214 AMATORY PIECES. Fortune bestows her boons with fickle grace— The great in war, in peace may sink in vice, Yet, but for this natural impediment, no man, perhaps, ever possessed more of the requisites of a finished actor; he had the true vis vivida of an energetic mind: a just conception, a strong, fine toned flexible voice, a good person, and a graceful carriage. With such qualifications his vanity was not without foundation. The Amatory Pieces are numerous, and bear token of flowing from a tender heart, truly enamoured: they are pleasing of the kind; but as some extracts have been already given from them, more are unnecessary. The Translations are as good of the kind as those things usually are; they are given in pleasing.language and correct rhythm; which is as much as can be expected from similar works. It was strange that the critics, with all their affected acumen, should not have discovered Byron's natural bent and qualification for Satire, as in the very first publication, on which they fell with so much severity, the two pieces "Thoughts suggested by a College Examination," and "Granta," might have taught them that there was danger in meddling with edge-tools. They affected to de until they smarted The haughty, dis spise the weakness of the arm, For me, I fain would please the chosen few, I seek not glory from the senseless crowd, "Lachin y Gair," before noticed, is so beautiful a picture of attachment to the romantic scenery where his youthful days were passed. that the only fault a reader of taste can find with it is, that it is too short. "Newstead Abbey," is a pathetic description of and lamentation over the dilapidated seat of his ancestors, a proud eulogium on the virtues which distinguished and ennobled them, which, with a laudable ambition, he considers as an incitement to tread in their steps, and not to derogate from their well deserved fame. "Childish Recollections" are fraught with beauties, which none but the eye of jaundiced prejudice, or the determined enmity of a designing, rapacious reviewer, eager to pounce upon a rich 216 HEBREW MELODIES. and school-boy victim, could pretend to overlook, or wantonly decry. Scarcely escaped from the lash of the pedagogue, they imagined that the youth would be frightened to death by the tremendous frown of an Edinburgh Reviewer; but the very first stone from the sling of little David pierced the skull (it could not injure the brain) of the Scotch Goliah, "and all Israel rejoiced thereat." Byron, at different periods, published as many fugitive pieces as filled two volumes, on various subjects; several of which, such as the Hebrew Melodies, have been before noticed, and will not be again repeated, as we have much important matter on hand, relating to the public and private life of the author yet to discuss. It was a mistaken notion, however, not to bestow a harsher, and perhaps more deserving epithet on such unfounded calumny, that Byron had passed his time at Harrow and at Cambridge without making the usual progress which other youths usually attain under similar advantages. He confessed that he had no taste for the mathematics, and no ambition to become a wrangler for academic honours; but that he had made the usual proficiency, and much more so than is common with young men of his rank in life in the Latin and Greek languages, and was well read in the best authors, no man in his senses can pretend to deny. His attachment to every thing Grecian was RIGAS' WAR SONGS. 217 so great, that whilst in Greece he employed a considerable part of his time in learning the Romaic or modern Greek tongue, from which he translated some of the best works, and particularly the war songs of the brave and virtuous Rigas, who died a glorious martyr to the love of his country. There were some curious circumstances attending the commencement of Byron's literary career. If his first publication had been honoured with a small meed of praise, or had even escaped censure, Rigas was the modern Tyrtæus, who inspired the Greeks with that enthusiastic spirit which has since burst out into so glorious a flame, and enabled them to perform such wonders. He was a native of Thessaly, and passed the first part of his youth, among his native mountains, in teaching ancient Greek to his countrymen. The first burst of the French Revolution rouzed all the patriot in his veins. He discerned in it the early promise of the saturnian rule restored and, in the brilliant visions of glory and glittering dreams of happiness, independence, and peace, he saw emblems of regenerated Greece. He joined himself to some other Greek patriots, and this wandering bard of minstrelsy strolled thoroughout Greece, rouzing the bold, and encouraging the timid and wavering by their enthusiastic inspirations, rude eloquence, and energetic poetry. Rigas afterwards went to Vienna, to complete the plan of a rising which he and his comrades had for years been endeavouring to accomplish; but he was given up, with the connivance and to the eternal reproach of the Austrian Government, to the Turks, who endeavoured by torture to force from him the names of the other conspirators; but their cruelties had only the effect of displaying the admirable courage and constancy of the patriotic and undaunted soul of Rigas. 218 MR. HEWSON CLARK. he might perhaps have sunk into the indolence consequent upon rank and ease of circumstances, satisfied with having shewn himself possessed of some little talents; but the unjust severity of the reviewers aroused all that was man within him. The perusal of the critique of the Edinburgh Reviewers caused him such intense pain, that he at first strove to drown his feelings in claret. He next began to meditate revenge; and he resolved not to set out, like Don Quixote, by attacking the windmills, and getting flung into the dirt, to afford amusement to the gaping crowd. He went to work like an old stager. He made acquaintance with a literary gentleman (who designates himself as his private secretary) from whom, and other persons, he gleaned all that could be got of the secrets of the republic of letters,—of authors and reviewers (male and female), and thus armed at all points, he entered the lists. Whether it was through the indiscretion of Byron or his publisher, but an indiscretion it certainly was to announce the work as the offspring of "George Gordon, Lord Byron, a Minor :" this announcement was a kind of invitation of an attack, and we well remember, at the time, that it caused many sneers among the critics, who thought to reap an easy victory over a helpless victim. A Mr. Hewson Clark, who, as Byron informs us, had had some quarrel with his bear at Cambridge, becoming a writer for the Satirist (a scurrilous |