to be one at this very moment by bub-. ble-and-squeak-all a-bristle. Many an old sow leered upon Byron in the midst of her litter. But we are getting on debateable and dangerous ground; and as we would not give the slightest offence for the world to any individual or body of individuals, let us assume a pleasanter aspect, and hover away off like a bird in among the Beautiful.

During those two years and a half, we verily believe that all the good poets of Britain were, in their obscurity, far happier than Byron. For there, afar off from a million and a half of people living in brick houses metropolitan or suburban-the moon rose, undisturbed by smoke or stir, above the mountains-for them night after night were the heavens more and more crowded with stars-social in infinitude. Surely no man-no married man, ever looked at a stream singing its way through some cheerful solitude, without feeling the beauty of that line,

"Glides the calm current of domestic life;"

and then, if from its moss-tuft on the bank peeps out some happy primrose -every father feels the beauty of that other line, "still more beauteous," of the high-souled and tenderhearted Campbell,

"a young earthquake's birth." Imprisoned in brick, what must have been its bondage! Much-too much of those two years in and about London was abused-much, too much was lost. His midnight converse with such a man as Moore was indeed compensation for much idleand worse than idle misemployment of "God's gracious time;" and with some other choice spirits he partook of "celestial colloquy sublime;" but the continuous flow of Wordsworth's life was a far holier and happier lot

and more approved by the highest Muses who wept while they smiled on that other, their youngest and prodigal son. Yet Byron, gloriously gifted as he was-so far forgot the true nature of the poet's attributes, and the poet's reign, as to compliment himself, and him who has become his biographer, on having belonged to the-Fashionable World! Without whose pale-alack and alasa-day-no bard must hope to be received of the golden-haired Divinity! the Apollo, who, if truth be in fiction, and religion in mythology, did of old love to haunt, during his snatched absences from the haunts of Jove, the gloom of groves, and the glory of mountain-tops that lifted up their ladders for the descending God!

"This is true fame," said some poet or other on taking up a tattered volume from the "window-sole" of a cottage-kitchen, and finding it to be "Thomson's Seasons." How very few of our poets are thus popular ! Cowper, Young, Burns-who else? None. This looks as if it were not in the nature of the thing possible that a truly great poet should ever become known as a household word -to the people, except under very peculiar circumstances of subject, situation, or character. But not to involve ourselves in that speculation, Byron, there can be no doubt, has truth, nature, and beauty, sufficient to establish much of his poetry in the universal heart. He seems to have written the first two Cantos of Childe Harold without knowing, or suspecting, or dreaming, what he was about; and as he felt it to be a sort of ideal picture, if not an absolute portrait of himself, he was slow and reluctant to believe that it could be a poem worthy of the world. But the inspiration of strong personal

feeling's embued it with the same power that is inherent in most of Burns's poetry-and in much of Cowper's-and, had it been rather more sincere, in all Young's-and, notwithstanding what has been said to the contrary, in almost all Thomson's-both the Seasons and the Castle of Indolence. The GiaourBride of Abydos-Corsair-Lara,and others—were all written, partly from the impulse of the same kind of personal feelings and partly to delight, astonish, and take by storm-London -both the City and the West End of the Town. That appeared to Byron at the time, surrounded as he was by the blaze of his own glory, in which London may be said to have been in illumination more creditable than that in which she gloried on the acquittal of Queen Caroline-to be a high ambition, and we do not say it was a low one; but these are not Poems, after all, though immortal in their strength and beauty, that will for ever hold deep possession of the heart of humanity. His subsequent works were greater far-some of them transcendent. Therefore, Byron, when his mind was abstracted, as often it must have been, wholly from the narrow world, of which he shone for a time as the central orb, must have been mortified to think how limited, after all, was the range of that Thought and Sentiment to which his genius was an object of legitimate love and admiration. He saw himself worshipped by fools and knaves, puppies, dandies, reps, and demireps, and some other orders of both sexes, which shall be nameless -by men of talents, too, and power in the state-by men and women of genius-and by the hollow hum brought from afar of distant villages, towns, and cities, which sounded to his ear like the National Voice.

But

he knew that it could not be the National Voice, for the reverential love of genius at a nation's heart gives out hymns of gratulation that flow pure as rivers down the mountains,

"To touch etherial of Heaven's fiery rod." He must have felt that there was folly, ignorance, and injustice, in the decree that set him, the author of these two Cantos, not only on a level with, but absolutely above, all the living poets, many of whom had dedicated a life-long service to the

Muses, and had had their exceeding great reward in continuous inspiration that had given power to effect great achievements. Therefore, he was often desponding in the midst of his triumphs, knowing that they were hollow at heart; therefore, if he did not bow down and worship them, nevertheless was he, perhaps, somewhat too forward to swear fealty to those king-makers, as he called them, Messrs Gifford and Jeffrey, who, in good truth, had not power to hurt a hair in his head, although it did Mr Jeffrey infinite credit to assist in crowning it with the laurel.

Turning from Byron's poetry to his life, Was he now a libertine? We can only answer that question in the negative, by saying, that he was probably no Joseph. We can, without any great stretch of imagination, picture to ourselves a more prettily-behaved, exemplary, and aunt-delighting young gentleman; yet he seems to have been one of the least profligate in all the Peerage. His amours, high or low,-few or many—are no business of ours, or of yours either; but, as far as the truth may be learned from Mr Moore, they were never characterised by any peculiar cruelty or deceit; nor was his morality— with regard to such connexions— laxer than is usual in high life, in a highly-refined and luxurious state of society. We should think ourselves degraded by saying more on a subject on which cant and hypocrisy have pre-eminently ejaculated their lamentations, while

"So scented the grim features, and upturn'd

Their nostrils far into the murky air;" ced, they brutally snuffed the sin. as if, while they indignantly denoun

Few faces were clearer than his of the slightest taint of grossness of expression,-certainly not the great, broad, yellow, black, greasy face of frontispiece in the Number of that that sensual Satyr who figures as Methodistical Magazine, where Byron was sent, "sans ceremonie," "right slick away" to hell, for a series of seductions committed only in the hideous pork-chop dreams of that nauseous Sinner-saved rampant from a love-feast. But hear Mr Moore:

"During my stay in town this year, we were almost daily together; and it is

in no spirit of flattery to the dead, I say, that the more intimately I became acquainted with his disposition and character, the more warmly I felt disposed to take an interest in every thing that concerned him. Not that in the opportunities thus afforded me of observing more closely his defects, I did not discover much to lament, and not a little to condemn. But there was still, in the neighbourhood of even his worst faults, some atoning good quality, which was always sure, if brought kindly and with management into play, to neutralize their ill effects. The very frankness, indeed, with which he avowed his errors, seemed to imply a confidence in his own power of redeeming them,- -a consciousness that he could afford to be sincere. There was also, in such entire unreserve, a pledge that nothing worse remained behind; and the same quality that laid open the blemishes of his nature gave security for its honesty."

Byron had never been free from debt, since he knew what money meant; and these embarrassments, which must have been often most distressful, became at last the cause, we verily believe, of that “ separation" which drove him to death. He had sold Newstead Abbey, which must have cost him many pangs, and had afterwards to take it back again from the insolvent purchaser. He made as light of this misery as he could-just as he tried to do of all his miseries-but it gnawed at his heart, and embittered every day of his life. He thus writes to Mr Moore, in his peculiar vein: "This day have I received information from my man of law, of the non- and never likely to be, performance of purchase by Mr Claughton, of impecuniary memory. He don't know what to do, or when to pay and so all my hopes and worldly projects and prospects are gone to the devil. He (the purchaser, and the devil too, for aught I care) and I, and my legal advisers, are to meet to-morrow; the said purchaser having first taken special care to enquire, whether I would meet him with temper.' Certainly the question is this-I shall either have the estate back, which is as good as ruin, or I shall go on with him dawdling, which is rather worse. have brought my pigs to a Mussulman market. If I had but a wife now, and children of whose paternity I entertained doubts, I should be hap

I

py, or rather fortunate, as Candide or Scarmentado. In the meantime, if you don't come and see me, I shall think Mr Sam's bank is broke too, and that you, having assets there, are despairing of more than a piastre in the pound for your dividend."

Byron about this time had jotted down in one of his journals, that "marriage might be the saving of him," and the deep interest which Mr Moore and other friends felt in his well-being, induced them to lean to the

same opinion. Mr Moore's hopes, indeed, had in imagination turned towards one bright object, "The cynosure of neighbouring eyes;" and in May 1814, Byron writes to him, "I believe you think that I have not been quite fair with that Alpha and Omega of beauty, &c., with whom you would willingly have united me. But if you consider what her sister said on the subject, you will less wonder that my pride should have taken the alarm; particularly as nothing but the everyday flirtation of every-day people ever occurred between your heroine and myself. Had Lady * * appeared to wish it, or even not to oppose, I would have gone on, and very possibly married, (that is, if the other had been equally accordant,) with the same indifference which has frozen over the Black Sea' of almost all my passions. It is that indifference which makes me so uncertain, and apparently capricious. It is not eagerness of new pursuits, but that nothing impresses me sufficiently to fix; neither do I feel disgusted, but simply indifferent to almost all excitements. The proof of this is, that obstacles, the slightest even, stop me. This can hardly be timidity; for I have done some imprudent things, too, in my time; and in almost all cases opposition is a stimulus. In mine it is not; if a straw were in my way, I could not stop to pick it up. I have sent this long tirade, because I would not have you suppose that I have been trifling designedly with you or others. If you think so, in the name of St Hubert, (the patron of antlers and hunters,) let me be married out of hand-I don't care to whom, so that it amuses any body else, and don't interfere with me much in the day-time." In explana tion of this Mr Moore says:

"That I, more than once, expressed some such feeling, is undoubtedly true. Fully concurring with the opinion, not only of himself, but of others of his friends, that in marriage lay his only chance of salvation from the sort of perplexing attachments into which he was now constantly tempted, I saw in none of those whom he admired with more legitimate views, so many requisites for the difficult task of winning him into fidelity and hap piness, as in the lady in question. Com. bining beauty of the highest order with a mind intelligent and ingenuous-having just learning enough to give refinement to her taste, and far too much taste to make pretensions to learning-with a patrician spirit proud as his own, but showing it only in a delicate generosity of spirit-a feminine highmindedness, which would have led her to tolerate his defects in consideration of his noble qualities and his glory; and even to sacrifice silently, some of her own happiness, rather than violate the responsibility in which she stood pledged to the world for his.

Such was,

from long experience, my impression of the character of this lady; and perceiving Lord Byron to be attracted by her more obvious claims to admiration, I felt a pleasure no less in rendering justice to the still Tarer qualities which she possessed, than in endeavouring to raise my noble friend's mind to the contemplation of a higher model of female character than he had, unluckily for himself, been much in the habit of studying.

"To this extent do I confess myself to have been influenced by the sort of feeling which he attributes to me. But in taking for granted, (as it will appear he did from one of his letters,) that I entertained any very decided or definite wishes on the subject, he gave me more credit for seriousness in my suggestions, than I deserved. If even the lady herself, the unconscious object of these speculations, by whom he was regarded in no other light than that of a distinguished acquaintance, could have consented to undertake the perilous, but still possible and glorious, achievement of attaching Byron to virtue, I own that, sanguinely as in theory I might have looked to the result, I should have seen, not without trembling, the happiness of one, whom I had known and valued from her childhood, risked in the experiment."

A few months after, Byron again writes to Mr Moore about marriage. "I have been listening to my friend Hodgson's raptures about a pretty wife-elect of his, and I met a son of Lord Erskine's, who says he has been married a year, and is the happiest

of men;' and I have met the aforesaid H, who is also the happiest of men' —so it is worth while being here, if only to witness the superlative felicity of these foxes, who have cut off their tails, and would persuade the rest of the world to part with their brushes to keep them in countenance." About a month after this had formerly declined the honour— he proposed to Miss Milbanke—who and was accepted. The circumstances attending the proposal are curious.

"A person, who had for some time stood high in his affection and confidence, observing how cheerless and unsettled was the state both of his mind and prospects, advised him strenuously to marry; and, after much discussion, he consented. The next point for consideration was— who was to be the object of his choice; and while his friend mentioned one lady he himself named Miss Milbanke. Το this, however, his adviser strongly objected; remarking to him, that Miss Milbanke had at present no fortune, and that his embarrassed affairs would not allow him to marry without one; that she was, moreover, a learned lady, which would not at all suit him. In consequence of these representations, he agreed that his friend should write a proposal for him to the other lady named; which was accordingly done, and an answer, containing a refusal, arrived as they were one morning sitting together. 'You see,' said Lord Byron, that, after all, Miss Milbanke is to be the person I will write to her.' He accordingly wrote on the moment; and, as soon as he had finished, his friend remonstrating still strongly against his choice, took up the letter; but, on reading it over, observed, Well, really, this is a very pretty letter, it is a pity it should not go. I never read a prettier one.' Then it shall go, said Lord Byron; and, in so saying, sealed and sent off, on the instant, this fiat of his fate."

This recital will amuse some and shock others; us it both amuses and shocks; and we presume that it presents a fair specimen of the thoughts and feelings of that high life into which all men must be admitted, as Byron was by birth and Moore by genius, (so said his lordship,) ere they can hope to become poets! Nothing in the lowest farce was ever lower-yet it may be said to have been the prologue to a tragedy which had a grievous catastrophe. It may not be always much amiss to employ

a friend to buy one a shandrydan or a trotting pony, though even then a man had far better go about the -bargain himself in a business-like way; but when the transaction regards a wife, pray keep the pen in your own hand, fold and seal with your own hand, put into post-office even with your own hand, read the answer with your own eyes, and, beg your pardon, begin from the beginning with consulting your own seven senses, and your seven thousand fancies, and the innumerable thoughts and feelings resident all the year through in your brain and your heart-begin with liking, loving, longing, desiring, burning for one object, to you incomprehensibly different from all objects of the same name and nature-Woman-and end with suddenly pressing her, by moonlight, gas-light, or candle-light, or even sun-light, to your bosom, and beseeching her, by the pity in the heaven of her eyes, to promise, in due season, to become your wife. In all probability you will thus be happy in wedlock, and cut a respectable, or even shining figure in life, not only as a husband, but absolutely as a father. Your children will be all like you as so many peas-and your funeral will be attended by heaven knows how many scores of posterity all legitimately descended from your honourable loins. But if you employ an amanuensis-a secretary-a clerk, not only to write your proposal of marriage to your intended, but commission him to put his finger on the object proper for your choice, you have only to look along the "vista of your future years," and 'tis shut up by that impressive temple-Doctors Commons.

Byron, harassed at all hands, was in a reckless mood the morning of this disgraceful and fatal scene; indeed, he played the part of a passive madman. But who was the " person who for some time stood high in his affection and confidence," the poor wretch that dared thus, in stinking sycophancy, to sport with the most sacred rights of woman? He could not have been a man. The act be trays emasculation. The Lady who escaped will even now sicken with disgust,and be revived by indignation, ondading this exposé of the slavish scribe's insolent insult to her and to

her sex; while the Lady who unfortunately fell into the toil thus spread for her by a man not at the time entirely in his right senses-and scarcely, we think, a moral agent, so utter was his temporary want of all due reflection,—and by an eunuch, who lisped out in the impudence of all his natural and acquired ignorance of the subject in all its bearings to which it referred-" Well, really this is a very pretty letter-it is a pity it should not go-I never read a prettier one"that Lady will blush as she weepsand her tears never can be dried-to think that the story of her wooing, and of her being won, should have been familiar-as coffee-house words-to one of the meanest of the outcasts of humanity. That Byron was in a very disturbed state of mind when he "sealed and sent off on the instant that fiat of his fate," appears from a passage of a letter written-perhaps the day, or the day after to Mr Moore. "My head is at this moment in a state of confusion from various causes, which I can neither describe nor explain—but let that pass. My employments have been rural-fishing, shooting, bathing, and boating. Books I have but few here; and those I have read ten times over, till sick of them. So I have taken' to breaking soda-water bottles with my pistols, and jumping into the water, and rowing over it, and firing at the fowls of the air. But why should I'monster my nothings' to you, who are well-employed, and happily too I should hope? For my part, I am happy too, in my way, but as usual have contrived to get into three or four perplexities, which I do not see my way through. But a few days, perhaps a day, will determine one of them."

A few days after he writes,

"Here's to her who long
Hath waked the poet's sigh!
The girl who gave to song

What gold could never buy."

"My dear Moore-I am going to be married, that is, I am accepted, and one usually hopes the rest will follow. My mother of the Gracchi (that are to be) you think too strait-laced for me, although the paragon of only children, and invested with golden opinions of all sorts of men,' and full of most blest conditions' as Desde