tone-the perpetual gloom with which all its scenes are overcast-and the tediousness with which some of them are developed. There are many dull passages, in short, and a considerable quantity of heavy reading-some silliness, and a good deal of affectation. But the beauties, upon the whole, preponderate; and these, we hope, speak for themselves in the passages we have already extracted.

pathos, is still too much speckled with strange words; which, whether they are old or new, are not English at the present day-and we hope never will become so. What use or or nament does Mr. Southey expect to derive for his poetry from such words as avid and aureate, and auriphrygiate? or leman and weedery, fre quentage and youthhead, and twenty more as pedantic and affected? What good is there either, we should like to know, in talking of "oaken galilees," or "incarnadined poitrals," or "all-able Providence," and such other points of learning?-If poetry is intended for general delight, ought not its language to be

The versification is smooth and melodious, though too uniformly drawn out into long and linked sweetness. The diction is as usual more remarkable for copiousness than force;and though less defaced than formerly with phrases of affected simplicity and infantine generally intelligible?

(December, 1816.)

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto the Third. By LORD BYRON. 8vo. pp. 79. London: 1816. The Prisoner of Chillon, and other Poems. By LORD BYRON. 8vo. pp. 60. London: 1816.*

strong emotion-the fire and air alone of our human elements.

Ir the finest poetry be that which leaves the deepest impression on the minds of its readers and this is not the worst test of its In this respect, and in his general notion of excellence-Lord Byron, we think, must be the end and the means of poetry, we have allowed to take precedence of all his distin- sometimes thought that his views fell more guished contemporaries. He has not the va-in with those of the Lake poets, than of any riety of Scott-nor the delicacy of Campbellnor the absolute truth of Crabbe-nor the polished sparkling of Moore; but in force of diction, and inextinguishable energy of sentiment, he clearly surpasses them all. "Words that breathe, and thoughts that burn," are not merely the ornaments, but the common staple of his poetry; and he is not inspired or impressive only in some happy passages, but through the whole body and tissue of his composition. It was an unavoidable condition, perhaps, of this higher excellence, that his scene should be narrow, and his persons few. To compass such ends as he had in view, it was necessary to reject all ordinary agents, and all trivial combinations. He could not possibly be amusing, or ingenious, or playful; or hope to maintain the requisite pitch of interest by the recitation of sprightly adventures, or the opposition of common characters. To produce great effects, in short, he felt that it was necessary to deal only with the greater passions with the exaltations of a daring fancy, and the errors of a lofty intellect-with the pride, the terrors, and the agonies of

other existing party in the poetical commonwealth: And, in some of his later productions especially, it is impossible not to be struck with his occasional approaches to the style and manner of this class of writers. Lord Byron, however, it should be observed, like all other persons of a quick sense of beauty, and sure enough of their own originality to be in no fear of paltry imputations, is a great mimic of styles and manners, and a great borrower of external character. He and Scott, accordingly, are full of imitations of all the writers from whom they have ever derived gratification; and the two most original writers of the age might appear, to superficial observers, to be the most deeply indebted to their predecessors. In this particular instance, we have no fault to find with Lord Byron: For undoubtedly the finer passages of Wordsworth and Southey have in them wherewithal to lend an impulse to the utmost ambition of rival genius; and their diction and manner of writing is frequently both striking and original. But we must say, that it would afford us still greater pleasure to find these tuneful gentlemen returning the compliment which Lord I have already said so much of Lord Byron with Byron has here paid to their talents; and reference to his Dramatic productions, that I cannot forming themselves on the model rather of now afford to republish more than one other paper his imitations, than of their own originals.— on the subject of his poetry in general: And I se. In those imitations they will find that, though lect this, rather because it refers to a greater variety he is sometimes abundantly mystical, he of these compositions, than because it deals with such as are either absolutely the best, or the most never, or at least very rarely, indulges in abcharacteristic of his genius. The truth is, however, solute nonsense-never takes his lofty flights that all his writings are characteristic; and lead, upon mean or ridiculous occasions — and, pretty much alike, to those views of the dark and above all, never dilutes his strong concep the bright parts of his nature, which have led me, I fear (though almost irresistibly) into observations more personal to the character of the author, than should generally be permitted to a mere literary

vensor.

tions, and magnificent imaginations, with a flood of oppressive verbosity. On the con trary, he is, of all living writers, the most concise and condensed; and, we would fain

nope, may go far, by his example, to redeem | by one character-not only in all the acts of the great reproach of our modern literature- each several drama, but in all the different its intolerable prolixity and redundance. In dramas of the series;-and, grand and imhis nervous and manly lines, we find no elab-pressive as it is, we feel at last that these very orate amplification of common sentiments-qualities make some relief more indispensable, no ostentatious polishing of pretty expres- and oppress the spirits of ordinary mortals sions; and we really think that the brilliant with too deep an impression of awe and resuccess which has rewarded his disdain of pulsion. There is too much guilt in short, and those paltry artifices, should put to shame for too much gloom, in the leading character;ever that puling and self-admiring race, who and though it be a fine thing to gaze, now can live through half a volume on the stock and then, on stormy seas, and thunder-shaken of a single thought, and expatiate over divers mountains, we should prefer passing our days fair quarto pages with the details of one te-in sheltered valleys, and by the murmur of dious description. In Lord Byron, on the con- calmer waters. trary, we have a perpetual stream of thick- We are aware that these metaphors may be coming fancies-an eternal spring of fresh- turned against us and that, without metablown images, which seem called into exist-phor, it may be said that men do not pass ence by the sudden flash of those glowing their days in reading poetry-and that, as they thoughts and overwhelming emotions, that may look into Lord Byron only about as often struggle for expression through the whole flow as they look abroad upon tempests, they have of his poetry and impart to a diction that is no more reason to complain of him for being often abrupt and irregular, a force and a charm grand and gloomy, than to complain of the which frequently realise all that is said of in- same qualities in the glaciers and volcanoes spiration. which they go so far to visit. Painters, too, With all these undoubted claims to our it may be said, have often gained great repuadmiration, however, it is impossible to deny tation by their representations of tigers and that the noble author before us has still some- others ferocious animals, or of caverns and thing to learn, and a good deal to correct. He banditti-and poets should be allowed, withis frequently abrupt and careless, and some-out reproach, to indulge in analogous exertimes obscure. There are marks, occasion-cises. We are far from thinking that there is ally, of effort and straining after an emphasis, no weight in these considerations; and feel which is generally spontaneous; and, above all, there is far too great a monotony in the moral colouring of his pictures, and too much repetition of the same sentiments and maxims. He delights too exclusively in the delineation of a certain morbid exaltation of character and feeling-a sort of demoniacal sublimity, not without some traits of the ruined Archangel. He is haunted almost perpetually with the image of a being feeding and fed upon by violent passions, and the recollections of the catastrophes they have occasioned: And, though worn out by their past indulgence, unable to sustain the burden of an existence which they do not continue to animate:-full of pride, and revenge, and obduracy-disdaining life and death, and mankind and himself and trampling, in his scorn, not only upon the falsehood and formality of polished life, but upon its tame virtues and slavish devotion: Yet envying, by fits, the very beings he despises, and melting into mere softness and compassion, when the helplessness of childhood or the frailty of woman make an appeal to his generosity. Such is the person with whom we are called upon almost exclusively to sympathise in all the greater productions of this distinguished writer:-In Childe Harold -in the Corsair-in Lara-in the Siege of Corinth in Parisina, and in most of the smaller pieces.

It is impossible to represent such a character better than Lord Byron has done in all these productions-or indeed to represent any thing more terrible in its anger, or more attractive in its relenting. In point of effect, we readily admit, that no one character can be more poetical or impressive :-But it is really too much to find the scene perpetually filled

how plausibly it may be said, that we have no better reason for a great part of our complaint, than that an author, to whom we are already very greatly indebted, has chosen rather to please himself, than us, in the use he makes of his talents.

This, no doubt, seems both unreasonable and ungrateful: But it is nevertheless true, that a public benefactor becomes a debtor to the public; and is, in some degree, responsible for the employment of those gifts which seem to be conferred upon him, not merely for his own delight, but for the delight and improvement of his fellows through all generations. Independent of this, however, we think there is a reply to the apology. A great living poet is not like a distant volcano, or an occasional tempest. He is a volcano in the heart of our land, and a cloud that hangs over our dwellings; and we have some reason to complain, if, instead of genial warmth and grateful shade, he voluntarily darkens and inflames our atmosphere with perpetual fiery explosions and pitchy vapours. Lord Byron's poetry, in short, is too attractive and too famous to lie dormant or inoperative; and, therefore, if it produce any painful or perni cious effects, there will be murmurs, and ought to be suggestions of alteration. Now, though an artist may draw fighting tigers and hungry lions in as lively and natural a way as he can, without giving any encouragement to human ferocity, or even much alarm to human fear, the case is somewhat different, when a poet represents men with tiger-like dispositions:-and yet more so, when he exhausts the resources of his genius to make this terrible being interesting and attractive, and to represent all the lofty virtues as the natural

allies of his ferocity. It is still worse when he proceeds to show, that all these precious gifts of dauntless courage, strong affection, and high imagination, are not only akin to guilt, but the parents of misery;-and that those only have any chance of tranquillity or happiness in this world, whom it is the object of his poetry to make us shun and despise. These, it appears to us, are not merely errors in taste, but perversions of morality; and, as a great poet is necessarily a moral teacher, and gives forth his ethical lessons, in general with far more effect and authority than any of his graver brethren, he is peculiarly liable to the censures reserved for those who turn the means of improvement to purposes of corruption.

however, to dwell upon observations so gene. ral-and we shall probably have better means of illustrating these remarks, if they are really well founded, when we come to speak of the particular publications by which they have now been suggested.

We had the good fortune, we believe, to be among the first who proclaimed the rising of a new luminary, on the appearance of Childe Harold on the poetical horizon,—and we pursued his course with due attention through several of the constellations. If we have lately omitted to record his progress with the same accuracy, it is by no means because we have regarded it with more indifference, or supposed that it would be less interesting to the public-but because it was so extremely conspicuous as no longer to require the notices of an official observer. In general, we do not think it necessary, nor indeed quite fair, to oppress our readers with an account of works, which are as well known to them as to ourselves; or with a repetition of sentiments in which all the world is agreed. Wherever, a work, therefore, is very popular, and where the general opinion of its merits appears to be substantially right, we think ourselves at liberty to leave it out of our chronicle, without incurring the censure of neglect or inattention. A very rigorous application of this maxim might have saved our readers the trouble of reading what we now write-and, to confess the truth, we write it rather to gratify ourselves, than with the hope of giving them much information. At the same time, some short notice of the progress of such a writer ought, perhaps, to appear in his contemporary journals, as a tribute due to his eminence; and a zealous critic can scarcely set about examining the merits of any work, or the nature of its reception by the public, without speedily discovering very urgent cause for his admonitions, both to the author and his admirers.

It may no doubt be said, that poetry in general tends less to the useful than the splendid qualities of our nature-that a character poetically good has long been distinguished from one that is morally so-and that, ever since the time of Achilles, our sympathies, on such occasions, have been chiefly engrossed by persons whose deportment is by no means exemplary; and who in many points approach to the temperament of Lord Byron's ideal hero. There is some truth in this suggestion also. But other poets, in the first place, do not allow their favourites so outrageous a monopoly of the glory and interest of the piece -and sin less therefore against the laws either of poetical or distributive justice. In the second place, their heroes are not, generally, either so bad or so good as Lord Byron's -and do not indeed very much exceed the standard of truth and nature, in either of the extremes. His, however, are as monstrous and unnatural as centaurs, and hippogriffsand must ever figure in the eye of sober reason as so many bright and hateful impossibilities. But the most important distinction is, that the other poets who deal in peccant heroes, neither feel nor express that ardent affection for them, which is visible in the Our last particular account was of the Corwhole of this author's delineations; but mere- sair;-and though from that time to the publy make use of them as necessary agents in lication of the pieces, the titles of which we the extraordinary adventures they have to have prefixed, the noble author has produced detail, and persons whose mingled vices and as much poetry as would have made the forvirtues are requisite to bring about the catas- tune of any other person, we can afford to trophe of their story. In Lord Byron, how- take but little notice of those intermediate ever, the interest of the story, where there performances; which have already passed happens to be one, which is not always the their ordeal with this generation, and are case, is uniformly postponed to that of the fairly committed to the final judgment of poscharacter itself-into which he enters so deep- terity. Some slight reference to them, howly, and with so extraordinary a fondness, that ever, may be proper, both to mark the prohe generally continues to speak in its lan-gress of the author's views, and the history guage, after it has been dismissed from the of his fame. stage; and to inculcate, on his own authority, LARA was obviously the sequel of the Corthe same sentiments which had been pre- sair and maintained, in general, the same viously recommended by its example. We tone of deep interest, and lofty feeling;do not consider it as unfair, therefore, to say though the disappearance of Medora from the that Lord Byron appears to us to be the zeal- scene deprives it of the enchanting sweetous apostle of a certain fierce and magnificent ness, by which its terrors were there redeemed, misanthropy; which has already saddened and make the hero on the whole less captihis poetry with too deep a shade, and not vating. The character of Lara, too, is rather only led to a great misapplication of great too laboriously finished, and his nocturnal en talents, but contributed to render popular some counter with the apparition is worked up too very false estimates of the constituents of hu- ostentatiously. There is infinite beauty in man happiness and merit. It is irksome, the sketch of the dark page-and in many of