- 
 ter as Byron expresses strongly, what he 
 represents as his own emotions and senti- 
 ments, there are many who will adopt them, 
 and apply his language to themselves. He 
 has had followers, without doubt, who have 
 affected depravity of which they were not 
 guilty, and have bewailed their sufferings 
 and desolation, with a resolute determination 
 to be miserable. His verses have done some- 
 thing to give a poetic interest to a selfish 
 abandonment of duty : to encourage the in- 
 dulgence of passions, which, in the real inter- 
 course of life, are merely offensive ; and to 
 throw a charm over that sickly melancholy, 
 to which the young are exposed, from too 
 
156 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 sensitive feelings, from indolence and timid- 
 ity, and from desires at once too earthly and 
 too romantic. But this is not an evil lasting 
 in its nature. A writer like Byron becomes 
 the founder of a new school of artificial senti- 
 ment, which has its day ; but which, in time, 
 grows as obsolete as the Euphuism of Lilly, 
 or the gallantry of Mademoiselle de Scuderi, 
 or the affected sensibility of Sterne. Nothing 
 is permanent but nature and truth. The 
 fashions of one age are the ridicule of the 
 next. 
 
 Still there is a pestilential atmosphere 
 about the ruins of such a mind. The great 
 injury likely to result from his writings, con- 
 sists in the circumstance, that a man of 
 powers so extraordinary, should have enlisted 
 himself without shame in the cause of evil; 
 that he should have presented himself before 
 
OF LORD BYRON. 157 
 
 the world to avow his contempt of decency, 
 his depravity and his impiety ; and that doing 
 this, he should have received no harsher re- 
 pulse from its favour. He has given to the 
 bad the whole countenance of his name. 
 Strongly interesting his fellowmen, through 
 the displays of his genius, and, at the same 
 time, rendering himself justly exposed to 
 reprobation by his vices, he has confused 
 and weakened the moral sentiments of his 
 admirers. The effect appears in some of the 
 highly coloured eulogies, which followed 
 his death. They have served to mark and to 
 aggravate the evil. But the stream of time 
 is already washing away the foundations of 
 that factitious admiration, of which he has 
 been the object. In another age, with other 
 fashions and prejudices, the character of Byron 
 will be estimated as it ought to be. The men 
 
158 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS, ETC. 
 
 of another age however, with different subjects 
 of interest from what we have, can hardly be 
 expected to sympathise strongly in the regret, 
 which we may feel, while contemplating the 
 abuse of such powers and such qualities, 
 as he possessed. 
 
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