and allusions of contemporaries, but mingled, as almost every thing in those days of disputation and controversy were, with the bitterness of partizan zeal, the cool deliberation of the philosopher was wanting to weigh probabilities, to soften asperities, to judge of motives, to adjust the balance between fulsome panegyric and unmeasured abuse. This duty, in fine, called for peculiar talents and opportunities, and no man ever united them in a degree greater than Bishop Heber. An ardent admirer of Taylor-serving the same master and the same church-like him, full of erudition and literature and poetry— with a mind just, discriminating and logical-with a character of the most transcendant purity and holiness-with a rank and station, unsealing all the fountains of knowledge, it was impossible for him to fail. This work is written in Bishop Heber's very best style, and seldom have we had the pleasure of meeting with any style that we liked better. It is equally removed from the extreme of idiom and the stiffness of set phrase. It is simple, unaffected, earnest uniting elegance with grace and ease with dignity. It evinces a taste formed upon the severest models, yet enriched with the beauties of a fertile imagination. Like his character, his writing was generally grave and serious, but when his subject requires animated discussion, or illustration or passion, and his mind and feelings became enlisted, he speaks like "one having authority." Figures of speech rarely occur, but when used, the subject is sure to give clearness, and the reader to be delighted with their propriety. We can only say, in conclusion, that the work is worthy of its author and its subject, and that it receives an additional charm from the association it has fixed in our minds between two of the brightest examples of genius and virtue which the Church has ever produced. Want of space deters us, at this time, from any notice of Taylor's writings-at some future day, when we shall have more space and leisure, we will discuss their beauties and characteristics. ART. VII.-Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of his Life. By THOMAS MOORE. In 2 vols. Vol. I. NewYork. J. & J. Harper. 1830. THE same inordinate curiosity about this work, which, as we are assured, made it absolutely necessary to publish it by piece-meal, will be a sufficient justification for a critical notice of it in its present incomplete state. It is, however, not without some degree of reluctance, that we hazard an opinion as to its merits, before we have fairly heard the author out with his story. The end not only "crowns the work," as the proverb expresses it, but it does something more. It explains, illustrates, reconciles all the parts, and, by discovering fully their relation to each other and to the whole, often shews the fitness and propriety of what, perhaps, at first appeared questionable or unsatisfactory. We are the more disposed to give Mr. Moore the full benefit of this concession, because we humbly conceive that he stands in need of it. We are free to confess that we have risen from the perusal of this volume with a very decided feeling of disappointment, to use no stronger expression. That our expectations-the Life of Sheridan to the contrary notwithstanding-had been raised to no ordinary pitch, we readily admit; and some allowances ought, doubtless, to be made on that score. But how should it have been otherwise? The few notices we had seen of the book from the English press, were of the most flattering kind, and, independently of these, there was every thing about the author's character and situation-the unhappy failure just alluded to always excepted-to excite the liveliest hopes for the success of the present very popular undertaking. We knew that the "noble poet" had been as intimate with Mr. Moore, as his extreme jealousy and shyness would allow him to be with any body. We knew, further, that our author had been made by Lord Byron himself, the depositary of certain MSS. of such deep and mysterious import, that it was deemed, for the benefit of all concerned-except the gentleman who made this sacrifice to consign them to the flames. This act of considerate and lofty disinterestedness, as it has always been represented to have been, was, on many accounts, calculated to awaken great interest in the present work. To have had it in his power to make such a sacrifice, was, one would think, no small advantage to a biographer. However false may have been Lord Byron's representations of the con duct of others, in this Black Book-however atrocious and unscrupulous his hostility to those who had offended or thwarted or defied him-he both loved himself and knew himself thoroughly; nor is it possible that he should not have impressed the image of his whole character, that he should not have breathed out his inmost soul, upon every page of that dark record of hate and wrath. We drew a not less favourable inference from the spirit, by which Mr. Moore was supposed to have been actuated in that affair. He had sacrificed, when in distress, two or three thousand pounds, (so the story went) rather than be accessory to the publication of such "perilous stuff" as the posthumous libel was made up of. He was a man, therefore, neither to be bribed by any pecuniary interest of his own, nor to be induced by any overweening partiality for his friend, to be the instrument of his malignity, or to spare his vices. We certainly expected from such a man, something different from the awkard, glozing, parasitical apology which he has given to the public, under the equivocal title of "Notices of the Life of Lord Byron"-to say nothing of a determined propensity for bookmaking which appears in it. We repeat it we may see cause to change or at least to qualify our opinion of the whole work, when the rest of it shall have been published. But for the present, the impression left upon our minds is, that it is just such a full, frank, and manly statement of the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as a jury at the sessions is likely to hear from a hackneyed advocate in a desperate cause. We have heard it remarked, as something favourable to this work, that it is a rare example of the biography of a great poet, written by one of the most distinguished of his compeers. In general, that would be any thing but a recommendation; since the life of one literary man is, according to a trite remark, always a dull subject for another, and the only advantage which a poet, as such, could have in treating his theme, would be not the most auspicious, in the world, to historical accuracy. Yet, whether the subject was fortunate in his biographer or not, in the present instance, the biographer was incontestably most fortunate in his subject. Lord Byron's life was not a literary, or cloistered and scholastic life. He had lived generally in the world, and always and entirely for the world. The amat nemus et fugit urbes, which has been predicated of the whole tuneful tribe, was, only in a qualified sense, a characteristic of his. If he sought seclusion, it was not for the retired leisure or the sweet and innocent tranquility of a country-life. His retreats were rather like that of Tiberius at Capres-the gloomy solitude of misanthropy and remorse, hiding its despair in darkness, or seeking to stupify and drown it in vice and debauchery. But even when he fled from the sight of men, it was only that he might be sought after the more, and in the depths of his hiding-places, as was long ago remarked of Timon of Athens, he could not live without vomiting forth the gall of his bitterness, and sending abroad most elaborate curses in good verse, to be admired of the very wretches whom he affected to despise. He lived in the world, and for the world-nor is it often that a career so brief, affords to biography so much impressive incident, or that the folly of an undisciplined and reckless spirit has assumed such a motley wear, and played off, before God and Man, so many extravagant and fantastical antics. On the other hand, there was, amidst all its irregularities, something strangely interesting, something, occasionally, even grand and imposing in Lord Byron's character and mode of life. His whole being was, indeed, to a remarkable degree, extraordinary, fanciful, and fascinating. All that drew upon him the eyes of inen, whether for good or evil-his passions and his genius, his enthusiasm and his woe, his triumphs and his downfall-sprang from the same source, a feverish temperament, a burning, distempered, insatiable imagination; and these, in their turn, acted most powerfully upon the imagination and the sensibility of others. We well remember a time-it is not more than two lustres ago—when we could never think of him ourselves but as an ideal being—a creature, to use his own words, "of loneliness and mystery"—moving about the earth like a troubled spirit, and even when in the midst of men, not of them. The enchanter's robe which he wore, seemed to disguise his person, and, like another famous sorcerer and sensualist -he hurled His dazzling spells into the spungy air Of pow'r to cheat the eye with blear illusion It has often occurred to us, as we have seen Sir Walter Scott diligently hobbling up to his daily task in the Parliament House at Edinburgh, and still more when we have gazed upon him for hours seated down at his clerk's desk, with a countenance of most demure and business-like formality, to contrast him, in that situation, with the only man, who had not been, at the time, totally overshadowed and eclipsed by his genius. It was, indeed, a wonderful contrast! Never did two such men-competitors in the highest walks of creative imagination and deep pathos— present such a strange antithesis of moral character, and doVOL. V.NO. 10. 59 mestic habits and pursuits, as Walter Scott at home, and Lord Byron abroad. It was the difference between prose and poetry-between the dullest realities of existence and an incoherent, though powerful and agitating romance-between a falcon trained to the uses of a domestic bird, and, instead of "towering in her pride of place," brought to stoop at the smallest quarry, and to wait upon a rude sportman's bidding like a menial servantand some savage, untamed eagle, who, after struggling with the bars of his cage, until his breast was bare and bleeding with the agony, had flung himself forth, once more, upon the gale, and was again chasing before him the "whole herd of timorous and flocking birds," and making his native Alps, through all their solitudes, ring to his boding and wild scream. Lord Byron's pilgrimages to distant and famous lands-especially his first-heightened this effect of his genius and of his very peculiar mode of existence. Madame de Staël ascribes it to the good fortune or the deep policy of Napoleon, that he had succeeded in associating his name with some of those objects which have, through all time, most strongly impressed the imaginations of men, with the Pyramids, the Alps, the Holy Land, &c. Byron had the same advantage. His muse, like Horace's image of Care, mounted with him the steed and the gondola, the post-chaise and the packet-ship. His poems are, in a manner, the journals and common-place books of the wandering Childe. Thus, it is stated or hinted that a horrible incident, like that upon which the Giaour turns, had nearly taken place within Byron's own observation while in the East. His sketches of the sublime and beautful in nature, seem to be mere images, or, so to express it, shadows thrown down upon his pages from the objects which he visited, only coloured and illumined with such feelings, reflections and associations as they naturally awaken in contemplative and susceptible minds. His early visit to Greece, and the heartfelt enthusiasm with which he dwelt upon her loveliness even "in her age of woe"-upon the glory which once adorned, and that which might still await herhave identified him with her name, in a manner which subsequent events have made quite remarkable. His poetry, when we read it over again, seems to breathe of "the sanctified phrenzy of prophecy and inspiration." He now appears to have been the herald of her resuscitation. The voice of lamentation which he sent forth over Christendom, was as if it had issued from all her caves, fraught with the woe and the wrongs of ages, and the deep vengeance which at length awoke-and not in vain! In expressing ourselves as we have done upon this subject, it is to us a melancholy reflection that our language is far more suit |