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And certainly Aurora had renew'd

In him some feelings he had lately lost
Or harden'd; feelings which, perhaps ideal,
Are so divine, that I must deem them real:-
CVIII.

The love of higher things and better days;

The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance Of what is call'd the world, and the world's ways; The moments when we gather from a glance More joy than from all future pride or praise, Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance The heart in an existence of its own, Of which another's bosom is the zone.

CIX.

Who would not sigh Aἳ αἳ τὰν Κυθέρειαν

That hath a memory, or that had a heart? Alas! her star must wane like that of Dian:

Ray fades on ray, as years on years depart. Anacreon only had the soul to tie an

Unwithering myrtle round the unblunted dart Of Eros: but though thou hast play'd us many tricks, Still we respect thee, "Alma Venus Genetrix !" (1) CX.

And full of sentiments, sublime as billows

Heaving between this world and worlds beyond, Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows

Arrived, retired to his; but to despond Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows Waved o'er his couch; he meditated, fond

Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep, And make the worldling sneer, the youngling weep.

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CXIV.

A noise like to wet fingers drawn on glass, (2)
Which sets the teeth on edge; and a slight clatter
Like showers which on the midnight gusts will pass,
Sounding like very supernatural water,
Came over Juan's ear, which throbb'd, alas!

For immaterialism's a serious matter;
So that even those whose faith is the most great
In souls immortal, shun them tête-à-tête.

CXV.

Were his eyes open?—Yes, and his mouth too. Surprise has this effect-to make one dumb,' Yet leave the gate which eloquence slips through As wide as if a long speech were to come. Nigh and more nigh the awful echoes drew,

Tremendous to a mortal tympanum:

His eyes were open, and (as was before
Stated) his mouth. What open'd next?—the door.
CXVI.

It open'd with a most infernal creak,

Like that of hell. "Lasciate ogni speranza Voi che entrate!" The hinge seem'd to speak, Dreadful as Dante's rhima, or this stanza; Or-but all words upon such themes are weak: A single shade's sufficient to entrance a Hero-for what is substance to a spirit? Or how is't matter trembles to come near it?

CXVII.

The door flew wide, not swiftly,—but, as fly The sea-gulls, with a steady sober flightAnd then swung back; nor close-but stood awry, Half letting in long shadows on the light, Which still in Juan's candlesticks burn'd high,

For he had two, both tolerably bright, And in the door-way, darkening darkness, stood The sable friar in his solemn hood.

CXVIII.

Don Juan shook, as erst he had been shaken The night before; but, being sick of shaking, He first inclined to think he had been mistaken, And then to be ashamed of such mistaking; His own internal ghost began to awaken

With him, and to quell his corporal quakingHinting that soul and body, on the whole, Were odds against a disembodied soul.

CXIX.

And then his dread grew wrath, and his wrath fiert, And he arose, advanced-the shade retreated; But Juan, eager now the truth to pierce, Follow'd, his veins no longer cold, but heated, Resolved to thrust the mystery carte and tierce,

At whatsoever risk of being defeated: The ghost stopp'd, menaced, then retired, until He reach'd the ancient wall, then stood stone-still. CXX.

Juan put forth one arm-Eternal powers!

It touch'd no soul, nor body, but the wall, On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers, Chequer'd with all the tracery of the hall;

(2) See the account of the ghost of the uncle of Prince Charles of Saxony, raised by Schroepfer: "Karl-Karlwas wollst du mit mir ?"-L. E.

He shudder'd, as no doubt the bravest cowers When he can't tell what't is that doth appal. How odd, a single hobgoblin's non-entity

shall we gather only the testimonies of such eminent wits as would of course descend to posterity, and consequently be read without our collection; but we

Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity. (1) shall likewise, with incredible labour, seek out for

CXXI.

But still the shade remain'd: the blue eyes glared,
And rather variably for stony death:

Yet one thing rather good the grave had spared,
The ghost had a remarkably sweet breath.
A straggling curl show'd he had been fair-hair'd;
A red lip, with two rows of pearls beneath,
Gleam'd forth, as through the casement's ivy shroud
The moon peep'd, just escaped from a grey cloud.
CXXII.

And Juan, puzzled, but still curious, thrust

His other arm forth-Wonder upon wonder! It press'd upon a hard but glowing bust,

Which beat as if there was a warm heart under. He found, as people on most trials must,

That he had made at first a silly blunder,
And that in his confusion he had caught
Only the wall, instead of what he sought.
CXXIII.

The ghost, if ghost it were, seem'd a sweet soul
As ever lurk'd beneath a holy hood:

A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory, stole

Forth into something much like flesh and blood; Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl,

And they reveal'd-alas! that e'er they should!
In full, voluptuous, but not o'ergrown bulk,
The phantom of her frolic Grace-Fitz-Fulke! (2)

APPENDIX.

We have been much puzzled how to put the reader, who does not recollect the incidents of 1819, in possession of any thing like an adequate view of the nature and extent of the animadversion called forth by the first publication of Don Juan.

Cantos I. and II. appeared in London, in July, 1819, without the name either of author or bookseller, in a thin quarto; and the periodical press immediately teemed with the "judicia doctorum-necnon aliorum." It has occurred to us, that on this occasion we might do worse than adopt the example set us in the preface to the first complete edition of the Dunciad. We there read as follows:-"Before we present thee with our exercitations on this most delectable poem (drawn from the many volumes of our adversaria on modern authors), we shall here, according to the laudable usage of editors, collect the various judgments of the learned concerning our poet: various, indeed-not only of different authors, but of the same author at different seasons.

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Nor

Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard,
Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers," etc.
Rich. III.

(2) There can be little doubt that additions to this poem would have appeared in rapid succession, but for the untimely fate of the noble and highly-gifted author. A short time previous to his last illness in Greece, Byron, in conversation with friends, occasionally alluded to his intention of continuing the story of Don Juan. “Talk of subjects

divers others, which, but for this our diligence, could never, at the distance of a few months, appear to the eye of the most curious." We propose therefore, to gratify our readers, by selecting, in reference to Don Juan, a few of the chief

TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS, beginning with the most courtly, and decorous, and high-spirited of newspapers,

I. THE MORNING POST.

"The greatest anxiety having been excited with respect to the appearance of this Poem, we shall lay a few stanzas before our readers, merely observing, that, whatever its character, report has been completely erroneous respecting it. If it is not (and truth compels us to admit it is not) the most moral production in the world, but more in the Beppo style, yet is there nothing of the sort which Scandal with her hundred tongues whispered abroad, and Malignity joyfully believed and repeated, contained in it. 'Tis simply a tale and righte merrie conceit, flighty, wild, extravagantimmoral too, it must be confessed; but no arrows are levelled at innocent bosoms, no sacred family peace invaded; and they must have, indeed, a strange self-consciousness, who can discover their own portrait in any part of it. Thus much, though we cannot advocate the book, truth and justice ordain us to declare." [July, 1819.]

Even more complimentary, on this occasion, was the sober matter-of-fact Thwaitesism of the

II. MORNING HERALD.

"It is hardly safe or discreet to speak of Don Juan, that truant offspring of Lord Byron's muse. It may be said, however, that, with all its sins, the copiousness and flexibility of the English language were never before so triumphantly approved-that the same compass of talent-the grave, the gay, the great, the small,' comic force, humour, metaphysics, and observation-boundless fancy and ethereal beauty, and curious knowledge, curiously applied, have never been blended with the same felicity in any other poem."

Next comes a harsher voice, from-probably Lees Giffard, Esq., LL.D.—at all events, from that staunch and undeviating organ of high Toryism, the St. James's Chronicle, still flourishing, but now better known to London readers by its daily title of The Standard.

III. ST. JAMES'S CHRONICLE.

The

"Of indirect testimony, that the poem comes from the pen of Lord Byron, there is enough to enforce conviction. same full command of our language, the same thorough knowledge of all that is evil in our nature, the condensed energy of sentiment, and the striking boldness of imageryall the characteristics by which Childe Harold, the Giaour, and the Corsair, are distinguished-shine with kindred splendour in Don Juan. Would we had not to add another point of resemblance, in the utter absence of moral feeling, and the hostility to religion, which betray themselves in almost every passage of the new poem! But Don Juan is, alas! the most licentious poem which has for many years issued from the English press. There is, it is true, nothing so revolting in its plot as the stories of Manfred and Parisina; neither is the hero so repulsively immoral as Childe

for Don Juan'!" said he, on one occasion, "this Greek business, its disasters and mismanagement, have furnished me with matter for a hundred Cantos. I do not intend to write till next winter, then I may possibly finish another Canto. There will be both comedy and tragedy; my good countrymen supply the former, and Greece the latter." On another occasion he playfully remarked, "that he would continue Don Juan to one hundred and fifty Cantos, if the public would have patience;" adding that "twenty-two cantos were ready for the press."-P. E.

Harold, or the Giaour; but, with equal laxity of sentiment, there is much more of voluptuous description, unattended, in the present case, by the retributive suffering and penal remorse which cast the veil of their dark shadows over the gross sensuality of Lord Byron's other heroes."

The fourth on our list is The New Times, conducted in those days by a worthy and learned man, Sir John Stoddart, LL.D., now Chief Justice of Malta.

IV. NEW TIMES.

"The popularity of the opera of Il Don Giovanni, in all probability, suggested this poem. The hero is the same, and there is no obvious improvement in his morality. He has the same spirit of intrigue, and the same unrestricted success. The work is clever and pungent, sometimes reminding us of the earlier and more inspired day of the writer, but chiefly characterised by his latter style of scattered versification and accidental poetry. It begins with a few easy prefatory stanzas relative to the choice of a hero; and then details the learned and circumspect education of Don Juan, under his lady mother's eye. Lord Byron knows the additional vigour to be found in drawing from the life; and his portraiture of the literary matron, who is, like Michael Cassio, a great arithmetician, some touches on the folly of fe. male studies, and a lament over the henpecked husbands who are linked to ladies intellectual,' are obviously the results of domestic recollections."

Lord Burleigh himself never shook his head more sagely than

V. THE STATESMAN.

"This is a very large book, affecting many mysteries, but possessing very few; assuming much originality, though it hath it not. The author is wrong to pursue so eccentric a flight. It is too artificial; it is too much like the enterprise of Icarus; and his declination, or, at any rate, that of his book, will be as rapid, if not as disastrous, as the fabled tumble of that ill-starred youth."

We pass to The Literary Gazette, edited then, as now, by William Jerdan, Esq. of Grove House, Brompton; who is sure of being remembered hereafter for his gallant seizure of Bellingham, the assassin of Perceval, in the lobby of the House of Commons, on the 11th of May, 1812; and the establishment of the first Weekly Journal of Criticism and Belles Lettres in England.

VI. LITERARY GAZETTE.

"There is neither author's nor publisher's name to this book; and the large quarto title-page looks quite pure, with only seventeen words scattered over its surface: perhaps we cannot say that there is equal purity throughout; but there is not much of an opposite kind, to offend even fastidious criticism, or sour morality. That Lord Byron is the author there is internal proof. The public mind, so agitated by the strange announcement of this stranger, in the newspaper advertisements, may repose in quiet; since we can assure our readers that the avatar so dreaded neither refers to the return of Bonaparte, nor to the coming of any other great national calamity, but simply to the publication of an exceedingly clever and entertaining poem. Even when we blame the too great laxity of the poet, we cannot but feel a high admiration of his talent. Far superior to the libertine he paints, fancifulness and gaiety gild his worst errors, and no brute force is employed to overthrow innocence. Never was English festooned into more luxuriant stanzas than in Don Juan. Like the dolphin sporting in its native waves, at every turn, however grotesque, displaying a new hue and a new beauty, the noble author has shown an absolute control over his means; and at every cadence, rhyme, or construction, however whimsical, delighted us with novel and magical associations. The style and nature of this poem appear to us to be a singular mixture of burlesque and pa. thos, of humorous observation and the higher elements of poetical composition. Almost every stanza yields a proof of this; as they are so constructed, that the first six lines and the last two usually alternate with tenderness or whim. In ribaldry and drollery, the author is surpassed by many

writers who have had their day and sunk into oblivion; bat in highly-wrought interest, and overwhelming passion, he is himself alone. Here is the basis of his fame; and we could wish that the structure stood uncontaminated with that le vity and pruriency which the less scrupulous may laugh at to-day, but which has no claim to the applause of judicious or moral contemporaries, or of impartial posterity."

As the Editor of the Journal above quoted thought' fit to insert, soon after, certain extracts from a work then-(and probably still)-in MS., entitled Lord Byron's Plagiarisms, he (the Editor) will not think it indecorous in us here to append a specimen of the said work-which is known to have proceeded from no less a pen than that of

VII. ALARIC A. WATTS, ESQ.

"A great deal has been said, at various times, about the originality of Lord Byron's conception, as it respects the characters of the heroes and heroines of his poetry. We are, however, disposed to believe, that his dramatis persone are mostly the property of other exhibitors, although he may sometimes furnish them with new dresses and decorations, -with 'sable hair,' unearthly scowls,' 'a vital scorn' of all beside themselves,-and such additional improvements as he may consider necessary, in order to enable them to make their appearance with satisfaction to himself, and profit, or at least amusement, to the public. Sooth to say. there are few people better adapted to play the part of a Corsair than his lordship; for he is positively unequaled by any marauder we ever met with or heard of, in the e tent and variety of his literary piracies, and unacknowledged obligations to various great men-ay, and women 100-bying as well as deceased."

The next Weekly Journalist whom we hold it pr per to quote is The Champion-in other words. Thomas Hill, Esq., the generous original patron of Kirke White and Robert Bloomfield, so eloquently lauded by Southey in his Life of the former of these poets-then proprietor of

VIII. THE CHAMPION.

"Don Juan is undoubtedly from the pen of Lord Byron, and the mystery in the publication seems to be nothing hat a bookseller's trick to excite curiosity and enhance the sale: for although the book is infinitely more immoral than the publications against which the prosecutions of the Society for the Suppression of Vice are directed, we find nothing it that could be likely to be regarded as actionable. Athe bar of moral criticism, indeed, it may and must be arrange ed; and against the process and decrees of that court, the subterfuges appealed to will be no protection. Other writers. in their attacks upon whatever mankind may or ought reverence, make their advances in partial detail; Lord Byr proceeds by general assault. Some, while they war again religion, pay homage to morality; and others, while ther subvert all morals, cant about religion; Lord Byron dr plays at once all the force and energy of his faculties, the powers of poetry, and the missiles of wit and ridicule. against whatever is respectable in either. There is, of course, a good deal of miscellaneous matter dispersed through the two cantos, and though in those parts whit affect to be critical, the wantonness of wit is sometimes more apparent than the sedateness of impartial judgment; and though the politics occasionally savour more of th stic misanthropy, than of that ardent patriotic enthusiasm which constitutes the charm of that subject-upon both these topics, on the whole, we find much more to commend than to censure."

Among the Monthly critics, the first place is due to the venerable Sylvanus Urban.

IX. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

"Don Juan is obviously intended as a satire upon some of the conspicuous characters of the day. The best friends the poet must, with ourselves, lament to observe abilities so high an order rendered subservient to the spirit of delity and libertinism. The noble bard, by employing genius on a worthy subject, might delight and insta mankind; but the present work, though written with ease

and spirit, and containing many truly poetical passages, cannot be read by persons of moral and religious feelings without the most decided reprobation." [Aug. 1819.] We next have the

X. MONTHLY REVIEW.

"Don Juan is a poem, which, if originality and variety be the surest test of genius, has certainly the highest title to it; and which, we think, would have puzzled Aristotle, with all his strength of poetics, to explain, bave animated Longinus with some of its passages, have delighted Aristophanes, and bave choked Anacreon with joy instead of with a grape. We might almost imagine that the ambition had seized the author to please and to displease the world at the same time; but we can scarcely think that he deserves the fate of the old man and his son and the ass, in the fable,- or that he will please nobody,-how strongly soever we may condemn the more than poetic license of his muse. He has here exhibited that wonderful versatility of style and thought, which appears almost incompatible within the scope of a single subject; and the familiar and the sentimental, the witty and the sublime, the sarcastic and the pathetic, the gloomy and the droll, are all touched with so happy an art, and mingled together with such a power of union, yet such a discrimination of style, that a perusal of the poem appears more like a pleasing and ludicrous dream, than the sober feeling of reality. It is certainly one of the strangest, though not the best, of dreams; and it is much to be wished that the author, before he lay down to sleep, had invoked, like Shakspeare's Lysander, some good angel to protect him against the wicked spirit of slumbers. We hope, however, that his readers have learned to admire his genius without being in danger from its influence; and we must not be sur prised if a poet will not always write to instruct as well as to please us.

Still we must explicitly condemn and reprobate various passages and expressions in the poem, which we shall not insult the understanding, the taste, or the feeling of our readers by pointing out; endeavouring rather, like artful chemists, to extract an essence from the mass, which, resembling the honey from poisonous flowers, may yet be sweet and pure." [Aug. 1819.]

To which add a miscellany which, in spite of great occasional merit, is now defunct-the

XI. LONDON MAGAZINE.

"Lord Byron's poem of Don Juan, though a wonderful proof of the versatility of his powers, is avowedly licentious. It is a satire on decency, on fine feeling, on the rules of conduct necessary to the conservation of society, and on some of his own near connections. Vivacious allusions to certain practical irregularities are things which it is to be supposed innocence is strong enough to resist: but the quick alternation of pathos and profaneness,-of serious and moving sentiment and indecent ribaldry,-of afflicting soul-rending pictures of human distress, rendered keen by the most pure and hallowed sympathies of the human breast, and absolute jeering of human nature, and general mockery of creation, destiny, and heaven itself-this is a sort of violence, the effect of which is eithes to sear or to disgust the mind of the reader, and which cannot be fairly characterised but as an insult and outrage."

The journal next to be cited is also now defunct; but the title has been revived.

XII. BRITISH MAGAZINE.

"Byron, after having achieved a rapid and glorious fame, bas, by the publication of this poem, not only disgusted every well-regulated mind, and afflicted all who respected him for his extraordinary talents, but has degraded his personal character lower than even his enemies (of whom he has many) could have wished to see it reduced. So gratuitous, so melancholy, so despicable a prostitution of genius was never, perhaps, before witnessed. Much as we despise cant, we should despise ourselves still more, if we did not express contempt and indignation for the heartless profligacy which marks the volume before us. We wish we were the poet's next of kin: it should go hard but that a writ de lunatico inquirendo should issue. In the mean time we leave him, praying for him, with the clown in Twelfth Night: Thy wits the heavens restore! endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble-babble!'"

Another sage, long since dead and forgotten, was entitled the

XIII. EDINBURGH MONTHLY MAGAZINE. "Don Juan presents to us the melancholy spectacle of the greatest poet of the age lending the enchantment of his genius to themes upon which we trust that, for the benefit of mankind, the charm of its perverted inspiration will for ever be expended in vain. This is by far the most offensive of all Lord Byron's performances. We have here, for the first time in the history of our literature, a great work, of which the very basis is infidelity and licentiousness, and the most obtrusive ornaments are impure imaginations and blasphemous sneers. The work cannot perish; for it has in it, full and overflowing, the elements of intellectual vigour, and bears upon it the stamp of surpassing power. The poet is, indeed, damned to everlasting fame.'" [Sept. 1819.]

The Monthly organ of criticism possessing most sway among certain strictly religious circles, was in 1819, as now, the

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"We have followed Lord Byron thus far in his career: we care not to enter further into his secret. We have had enough of that with which his poetry is replete-himself. The necessary progress of character, as developed in his last reputed production, has conducted him to a point at which it is no longer safe to follow him even in thought, for fear we should be beguiled of any portion of the detestation due to this bold outrage. Poetry which it is impossible not to read without admiration, yet which it is equally impossible to admire without losing some degree of self-respect, can be safely dealt with only in one way,-by passing it over in silence. There are cases in which it is equally impossible to relax into laughter, or to soften into pity, without feeling that an immoral concession is made to vice. The author of the following stanzas might seem to invite our compassionate sympathy:

'No more-no more-Oh! never more on me

The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,
Which out of all the lovely things we see
Extracts emotions beautiful and new,
Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee:
Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew?
Alas! 't was not in them, but in thy power
To double even the sweetness of a flower.
'No more--no more-Oh! never more, my heart,
Canst thou be my sole world, my universe!
Once all in all, but now a thing apart,

Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse : The illusion 's gone for ever, and thou art Insensible, I trust, but none the worse, And in thy stead I've got a deal of judgment, Though Heaven knows how it ever found a lodgment.' "These lines are exceedingly touching, and they have that character of truth which distinguishes Lord Byron's poetry. He writes like a man who has that clear perception of the truth of things, which is the result of the guilty knowledge of good and evil; and who, by the light of that knowledge, has deliberately preferred the evil, with a proud malignity of purpose which would seem to leave little for the last consummating change to accomplish. When he calculates that the reader is on the verge of pitying him, he takes care to throw him back the defiance of laughter, as if to let him know that all the Poet's pathos is but the sentimentalism of the drunkard between his cups, or the relenting softness of the courtesan, who the next moment resumes the bad boldness of her degraded character. With such a man, who would wish to laugh or to weep? And yet, who that reads him can refrain alternately from either?"

Another now silent oracle was

XV. THE BRITISH CRITIC.

"A satire was announced, in terms so happily mysterious, as to set the town on the very tiptoe of expectation. A thousand low and portentous murmurs preceded its birth. At one time it was declared to be so intolerably severe, that an alarming increase was to be apprehended in the catalogue of our national suicides; at another, it was stated to be of a complexion so blasphemous, as, even in these days of liberality, to endanger the personal security of the bookseller. The trade, it was whispered, had shrunk back, one by one, from all the splendid temptations which attended the pub

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Fearful indeed was the prodigy-a book without a bookseller; an advertisement without an advertiser-a deed without a name.' After all this portentous parturition, out creeps Don Juan,and, doubtless, much to the general disappoint. ment of the town, as innocent of satire as any other Don in the Spanish dominions. If Don Juan, then, be not a satire -what is it? A more perplexing question could not be put to the critical squad. Of the four hundred and odd stanzas which the two cantos contain, not a tittle could, even in the utmost latitude of interpretation, be dignified by the name of poetry. It has not wit enough to be comic; it has not spirit enough to be lyric; nor is it didactic of any thing but mischief. The versification and morality are about upon a par; as far, therefore, as we are enabled to give it any character at all, we should pronounce it a narrative of degrading debauchery in doggrel rhyme. The style which the noble lord has adopted is tedious and wearisome to a most insufferable degree. Don Juan is no burlesque, nor mockheroic: it consists of the common adventure of a common man, ill conceived, tediously told, and poorly illustrated. In the present thick and heavy quarto, containing upwards of four hundred doggrel stanzas, there are not a dozen places that, even in the merriest mood, could raise a smile. It is true that we may be VERY DULL DOGS, and as little able to comprehend the wit of his lordship, as to construe his poetry."

We now arrive at two authorities to which, on this occasion uncommon attention is due, inasmuch as their castigations of Don Juan were considered worthy of very elaborate comment and reclamation on the part of Lord Byron himself. Of these, the first is that famous article in the no otherwise fa

mous work, since defunct, styled The British Review, or, in the phrase of Don Juan

XVI. “MY GRANDMOTHER'S REVIEW, THE BRITISH.”

"Of a poem so flagitious, that no bookseller has been willing to take upon himself the publication, though most of them disgrace themselves by selling it, what can the critic say? His praise or censure ought to found itself on examples produced from the work itself. For praise, as far as regards the poetry, many passages might be exhibited; for condemnation, as far as regards the morality, all: but none for either purpose can be produced, without insult to the ear of decency, and vexation to the heart that feels for domestic or national happiness. This poem is sold in the shops as the work of Lord Byron; but the name of neither author nor bookseller is on the title-page: we are, therefore, at liberty to suppose it not to be Lord Byron's composition; and this scepticism has something to justify it, in the instance which has lately occurred of the name of that nobleman having been borrowed for a tale of disgusting horror, published under the title of The Vampire.

"But the strongest argument against the supposition of its being the performance of Lord Byron is this;-that it can hardly be possible for an English nobleman, even in his mirth, to send forth to the public the direct and palpable falsehood contained in thé 209th and 210th stanzas of the First Canto.

For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish,
I've bribed my grandmother's review- the British.

'I sent it in a letter to the editor,

Who thank'd me duly by return of post-
I'm for a handsome article his creditor;
Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast,
And break a promise after having made it her,
Denying the receipt of what it cost,

And smear his page with gall instead of honey,
All I can say is-that he had the money.'

No misdemeanour-not even that of sending into the world obscene and blasphemous poetry, the product of studious lewdness and laboured impiety-appears to us in so detestable a light as the acceptance of a present by an editor of a Review, as the condition of praising an author; and yet the miserable man (for miserable he is, as having a soul of

which he cannot get rid), who has given birth to this pesti lent poem, has not scrupled to lay this to the charge of The British Review; and that not by insinuation, but has actually stated himself to have sent money in a letter to the Editor) of this journal, who acknowledged the receipt of the same by a letter in return, with thanks. No peer of the British realm can surely be capable of so calumnious a falsehood. refuted, we trust, by the very character and spirit of the journal so defamed. We are compelled, therefore, to conclude that this poem cannot be Lord Byron's production; and we, of course, expect that Lord Byron will, with all gentlemanly haste, disclaim a work imputed to him, con taining a calumny so wholly the product of malignant in

vention.

"If somebody personating the Editor of the British Review has received money from Lord Byron, or from any other person, by way of bribe to praise his compositions, the frand might be traced by the production of the letter which the author states himself to have received in return. Surely. then, if the author of this poem has any such letter, he will produce it for this purpose. But lest it should be said that we have not in positive terms denied the charge, we do utterly deny that there is one word of truth, or the sem blance of truth, as far as regards this Review, or its Editor, in the assertions made in the stanzas above referred to. We really feel a sense of degradation, as the idea of this odions imputation passes through our minds.

"We have heard, that the author of the poem under con sideration designed what he has said in the 35th stanza us a sketch of his own character:

Yet José was an honourable man;

That I must say, who knew him very well.'

If, then, he is this honourable man, we shall not call in vain for an act of justice at his hands, in declaring that he jest (our readers will judge how far such a mode of jesting did not mean his word to be taken, when, for the sake of a is defensible), he stated, with the particularity which belongs to fact, the forgery of a groundless fiction." (No. xvi. 1819.] |

tish Review (Mr. Roberts) called forth from Lori The foregoing vindication of the Editor of the Bri Byron that Letter to the Editor of My Grandmother's Review, which the reader will find annexed We next solicit attention to the following passages from the redoubted organ of Northern Toryism,

XVII. BLACKWOOD.

"In the composition of this work there is unquestionably a more thorough and intense infusion of genius and vicepower and profligacy-than in any poem which had eve before been written in the English or, indeed, in any other modern language. Had the wickedness been less inextri cably mingled with the beauty, and the grace, and th strength of a most inimitable and incomprehensible ma our task would have been easy. Don Juan is by far the most admirable specimen of the mixture of ease, strength gaiety, and seriousness, extant in the whole body of Eng lish poetry: the author has devoted his powers to the worst of purposes and passions; and it increases his gull and our sorrow, that he has devoted them entire.

"The moral strain of the whole poem is pitched in the lowest key. Love-honour-patriotism-religion, are men tioned only to be scoffed at, as if their sole resting-place were, or ought to be, in the bosoms of fools. It appears, in short, as if this miserable man, having exhausted every species of sensual gratification-having drained the cup sin even to its bitterest dregs-were resolved to show s that he is no longer a human being, even in his frailties; but a cool unconcerned fiend, laughing with a detestable glee over the whole of the better and worse elements of which human life is composed-treating well-nigh with equal derision the most pure of virtues, and the most odious of vices-dead alike to the beauty of the one, and the deformity of the other-a mere heartless despiser f that frail but noble humanity, whose type was never exti bited in a shape of more deplorable degradation than in his own contemptuously distinct delineation of himself. To con fess to his Maker, and weep over in secret agonies, the wildest and most fantastic transgressions of heart and mind, is the part of a conscious sinner, in whom sin has not become the sole principle of life and action. But, to lay bare to the eye of man-and of woman-all the hidden

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