be framed for multiplying foreign shipping and colonies, enlarging foreign manufactures, and benefiting foreign agriculture: invention will be exhausted in giving bounty and monopoly, riches and abundance, to foreign shipowners, colonists, manufacturers, landowners, farmers, and labourers. Other matters will not be overlooked, and vast labour will be expended in managing the general affairs of all foreign Europe and America. We humbly conceive that Parliament acts unwisely in sitting exclu sively in this country. As it devotes so much of its attention to the interests of other states, it would profit much by making itself a travelling one, and sitting three-fourths of every cession in foreign countries, taking them in rotation. It might in the next sit in France, then in America, and pass in this manner round the circle. The usual portion of the Session will, of course, be expended in discussing matters of no moment, and broaching new abstract doctrines. There will probably be a week's debate on the question, whether Mr O'Connell cannot still by some legal quibble be excluded from the House of Commons. A fortnight's discussion will perhaps be employed in proving that no remedy can be applied to the abuses of the Court of Chancery. Interminable harangues will be made on petty innovations; committees and commissions will be formed to make useless enquiries, concoct worthless reports, and invent schemes for substituting greater evils for lesser ones, and confusion and doubt for order and certainty. Per haps it will be eagerly promulgated, that every inhabitant of the metropolis ought to have a police officer to watch his motions-that it is highly pernicious for people to lock up their houses and shops by night-that a commission ought to be appointed to enquire how the inhabitants of the United Kingdom severally expend their time and money that marriage is highly injurious to society-that the laws against theft ought to be abolished-that the labouring orders ought to be prohibited from eating and wearing clothes-and that for the benefit of foreign trade, this country ought to buy all the corn, cattle, and manufactures it consumes, of foreign countries. The Lords will act like the Commons. Some solitary individual or other amidst them, may perhaps venture to divulge that the community is in great misery; but he will do it in the most meek and courtly language; he will propose no remedies; he will separate himself from public feeling, deprecate hostility to the Ministry, profess himself its fond admirer, and protest that he reposes boundless confidence in its intentions and wisdom. It is likely that he will kneel to the Premier during the delivery of his speech. Report, indeed, says that the Duke of Richmond means to act in a manner becoming a patriot and an English Peer, but we are somewhat sceptical on the matter; we will, however, say that no other Peer is so likely to display such conduct. And now we solemnly ask once more what must be the end? If we put the question to the Ministry and Legislature, and offer as a replypublic ruin and revolution; it will throw them into convulsions of merriment. Turning, therefore, from them, we say to every man who reasons from causes to effects-what must be the end? When the day of ruin shall arrive, lamentations will be of no avail. To execrate the errors and profligacy of the theorist and innovator, the party and faction; and to weep over the delusion and madness of the country, will not then restore what has been lost, and rebuild what has been demolished: YOU MUST NOW DO YOUR DUTY ! MOORE'S BYRON.* Scott, the writer, afterwards, of some severe attacks on Lord Byron; and it is painful to think that, among the persons then assembled round the Poet, there should have been one so soon to step forth an assailant of his living fame, while another, less manful, would reserve the cool venom for his grave." We remember-for the loathsome will not be forgotten LIFE of BYRON, by MOORE, dedica ted to SCOTT, is a short sentence that sounds like a trumpet! 'Tis a spiritstirring reveillé. Seldom, if evernot to refuse another image that in stantaneously suggests itself-have we seen the Rose, the Shamrock, and the Thistle, in such beautiful-such magnificent union. Three such fixed stars-pardon us for being so poetical -are not to be seen burning toge--how, when on that fatal divorce, ther, in a small serene spot of blue of a few hundred millions of miles in circumference-every night-that is once every thousand years-in heaven. Figures of speech apart, these three Poets-alike, but oh! how different-are, as we could soon shew, by many sufficient causes, allied, in their works, to our imagination. Add Campbell, and the PartieQuarrée would be as harmonious as the music of the spheres. The other poetical luminaries of the age must constitute various constellations for themselves; celestial clubs of which it might be perilous to elect the presidents. That is their own look-out, not ours-so we return-not to our mutton, but our venison-not to our sheep, but our wild-deer-to Aberdeen and to Byron. The Childe-thank Heaven-was half a Scotchman by birth-and half a Scotchman by education; and that, if we mistake not, makes up a whole Scotchman. This, on the one hand, -accounts for his not having been a Cockney, but, on the other, magnifies the mystery of his acquaintance with Leigh Hunt. That small sinner and insignificant slave-a viper in a vice -dies under this noble Quarto. Mr Moore, speaking of the day on which Byron and he-under the "influence of malignant star," dined with the calumnious convict in "durance vile," and subjected themselves to the contamination of the " dropping in of some of our host's literary acquaintance," laments-as a man must do, who has had the misfortune of once in his life shaking hands, even by means of the finger-tips, with a Cockney-the deep degradation of that day and dinner with a jail-bird. "Among these," (the Cockney crew) "I remember was Mr John he says, yet a mystery to the whole world, the soul of the poet was "wrenched with a woeful agony," and all England, whom his glorious genius had glorified, stood scowling aloof on his desolation, how some of these wretches turned round to sting the feet from which they had been pitifully proud to lick the dust. Of all such, not one darted forth a more poisonous fang than the infatuated person who, in Mr Moore's too mild expression, " stepped forth the assailant of his living fame." Leigh Hunt, he says, was less manful than John Scott. That we deny. There could be nothing manly-there must have been everything most unmanly in bitterly abusing Byron at that cruel crisis of his life. Scott did so -and forsooth as a champion of the morality-the religion of the land! He wrote of Byron as if he had been a felon-and condemned him as from the judgment-seat. Hunt would fain have defended Byron, and made a shew of such defence; but the Scotch Cockney, equally base, but bolder in his baseness, frightened him of Little Britain by threats of exposure, which, unintelligible to all others, were understood by the poor creature to whose ears they were savagely muttered-and the courage of him of the yellow breeches was overturned like a cup of saloop. Scott, years afterwards, had the effrontery to seek out Byron abroad, and was, we believe, not unkindly received by the noble being, whom he had, for the sake of lucre, hypocritically traduced-denying to him even the character of a man! In all this we can see nothing "more manful" than in Hunt's reservation of his cool venom for Byron's grave! Think not that such disgustful re Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: With Notices of his Life. Moore. Vol. I. 4to. Murray, London, 1830. By Thom could to admire Rimini; but it would not do; and when Byron charitably requested Moore to use his influence with Jeffrey, to get the divine right of King of Cockneydom acknowledged in the Edinburgh Review, Moore confesses, with some compliments" with respect to Hunt's poem, collections are out of place here— this is the very-the only placewhere they shall be suffered to intrude-and henceforth and for evermore, let them evanish from all minds into oblivion-having left behind them in Mr Moore's heart, and in the heart of every man whose acquaintance has ever been cultivated I really could not undertake to by a Cockney, an invincible repugnance, like an instructed instinct and a resolution strong as deathnever, for the sake even of charity and compassion for the poor and profligate to inhale the same air with any of that godless gang-for even the fire round the lips of genius is found ineffectual against the breath of disease and pollution. Politics, thank Heaven, and not poetry, took Byron and Moore to the Cockney's cell. "It will be recollected," says Moore," that there existed among the Whig party, at this period, a strong feeling of indignation at the late defection from themselves and their principles, of the illustrious personage, who had been so long looked up to as the friend and patron of both. Being myself, at the time, warmly, perhaps intemperately, under the influence of this feeling, I regarded the fate of Mr Hunt with more than common interest, and, immediately on my arrival in town, paid him a visit in his pri son. "On mentioning the circumstance, soon after, to Lord Byron, and describing my surprise at the sort of luxurious comfort with which I had found the wit in the dungeon' surrounded-his trellised flower-garden without, and his books, busts, pictures, and PIANO-FORTE within! the noble Poet, whose political view of the case coincided entirely with my own, expressed a strong wish to pay a similar tribute of respect to Mr Hunt, and accordingly, a day or two afterwards, we proceeded for that purpose to the prison." Of that visit to the caitiff, all the world knows the ultimate consequences-the cool venom of the Cockney spat over his benefactor's grave! But we love not Byron or Moore the less for their degrading indiscretion; they have themselves afforded us a key to unlock that prison-door; and it is consoling to know, that it was not turned by the hand of any one of the Nine Muses. Both Bards, it is true, for some time afterwards did all they praise it seriously. There is so much of the quizzible in all he writes, that I never can put on the proper pathetic face in reading him." Nor could any body else, except for a minute or so, after, perhaps, coming out of the Cave of Trophonius. Byron, we have said, was a Scotchman. However, let England and Scotland divide him between them, and they will not quarrel over his glorious remains. From the middle of his third to the middle of his eleventh year, he lived in Aberdeen. "In truth, he was a wild and wayward wight," and, though not the Edwin of Beattie, no vulgar boy." Beattie knew not there was a young minstrel, "And he, I trow, was of the North countree," who often passed by the college-gates destined one day to sing a far loftier song, and far better to unfold "All the dread magnificence of Heaven!" Byron's father was a Scamp-and his mother a Scold. The Scamp soon died-the Scold lived on to torment and trouble him. But she had a mother's heart; and though-horrid, shocking, and affecting, to think of it-often in her fits of rage, accused him in words as vulgar as the sentiment was impious-of the deformity which one of his feet brought with it from her womb-he loved her living, and wept her dead-with the fine sense of inextinguishable filial piety, felt that in spite of those unnatural storms, (yet, perhaps, after all, though fearful, not unnatural,) she passionately loved him too-so that at last, we see him, with stealthy step, creeping at midnight to the chamber of death, and hear him groaning beside her corpse. Sometimes we have felt as if Mr Moore had spoken out too strongly about this vulgar, violent, but affectionate woman. Yet we believe that on the whole he has done right for Byron, being of that blood, possessed much of the physical temperament—and his spiritual being, with all its grandeur, owned its union with a bodily frame given to it by the heiress of the old Highland House of Gight and Gordon, and by a father whose veins swelled as tumultuously as those of any of his ancestors -the Byrons having shewn themselves, through all periods of their history, a hot-hearted race. After the period of the Civil Wars, when so many individuals of the house of Byron distinguished themselves, no less than seven brothers. of that family fought on the field at Edgehill; and Mr Moore finely and truly says, that in reviewing cursorily the ancestors of Lord Byron, both near and remote, it cannot fail to be remarked how strikingly he combined in his own nature some of the best and perhaps worst qualities, that lie scattered through the various characters of his predecessors-the generosity, the love of enterprise, the high-mindedness of some of the better spirits of his race, with the irregular passions, the eccentricity, and the daring recklessness of the world's opinion, that so much characterised others. Such as the famous Commodore-Rough-weather Jack-his grand-uncle, who slew Mr Chaworth, and afterwards led the life of a half-insane recluse, and his own father, whose character was tinged with darker stains, and twisted into worse distortion. His own character was neither darkly stained, nor yet distorted; but the gloom in which it grew up was nevertheless a mystery of his birth-and a fatal something, which we might in vain seek to analyse or to name, seems almost to have been a hereditary curse. His father was as proud as Lucifer —and we fear, wicked as Beelzebub, and mean as Mammon. His mother was as fierce as Alecto-but in being a mother, had a great advantage over that celebrated Fury. The Mammon died out but not so the Fury and the other Devils. His ancestors had always been proud on both sides of the house. But theirs was pre-eminently the pride of birth-or of bravery; his was that pride too -for none but a Cockney-coward ever doubted his courage ;-but to that two-fold pride, he added a third VOL. XXVII. NO. CLXIII. more glorious part, the pride of genius. All three played like desperate gamesters into each other's hands, against the world-but the world held the honours-and Byron lost the game-although eternal justice has stepped in-and in spite of all his delinquencies has given up the stakes-which were glory to Childe Harold. The little that Mr Moore has been able to collect about Byron's infancy and first boyhood, is deeply interesting indeed, and most impressively narrated. Yet what can be certainly known of the infancy and first boyhood of any human being? How imperfectly known must they be to the man himself-how much more so to those who, through the distant gloom, would seek for the glimmer? Yet through that gloom, when we know that it shrouded the soul of genius, with what intensity of vision do we strive to pierce! If in future life we have known that the temper was strong and turbulent," we listen to old women's tales in explanation of the growth of the phenomenon, and gather up the traditionary gossip that relates even to the time when he who, perhaps, afterwards set the world on fire, was "muling and puking in his nurse's arms." Thus we go back with a strange deep interest with Mr Moore to the most childish anecdotes of Byron's childhood. "From London, Mrs Byron proceeded with her infant to Scotland, and in the year 1790, took up her residence in Aberdeen, where she was soon after joined by Captain Byron. Here for a short time they lived together in lodgings at the house of a person named Anderson, in Queenstreet. But their union being by no means happy, a separation took place between them, and Mrs Byron removed to lodgings at the other end of the street. Notwithstanding this schism, they for some time continued to visit, and even to drink tea with each other; but the elements of discord were strong on both sides, and their separation was, at last, complete and final. He would frequently, however, accost the nurse and his son in their walks, and expressed a strong wish to have the child for a day or two on a visit with him. To this request Mrs Byron was, at first, not very willing to accede, but, on the representation of the nurse, that if he kept the boy one night, he would not do so another,' she consent 2 c ed. The event proved as the nurse had predicted; on enquiring next morning after the child, she was told by Captain Byron that he had had quite enough of his young visitor, and she might take him home again. "It should be observed, however, that Mrs Byron, at this period, was unable to keep more than one servant, and that, sent as the boy was, on this occasion, to encounter the trial of a visit without the accustomed superintendence of his nurse, it is not so wonderful that he should have been found, under such circumstances, rather an unmanageable guest. That, as a child, his temper was violent, or rather sullenly passionate, is certain. Even when in petticoats, he showed the same uncon trollable spirit with his nurse, which he afterwards exhibited when an author, with his critics. Being angrily reprimanded by her one day, for having soiled or torn a new frock, in which he had been just dressed, he got into one of his 'silent rages,' (as he himself described them,) seized the frock with both his hands, and rent it from top to bottom, and stood in sullen stillness, setting his censurer and her wrath at defiance. "But, notwithstanding this, and other such unruly outbreaks, in which he was but too much encouraged by the example of his mother, who frequently, it is said, proceeded to the same extremities with her caps, gowns, &c., there was in his disposition, as appears from the concurrent testimony of nurses, tutors, and all who were employed about him, a mixture of affectionate sweetness and playfulness, by which it was impossible not to be attached; and which rendered him then, as in his riper years, easily manageable by those who loved and understood him sufficiently to be at once gentle and firm enough for the task. The female attendant of whom we have spoken, as well as her sister, May Gray, who succeeded her, gained an influence over his mind, against which he very rarely rebelled; while his mother, whose capricious excesses, both of anger and of fondness, left her little hold on either his respect or affection, was indebted solely to his sense of filial duty for any small portion of authority she was ever able to acquire over him." Temper! knew you ever a child -aboy-or man, with a good temper? Very rarely-and if sincere, reader, whoever thou art, allow that thine own is not among the number. You may have forgotten-or may not choose to remember-but your mother and your nurse will to their dy ing day-the impishness of your short frocks-and of your first, second, and third pair of breeches-How you kicked, and how you squalled for no reason on earth-for surely you had not always a pain in your bowels -but merely because you were a little devil incarnate! Why so suddenly glowed with rage your unmeaning," shining morning-face," like the north-west moon? Why flung you your pest of a body down upon the carpet, rolling in convulsions, even during a forenoon-visit of the minister coming to pray, till a double pull of the bell-rope, breaking, perhaps, in the agitated hand of mater nal love and anger, brought up nurse, with a face almost as red as your own, to root you from the Kidderminster, and carry the living squall in a whirlwind, up to the sky-roof story, to the danger of the very slates? We pass over your foolish resistance when thrust into the chaise that first trundled you to school, seven miles off -your unexpected and most unwelcome return upon your distressed parents' hands, with a letter depictastrous chances which your youth ing you as the plague-all the "dissuffered," out of the pure spite with which you interrupted them when trotting along on their own errands, or "waukened sleeping dogs"-your expulsion from college, almost immediately subsequent to that from school -and the troubled term in which your temper gave rise to the most serious suspicions that it would be vain for you to enter upon any profession, even that of an attorney; for which your temper was too quarrelsome and litigious. We omit all allusion to those eras, and are willing to take you-as you are now-the bane of civil society, and the tyrant in your own unhappy house, over a wife afraid to lift her eyes from the ground, and children, prevented only by fear from exhibiting a ferocity equal to that of their father-And you abuse the bad temper of Byron! You, whose mother, perhaps, was a mawsey, and father a dolt! But we may go a little higher-or at once to the highest. Let us go to the Great Living Poets. Who knows the temper of Sir Walter Scott ? Probably not we, and certainly not you; but let the whole world be assured of this-that though as mild |