with a short poem, which comprises the whole plot of "The Corsair," by "The Right Honourable Lord Byron." "Once on a time there liv'd a valiant corsair, He wore a helmet, and its tail was horsehair; A noted smuggler, yet he lov'd his wife This dame possess'd a pair of loving eyes, MR. EDITOR. SIR,-Having hitherto taken no part in the "wordy war" carried on in your miscellany, respecting the merits of Wordsworth and Byron, I shall not be liable to the imputation of prejudice for any thing which may be contained in the following remarks. It is evidently improper to bring the moral character of any literary, or indeed of any public man, into contrast with that of another, or to comment upon the character of any author except as it may be gathered from his writings, for in the present case, the virtues which characterize the great poet of the lakes, will not secure him the reputation of a true poet with posterity, if he does not deserve that reputation, any more than the known infidelity and licentiousness of Lord Byron's will cause his works to experience unmerited neglect. They will in future times be judged, at least as far as respects their moral characters, by their writings, and by them alone. It is no small recommendation for the works of a poet, that he has uniformly advocated the cause of piety and virtue; that he has consecrated his pen to the cause of truth, real freedom, and justice; or that he has dedicated his genius to the vindication of the best sympathies, the most honourable feelings, of the human heart; that he has endeavoured to excite in others those virtuous feelings which adorn his own life; that he has conveyed the precepts of morality in elegant and beautiful language; and essayed to promote the spirit of religion in the breast of his readers; that he has constantly persevered in opposing the progress of that first-born daughter of Infidelity, called Modern Philosophy; and that he has earnestly sought to favour the progress of that true and beautiful philosophy, whose root is religion, and whose fruits are faith, hope, and charity. These are no common merits, and they shine forth in all their brilliancy when contrasted with the defects of Byron; a man whom none but the most injudicious and unthinking of his admirers, would ever bring into contact with a poet like Wordsworth. They would never so severely injure the reputation of their idol, if they did but reflect upon his writings; for they would know that a man who has held up to scorn the character of an orderly and amiable relative, who had addressed lines to a daughter vilifying and defaming her father, who had treated the most sacred engagements of society with contempt and ridicule, can never have any claims to the respect or admiration of a Christian; of any follower of that religion, among whose commandments is contained an injunction to honour thy father and mother, and to refrain from commiting adultery; they would know that a seductive representation of vice, and a satire upon virtue, are not considered by the good and right-thinking part of the community as passports to their favour. I would wish your readers to pay particular attention to the letters of the defenders of Byron, in your December number, and after perusing them, to turn to the gentlemanly letter of G. M. and then see upon what foundation the charge of scurrility is made. I have no doubt they will say, "that those who live in glass houses For instance, gentlemen whose ladies take Leave to o'erstep the written rights of woman, And break the-which commandment is't they break? (I have forgot the number, and think no man Should rashly quote-for fear of a mistake.) Of truth and pure delight by heav'nly lays!" different. MR. EDITOR. SIR, It is not my intention to engage in the hopeless endeavour to settle a controversy respecting the comparative merits of two great poets, whose genius and subjects, and peculiar styles of excellence, are so essentially Without referring to the trite adage, "De gustibus," &c. it is between the poetry of the imagination sufficiently obvious that a comparison and that of the passions, abstractedly considered, can never be determined to general satisfaction, any more than one instituted between the different prismatic colours, the several cardinal admirers of the Greek and Roman virtues, &c. When the respective Epics have amicably adjusted their claims for their favourite bards; when the palm of pre-eminence is awarded by universal conclamation to one elect member of that deathless triumvirate, who gave the tragic muse to mankind; when the epopee and the drama arebrought to submit to an established code of precedency; when descriptive shall no longer war with didactic, nor classic jostle with romantic ;-then similar debateable points adjudged only can we expect to see this and and set at rest for ever. The only basis on which a legitimate comparison can lie, is the rank which each poet holds in his own mined by the intellectual vigour evindepartment; and this must be deterBefore I conclude this letter, I shall ced in the conception of the plan, and take the opportunity to make a few the degree of power evolved in its remarks on the persons already enga- execution, the beauties of imagery ged in the controversy. Aristarchus's elicited at every step, and the polish remarks have been fully disproved by and perfection, which form the crownG. M., Mark Etheridge, and others, ing grace of the whole. Now, with and I think that the majority, both in respect to these particulars, it is my talents and number, of your corre- private opinion, (venia Aristarchi et spondents, is in favour of Words- contradicentium omnium,) that the worth, whom I also consider some-mountain bard has decidedly the what superior to his antagonist. If advantage. But of this more anon. Byron's friends bring forward as many instances of plagiarism as the others have done, and instance as many displays of talent and genius, I shall not then sign myself as I do now, My present business is with this Aristarch, who, buoyed up, no doubt, by his magisterial appellation, has adventured to throw down the gauntlet to all who shall from this time forward dare to admire the puling, drivelling, namby-pamby strains, which he has branded with his reprobation. But see! the hero, like one of Homer's gods, retires awhile from the combat to give his enemies a breathing space; and, under cover of that solemn yet ominous silence, which he has announced it as his intention to maintain, till his petty assailants have in vain emptied their quivers upon his impervious panoply, when, like the majestic bird of prey,* after hovering aloof for a time, he will pounce down with one fell swoop upon his destined victims ;- under shelter of this magnanimous reserve, I may gain time to scan over his remarks; and, with the help of alembic, retort, or crucible, by analysis, or synthesis, decomposition, distillation, or sublimation, or whatever other process may promise best, endeavour to extract some argument, or ghost of an argument, from the froth and spume of his eloquence. 66 Juan?" Mr. Hazlitt, too, is quoted as one who bows to Lord Byron's supremacy; and Mr. Hazlitt, though his eccentricities and inconsistencies detract hugely from his weight as an authority, is a man of real power and original genius, and his opinions, even when most mistaken, are generally the shadows of some latent truth. His Round Table," as I have heard, (for it never was my lot to read it,) is full of outrageous exaggerations and extravagant paradoxes, offensive no less to religion than to good taste; but in his later works which I have read, he offers us what is most valuable, the testimony of an enemy: though come forth to curse, like Balaam the son of Beor, with overmastered reluctance he pours forth a blessing; and yet, with that unaccountable caprice which belongs only to the quarrels of literary friends and of lovers, after lavishing every laudatory epithet and attribute which a poet's soul could desire, on this reviled and slandered Wordsworth, exalting him to "the highest heaven of invention," he finishes his " Lecture" with gravely telling us that he has now reached LEVEL ground. O stupendum saltum! Aristarchus, it seems, is learned, an eruditissimus, if you will, and his erudition is vouched for, and his authority backed, by the friendly cooperation of a Philo-Aristarch, who has an awkward habit of concluding his orations with a song; (by the bye, Philo-Aristarchus would do well to bear in mind, in his future essays, Spite then of Aristarchus and his Julius Cæsar's sage advice, "verbum formidable phalanx of authorities and insolens tanquam scopulum vitare;") auxiliaries, which, whether Lord Byand a perspicacious and most micro-ron's popularity be waxing or waning, scopic Scrutator, et a priori et a poste- a matter of little importance, must be riori, who yet, with the utmost scru- regarded by every unprejudiced tiny, aided by these advantages of reader of the previous papers on this situation, could not discern Words- question, as furnishing a small corolworth's "rushlight" for Byron's "me- lary to the fact, that the respectability ridian sun. " and calibre of his Lordship's advocates have diminished, are diminishing, and must in future diminish. I will again suggest the unwelcome truth, that Wordsworth is a poet of the first order, that his laurels will not be blasted, no, nor stirred, even by the fulminating eloquence of an Aristarchus, that his works are not yet afloat on the Lethean stream, but will be read till Homer, Virgil, and Byron, are forgotten.t Other grave authorities, found in books, are brought forward to complete our overthrow. There is the worthy Knight, Sir Richard, who (thanks more to his unutterable dulness than to any want of will,) contrives to pour forth his monthly stream of blatant infidelity and sedition with the least possible harm, as it cannot, by any conceivable chance, make an impression, except on heads and hearts already too well prepared to receive it. Is it wonderful that this champion of democracy, who seems determined to run-a-niuck at every thing that is venerable in English institutions, and honourable and noble in English character, should shew a fellow-feeling for the author of "Don * Owl, not Eagle. No. 40.-VOL. IV. The only ground assigned for all the clamorous outcries of Aristarchus and his clan, is the threadbare accu † A writer who is so fertile, so skilful, and so original, in his quotations, as the motley columns of Aristarchus indicate, might have spared a few commas for the witticism of Professor Porson, here slightly altered ;-Posterity, could we but impannel her as witness, would say 'for the better.' 2 E sation of simplicity, meant to be synonymous with silliness; that of mysticism being conveniently dropt, as scarcely tenable with the other. These ambitious spirits relish descriptions of nature, but they must contain nothing natural; they will condescend to pastorals, provided there be nothing to remind them of such low images and homely sentiment as exist in the reality; their shepherds must be Arcadian, and toss well-turned similes and classic metaphors at each other; they tolerate no pictures of still life, no artless expression of the passions: if such be their taste, I would recommend to their admiration the sublime bombast and grandiloquent phrase of Dryden's Bajazets and Tamerlanes. We grant that Wordsworth does sing virginibus puerisque, (a praise which cannot be allowed his rival, without attaching blame to our British fair,) and that thousands of young minds have been charmed by the exquisite simplicity of his "Pet Lamb," "Lucy Gray," and one or two more of his ballads. But if Aristarchus would insinuate that this pure bard sings only for such audience; if he can point to a single poem which, with all its simplicity and puerilities, (and some few there are,) does not contain beauties that may form a study for the most enlightened; or if, denying this, he would assert that he understands them in their simplicity; he "babbles of things he knows not of," and I am not bound to furnish him with a faculty which has been originally wanting to his organization. "Dion," or a hundred others? Is this oversight the result of his much reading, or of his vaunted candour? Let him blush, if, as Dr. Johnson would say, he has the grace to blush, for such presumption. By gifted minds, (and by this I mean nothing uncommon, nothing more than minds moderately endowed with sensibility, and accustomed to reflection,) it is impossible that Wordsworth should be despised, though he may not be a favourite. Every subject on which he touches; and the whole "world of eye and ear" is open to his use, for every common thing is to him replete with sympathies and meanings hid from the general sight; every incident which comes under his observation, is at once exalted, transmuted, and shrined, in immortal verse, by the plastic energy of his genius. Does he sing of nature? she unfolds her inmost recesses and forest nooks to welcome him; earth assumes a verdure not her own; the empyreal vault glows with a deeper azure; "Flowers laugh before him on their beds, And fragrance in his footing treads." The greenwood rings more joyously to the carols of its songsters, and every living creature seems to keep holiday; and when he addresses himself to higher themes, to man, his passions and capacities, his hopes and fears, his strength and his weakness, with what keen vision does he explore these awful depths; how strong the pinion of that intellect, which soars up to "the height of this great argument," and brings us back the fruits of his stern quest imbodied in instructive narrative, or maxims And how comes it that with his acute perception of classic beauty, he can have overlooked the unrivalled purity and accuracy of the diction, redolent of a mild and humanized and the flowing modulation and majestic structure of the Wordsworthian philosophy, which rivet themselves blank verse, to which we have nothing, with the force of intuition in our since Milton wrote, "simile aut secunhearts. But whatever be the subject dum." How could he forget to notice of his impassioned lay, we alike disthe melancholy pathos and sublime cern the master-hand; and while he grandeur of the "Laodamia," in pours forth on the astonished sense which the poet has thrown the the full tide of an exuberant imaginareal gleams of his own vivid imagination, rich with all the wealth and magtion over all that is most touching in nificence of intellect; while he conthe creations of antiquity; or the jures up fair trains of imagery, for "Brownie's Cell," where we see the ever scintillating with novel and unmost consummate classic grace, blenlooked for analogies, that dance and ded with the very soul of imaginative sparkle before us, beauty, growing more and more intense, till they are concentrated in the last stanza; or the austere dignity of purpu As fast as a musician scatters sounds Out of an instrument;" while, above all, we contemplate the importance of those primal truths, Exegi monumentum ære perennius, is not the occasional obscenities, but the lurking substratum, of impurity and infidelity, that constitutes the worst venom of such writers as Byron and Gibbon? A purged and castigated edition of Don Juan, for instance, would make as pitiful a figure as the two letters of Aristarchus, with all but what is pertinent expunged. It is not the open attack of profligacy -the butting front-that is to be dreaded, but the sting in the tail. This, to be sure, is exemplified in a more literal sense, by the new launch of tragedies, the last of which may soon expect to be cut down into a But, as this moral poet himself suitable form for meaner and grosser tells us, though -"deathless powers to verse belong, palates. Whether "England, the ancient and the free," will have much cause to be indebted for her future stability to songs of liberty, springing from such a soil, and accompanied by such principles, it is unnecessary to say. One of Lord Byron's would-be advocates, has indeed made the discovery that his poetry is religious; at least he quotes one of the misnamed "Hebrew Melodies," as awakening sacred feelings within him. Perhaps he supposes that a sacred subject cannot be profanely treated, (witness Cain,) and that the altar sanctifies every gift; or perhaps, for these writers are wonderfully lax in their use of words, he means any thing or nothing. -And to this degraded class must we unwillingly add the name of Byron. Neither space nor inclination serves me to enter at large on this part of the subject. I must own that I never could bring myself, without reluctance, to read a second time any of his Lordship's productions as a whole. Numerous isolated passages, chiefly descriptive, occur, of inimitable beauty; but there are dreary wastes between, haunted only by the spectres of a morbid intellect; a perpetual interchange of licentiousness, scepticism, and despair, which must revolt every mind where the moral sense is still fresh and healthy. Not that I by any means suppose his Lordship to be "the great sublime he draws;" his practice, I have no doubt, is better than his principles, and I am even inclined to believe, that his principles are better than his professions. But he seems to be troubled by a restless impatience for immediate popularity, though at the sacrifice of his reversionary fame-he must be read at all events; and to this end his works must be poignant, caustic, flagrant, ay, blasphemous, if need be. And, as if he thought these qualities too in danger of falling, the noble poet now shows some disposition to veer round, and take ethics under his patron-ries and cheering philosophy of a age. Aristarchus has the confidence to compare Shakspeare's impurities with Byron's. Does he not know, that it Another sets us up a plea, that his Lordship is charitable. Why! charity is notorious as the rake's cloak for every vice, and is a poor voucher for the general character. But personal profligacy was no count in the indictment; the noble peer may, for ought that has been adduced, be as moral as most other men; and this introduction of foreign matter would, in abler hands, have argued a consciousness of the worst cause. Having now, I think, discharged the splenetic humour on assertions and pretensions imbecile as they are insolent;—and it was no part of my plan to deal out poetical justice between the illustrious subjects of dispute;-I will not trespass on your pages further than to remark in conclusion, that even the elevated theo Wordsworth, may tend to foster a dangerous intellectual pride in young, and ardent, and imaginative minds; while a salutary lesson of humility |