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he saw both through a false medium, and observed not that their advantages and disadvantages were counterbalanced. Byron wished for that Utopian state of perfection which experience teaches us it is impossible to attain,-the simplicity and good faith of savage life, with the refinement and intelligence of civilization. Naturally of a melancholy temperament, his travels in Greece were eminently calculated to give a still more sombre tint to his mind, and tracing at each step the marks of degradation which had followed a state of civilization still more luxurious than that he had left; and surrounded with the fragments of arts that we can but imperfectly copy, and ruins whose original beauty we can never hope to emulate, he grew into a contempt of the actual state of things, and lived but in dreams of the past, or aspirations of the future. This state of mind, as unnatural as it is uncommon in a young man, destroyed the bonds of sympathy between him and those of his own age, without creating any with those of a more advanced. With the young he could not sympathize, because they felt not like him; and with the old, because that, though their reasonings and reflections arrived at the same conclusions, they had not journeyed by the same road. They had travelled by the beaten one of experience, but he had abridged the road, having been hurried over it by the passions which were still unexhausted, and ready to go in search of new discoveries. The wisdom thus prematurely acquired by Byron, being the forced fruit of circumstances and travel acting on an excitable mind, instead of being the natural production ripened by time, was, like all precocious advantages, of comparatively little utility; it influenced his words more than his deeds, and wanted that patience and forbearance towards the transgressions of others that is best acquired by having suffered from and repented

our own.

It would be a curious speculation to reflect how far the mind of Byron might have been differently operated on had he, instead of going to Greece in his early youth, spent the same period beneath the genial climate, and surrounded by the luxuries of Italy. We should then, most probably, have had a " Don Juan" of a less reprehensible character, and more excusable from the youth of its author, followed, in natural succession, by atoning works produced by the autumnal sun of maturity, and the mellowing touches of experience,-instead of his turning from the more elevated tone of "Childe Harold" to "Don Juan." Each year, had life been spared him, would have corrected the false wisdom that had been the bane of Byron, and which, like the fruit so eloquently described by himself as growing on the banks of the Dead Sea, that was lovely to the eye, but turned to ashes when tasted, was productive only of disappointment to him, because he mistook it for the real fruit its appearance resembled, and found only bitterness in its

taste.

There was that in Byron which would have yet nobly redeemed the errors of his youth, and the misuse of his genius, had length of years been granted him; and, while lamenting his premature death, our regret is rendered the more poignant by the reflection, that we are deprived of works which, tempered by an understanding arrived at its meridian, would have had all the genius, without the immorality of his more youthful productions, which, notwithstanding their defects, have formed an epoch in the literature of his country.

SEASONABLE

DITTIE S.-NO. IV.

BY THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY.

ALL HAIL TO THEE, HOARY DECEMBER! -A DECEMBER PASTORAL.
ALL hail to thee, hoary December!

All hail! (except mizzle and sleet) —
Dark month, if one half I remember,
A list of thy charms I'll repeat:
Though roses are faded, and mute is
The nightingale's song in the grove,
Thou art, among candlelight beauties,
The one of all others I love.

Now mulligatawny is chosen

For luncheons, both wholesome and mice;
And, Grange, thy brisk trade is quite frozen,
For nobody purchases ice!

There's ice on the Serpentine River,
Where ladies and gentlemen skate,
And whilst on the margin I shiver,
They flourish a figure of eight!
Oh come with thy thousand ingredients
For making an exquisite feast,
Oh come with thy countless expedients
For fattening up a prize beast!
Thy cooks, whose perpetual work is

To mince meat, shall hail thy approach;
And oh, what uncommon fine turkeys
From Norwich fly up by the coach!

Oh! all love December with reason;-
For while Hospitality feeds

Her guests, she well knows 'tis the season
For Charity's holier deeds:

And thus rich and poor have to thank it
For gifts which impartially flow;
The pauper, when wrapp'd in his blanket,
Sighs not for a blanquette de veau.
Oh come with thy Christmas vagaries,
Thy harlequin pantomime jumps,
Grim ogres, and beautiful fairies,
In gossamer trousers and pumps !
Oh come with thy clownish grimaces,
Thy pantaloon practical wit;
And, tier above tier, merry faces
In gallery, boxes, and pit!

Oh come with George Barnwell and Millwood,
A drama of practical force,

Which, were we disposed to do ill, would
Soon make us good people of course!

Young Barnwell-the author alleges-
Got rid of his money too fast;

And, bothered with pawnbroker's pledges,
He murdered his uncle at last!

Come hither with fun and with folly,
Bring icicle gems on thy brow,
The bright coral beads of the holly,
And pearls from the mistletoe bough,
Oh come with thy shining apparel,
Thy robe like the snow on the hill;
And come, above all, with a barrel
Of something to take off the chill!

NOTES ON PERIODICALS.

THIS is the true millennium of the printers. Oh! that those typographical heroes of the fifteenth century, Faust, Guttenberg, and Peter Schoeffer, could burst the marble monuments in which they are enshrined, and just take a peep at one of our steam-engines, which deliver to Fame, or to the cheesemongers, as many sheets in an hour as they, with infinite labour, though with ingenuity laudable for such an age, brought forth in a month! Doubtless every department of the press will henceforth be subjected to the same law of periodicity, which prevails throughout every region of the heavens. The earth is at once an Annual, laden with all the accumulated treasures of the year; a Quarterly Review, delighting us with the varieties of each succeeding season; and a daily Newspaper, teeming with new events which keep us, its readers, in a state of constant excitement. The moon, what is it but a perpetual "New Monthly Magazine?" In the higher firmament of the skies, we hear of systems which require for their periodical completion some five hundred years. What prodigious periodicals the people in those remote planets must possess! Their weeks must be longer than our years, their hours than our days. "Paradise Lost" they would look upon as a trifle. It would scarcely fill the space which they dedicate to the "Poet's Corner." As for this article, upon which we are at present engaged for the edification of our much-beloved readers, whoever they may be, we fear that it would be scarcely perceptible in a page of the "New Monthly" which illuminates and exalts the good folk who bask in the rays of Bellatrix or Betelgeux. Heaven defend us from being appointed, some fine morning, for our sins, editor of the Times in the head of the Ram, or the tail of the Great Bear!

Indeed, matters are in a sufficiently deplorable state on the petty planet to which we happen at present to belong. Behold us obliged, -the thing is so cheap we cannot help it, to take in, or be taken in by," Johnson's Dictionary," converted into a neat periodical. For the same irresistible reason we renew our acquaintance every Saturday with the beauties of "Guthrie's Gazetteer," and the pleasantries of that Grammar, which goes under the renowned name of Lindley Murray. We next turn with enthusiasm to four pages of law, made easy to the most obtuse mind, and beguiling to the most phlegmatic. Astronomy comes before us, clothed in the garb of romance; and History looks so gay with all her embellishments, that we hand out our penny for her with rapture. We have already become perfect geologists for the sum of three-pence; and for a groat we received in exchange such a degree of enlightenment in the mysteries of anatomy, that we hereby undertake to kill any man in such a really agreeable and expeditious way, that he shall know nothing at all of the process. To determined suicides we shall be found invaluable, and we take the liberty to recommend ourselves to their attention. Paganini spent fourteen years and all his fortune in learning to play on one string. We played excellently on four, in two weeks, by the aid of the "Musical Magazine," for which we paid the sum of three halfpence. We may say, without vanity, that we shine in botany, divinity, zoology, and horticulture, having made ourselves perfect masters

in these branches of useful knowledge, at the rate of two-pence halfpenny per branch. In short, we expect that, before Christmas, we shall be, in our proper person, a complete animated Encyclopædia, at the sum total expense of half-a-crown. When the holidays come, however, we shall repay our poor soul for the heavy burthens which we at present hebdomadally impose upon it. We are all Minerva now,-then we shall be Bacchus.

Look at the illustrations,-their perfection, their brilliancy,-the number of them that we can buy for a trifle! Portraits,-landscapes, -still life, dogs,-horses,-game,-Landseer,-Turner,-Martin,Cruikshank,-all you may have almost for nothing. Montgomery the Second is gone to Pandemonium to collect materials for landscapes, which he has undertaken to describe in a most tremendous poem. The ever-to-be-lamented Rosa Matilda is already awakened from her tomb, for the purpose of lending her never-to-be-forgotten verses to the prints of Charles Tilt. We are soon to have, not only a new edition of Robert Burns, but charming sketches of every individual whiskey-house which he honoured by getting particularly drunk therein. The Findens threaten to make even Crabbe popular!

What is to become of all the paper which is now in constant process of typo-impressment? What are we to do with it? Where is it to find room in some half-dozen years? We observe, indeed, more than one Encyclopædia in progress, which is likely to be concluded about the year of our Lord 2000. As we do not intend to live so long as that, we leave the said Encyclopædia to shift for itself. But, mercy on us, how are we to dispose of the " National Library ?" Here is a collection" intended to place all the most useful, instructive, moral, and entertaining works, comprising the standard literature of all countries, within the means of all the families in the three kingdoms!" We are kindly informed, lest our natural feelings should be alarmed at the prospect of paying for such a number of books, still more of perusing them, that all this is to be accomplished "without taxing too heavily, at one and the same time, either the pocket or the head of the reader." Infinite are the obligations of the happy subscriber to the editors, for thus dividing the inflictions which they are resolved to heap upon his devoted head. After being nicely wrecked on the rocks of Scylla, most comfortably will he be swallowed up in the whirlpool of Charybdis.

It is not long since we came home one day from the Bank with our dividends in one pocket, and about a hundred weekly journals in the other, which we purchased in the fragrant purlieus of Fetter Lane. We were seduced by the show which they made, all embellished with cuts as they were, in a shop-window. There shone "The Cab," price one halfpenny, addressed to gentlemen of aspiring notions, but limited means; and offering them, in return for a small annual subscription, not only the Cab itself, but the occasional use of a chariot, with horses quiet to drive, ride, or run in tandem, and also the loan of boxes at Covent Garden and the Opera, as well as of ladies of fashion,-only for the purpose of gracing the said boxes by their appearance. They were to present themselves in moustaches à la porcupine, to talk loud during the opera or the play, to smell of cigar, and to take snuff in abundance. It was a necessary condition of their periodical felicity that they should, in all externals, be men of ton, whatever their previous habits might

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have been in the mystery of picking pockets. "The Halfpenny Magazine" had already, by some accident, arrived at a seventh number, -a fatal one, we fear, for the editors were fain to confess, "We have no cut this time." "The Halfpenny Library" had the singular merit of manufacturing a new adage out of an old one. There is an ancient saying, "Truth lies in a well." May not the modern adage," quoth the said Library, run thus,―The most certain charity is at a pump?"" "The Magnet," after admitting candidly that periodicals had increased beyond the possibility of purchase, or perusal, had the courage to add one more to the number, and the conscience to promise that it would print the essence of the whole in its own pages. "The Squib " threatened to blow up all its rivals. Forgetting that it was itself of inflammable materials, it became the first victim of its own temerity. "The Sunday Chronicle " came to proclaim the comfortable doctrine that all the world was mad, and that, as things went, Miss Baxter would have made a capital Lord Mayor. The editor gave demonstrative proof of his own wisdom, by departing spontaneously from such a world almost as soon as he came into it. Among the prescriptions of "The Doctor" and "The Penny Lancet," we looked in vain for a remedy capable of being administered to a young periodical diseased. We never beheld two medical practitioners, who stood more in need of assistance from their own "damnable compounds." "The New Penny Magazine"

must have been assuredly under their care, as the editor commenced a notice, intended for a very different purpose, by confessing, "With reluctance we decline." "The Tourist" had pledged himself to travel from Wellington Street, in the Strand, all over the civilized and savage world. After crossing over Waterloo Bridge, and disporting himself amid the pleasant retreats of Lambeth, he returned by Blackfriars to the place of Wellington once more, where we found him ruminating in the following penitential strain:-"Human hopes are frequently falsified by experience. No sooner are they submitted to an infallible criterion, than they have been proved defective and illusory;-the offspring of self-conceit or of partial knowledge. We are free to acknowledge that we have failed to realize our own expectations." "Rude Boreas" Dibdin! What is it really Tom? It is, in good truth, the same concoctor of immortal songs, pouring, with all his might, the tones of a heart still buoyant after every vicissitude, through a Penny Trumpet," in the character of one Doctor Blow. Alas! poor Tom!-he was soon destined to realize the converse of a story, which he himself tells of Schmidt, one of the late King's band. The German having been once asked to sustain a note of forty minims' duration, replied, "You may find ears, but who the defil is to find vindt?" Dibdin was copious in wind, but, after essaying a few blasts, he found an appalling deficiency of ears.

Plagiarism is the order of the day in all these publications. We bought for one penny the whole essence of Cyrus Redding's book on wines, which we found concentrated by the digestive pen of Mr. Craik in the pages of Charles Knight's magazine. By the by, what a glorious humbug this said magazine is upon the reading portion of the operatives! They think, poor devils, that the matter doled out to them weekly, through the medium of the "Penny Magazine," has been really got up "under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful

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