<< the same. The works he wrote at seventeen are much more extraordinary than Chatterton's at the same age." A question was started, as to which he considered the easiest of all metres in our language. 66 "Or rather," replied he, "you mean, which is the least difficult? I have spoken of the fatal facility of the octosyllabic metre. The Spenser stanza is difficult, because it is like a sonnet, and the finishing line must be good. "The couplet is more difficult still, because the last line, 66 66 or one out of two, must be good. But blank verse is the most difficult of all, because every line must be good." "You might well say then," I observed, "that no man can be a poet who does any thing else." During our evening ride the conversation happened to turn upon the rival Reviews. 66 "I know no two men," said he, "who have been so infa mously treated, as Shelley and Keats. If I had known 66 66 "that Milman had been the author of that article on 'The "Revolt of Islam,' I would never have mentioned Fazio' among the plays of the day, and scarcely know why "I paid him the compliment. In consequence of the "shameless personality of that and another number of 'The Quarterly,' every one abuses Shelley, his name is coupled with every thing that is opprobrious: but he is 66 one of the most moral as well as amiable men I know. "I have now been intimate with him for years, and every .“ year has added to my regard for him.-Judging from "Milman, Christianity would appear a bad religion for a 66 66 poet, and not a very good one for a man. His 'Siege of "Jerusalem' is one cento from Milton; and in style and 66 language he is evidently an imitator of the very man "whom he most abuses. No one has been puffed like Milman: he owes his extravagant praise to Heber. "These Quarterly Reviewers scratch one another's backs at a prodigious rate. Then as to Keats, though I am no admirer of his poetry, I do not envy the man, who 66 66 66 66 ever he was, that attacked and killed him. Except a couplet of Dryden's, 'On his own bed of torture let him lie, Fit garbage for the hell-hound infamy,' "I know no lines more cutting than those in Adonais,' 66 "As Keats is now gone, we may speak of him. I am always battling with the Snake about Keats, and wonder "what he finds to make a god of, in that idol of the Cockneys besides, I always ask Shelley why he does "not follow his style, and make himself one of the school, 66 if he think it so divine. He will, like me, return some day to admire Pope, and think 'The Rape of the Lock' " and its sylphs worth fifty 'Endymions,' with their faun "and satyr machinery. I remember Keats somewhere 66 66 says that 'flowers would not blow, leaves bud,' &c. if man and woman did not kiss. How sentimental! *The lines to which he referred were these: 66 Expect no heavier chastisement from me, But ever at thy season be thou free To spill their venom when thy fangs o'erflow. Adonais. I remarked that 'Hyperion' was a fine fragment, and a proof of his poetical genius. 66 Hyperion!'" said he: "why, a man might as well pre"tend to be rich who had one diamond. Hyperion' indeed! 'Hyperion' to a satyr! Why, there is a fine line in Lord "Thurlow (looking to the West that was gloriously golden "with the sunset) which I mean to borrow some day: 'And all that gorgeous company of clouds' "Do you think they will suspect me of taking from Lord "Thurlow?" 66 Speaking to him of 'Lalla Rookh,' he said: "Moore did not like my saying that I could never attempt to describe the manners or scenery of a country "that I had not visited. Without this it is almost impossible to adhere closely to costume. Captain Ellis once " asked him if he had ever been in Persia. If he had, he "would not have made his Parsee guilty of such a profanity. "It was an Irishism to make a Gheber die by fire." "I have been reading," said I, "The Lusiad,' and some of Camoens' smaller poems. Why did Lord Strangford call his beautiful Sonnets, &c. translations? Because he wrote," said Lord Byron, “in order to get "the situation at the Brazils, and did not know a word of "Moore was suspected of assisting his Lordship," said I. "Was that so?" 66 "I am told not," said Lord Byron. They are great friends; and when Moore was in difficulty about the "Bermuda affair, in which he was so hardly used, Lord 66 Strangford offered to give him 500l.; but Moore had too "much independence to lay himself under an obligation. "I know no man I would go further to serve than Moore. 66 "The Fudge Family' pleases me as much as any of his "works. The letter which he versified at the end was given him by Douglas Kinnaird and myself, and was "addressed by the Life-guards man, after the battle of Waterloo, to Big Ben. Witty as Moore's epistle is, it falls short of the original. 'Doubling up the Mounseers "in brass,' is not so energetic an expression as was used by our hero,--all the alliteration is lost. 66 66 66 "Moore is one of the few writers who will survive the |