BYRON.

THREE thousand copies of Byron's poems are sold annually in this country. Such a fact affords sufficient reason for hazarding some remarks on a theme which may well be deemed exhausted. "My dear sir," said Dr. Johnson, "clear your mind of cant.' This process is essential to a right appreciation of Byron. No individual, perhaps, ever more completely wore his heart upon his sleeve" and no heart was ever more thoroughly pecked at by the daws. The moral aspect of the poet's claims has never been fairly understood. No small class of well-meaning persons avoid his works as if they breathed contagion; whereas it would be difficult to find a poet whose good and evil influence are more distinctly marked. The weeds and flowers, the poisonous gums and "roses steeped in dew," are not inextricably mingled in the garden of his verse. The same frankness and freedom that marked his life, is evident in his productions. It is unjust to call Byron insidious. The sentiments he unveils are not to be misunderstood. They appear in bold relief, and he who runs may read. There is, therefore, a vast deal of cant in much that is said of the moral perversion of the poet. Where he is inspired by low views, the darkness of the fountain tinges the whole stream; and where he yields to the love of the beautiful, it is equally apparent. There are those who would cut off the young from all acquaintance with his

works, because they are sometimes degraded by unworthy ideas or too truly reflect some of the dark epochs of his life. But it is to be feared that the mind that cannot discriminate between the genuine poetry and the folly and vice of these writings, will be unsafe amid the moral exposure of all life and literature. Indeed, there can scarcely be conceived a book at once more melancholy and more moral than Moore's Life of Byron. It delinetes the vain and wretched endeavours of a gifted spirit to find in pleasure what virtue alone can give. It portrays a man of great sensibility, generous impulses and large endowments, attempting to live without settled principle, and be happy without exalted hopes. There is no more touching spectacle in human life. Genius is always attractive; but when allied to great errors it gives a lesson to the world beyond the preacher's skill. What awful hints lurk in the affected badinage of Byron's journal and letters What an idea do they convey of mental struggles! After reading one of his poems, how significant a moral is his own confession: “I have written this to wring myself from reality." And when he was expostulated with for the misanthropic colouring of his longest and best poems, who can fail to look "more in pity than in anger," upon the bard when he declares "I feel you are right, but I also feel that I am sincere."

The apparent drift of Byron's versified logic is skepticism. He continually preaches hopelessness; but the actual effect of his poetry seems to me directly the reverse. No bard more emphatically illustrates the absolute need we all have of love and truth. His very wailing is more significant than the rejoicing of tamer minstrels. No one can intelligently commune with his musings and escape the conviction that their dark hues spring from the vain endeavour to reconcile error and the soul. Byron's egotism, his identity with his characters, his cyni

cism, his want of universality, his perverted creed and fevered impulses have been elaborately unfolded by a host of critics. The indirect, but perhaps not less effective lessons he taught, are seldom recognized. The cant of criticism has blinded many to the noble fervour of his lays devoted to Nature and Freedom. All his utterance is not sneering and sarcastic; and it argues a most uncatholic taste to stamp with a single epithet compositions so versatile in spirit. It is curious to trace the caprice which runs through the habits and opinions of Byron. It should ever be borne in mind in contemplating his char acter, that in many respects he became, or tried to become, the creature which the world made him. He took a kind of wicked pleasure in adapting himself to the strange portraits which gossips had drawn. Still, with all due allowance for this disposition, the views and acts of the poet were marked by the various contradictions which entered so largely into his nature and fortunes. Compare, for instance, such phrases as "cash is virtue" and "I like a row," with some of his deliberate sentiments embodied in verse. His letters to Murray alone display a

constant series of cross directions. Well did he observe "I am like quicksilver and say nothing positively." His opinions on the subject of his own art cannot be made to coincide with each other or with his own practice. Horace" to the first two

He long preferred" Hints from cantos of "Childe Harold," prided himself more upon his translations of Pulci than "The Corsair," and declared the "Prophecy of Dante" the best thing he ever wrote. He over-estimated Scott and Crabbe, was blind to the true merit of Keats, and very unreasonable in his deference to Gifford. He charges Campbell with underrating the importance of local authenticity in poetry with a view to protect his Gertrude of Wyoming; without remembering that his own defence of Pope was induced

by a motive equally selfish. No man reasoned more exclusively from individual consciousness or was oftener biased by personal motives, and yet when the Countess Guiccioli begged him not to continue Don Juan, he complained that it was only because the production threw ridicule upon sentiment, which it was a woman's interest to sustain.

There is a kind of superstition which seems the legitimate result of sentiment. The idea of destiny will generally be found to exercise a powerful sway over persons of strong feeling and vivid fancy. When the mind is highly excited in pursuit of a particular object, or the heart deeply interested in an individual, a thousand vague notions haunt the thoughts. Omens and presentiments, every shadow which whispers of coming events, every emotion which appears to indicate the future is eagerly dwelt upon and magnified. Perhaps such developments are the natural offspring of great sensibility. They are certainly often found in combination with rare powers of intellect and great force of character. Few men more freely acknowledged their influence than Lord Byron. In his case they may have been, in some degree, hereditary. His mother was credulous in the extreme and had the folly to take her son to a fortuneteller. He planted a tree to flourish by at Newstead, and found it, after a long absence, neglected and weedy. He stole a bead amulet from an ill-defined faith in its efficacy. The day after writing his fine apostrophe to Parnassus, he saw a flight of eagles, and hailed the incident as a proof that Apollo was pleased. When leaving Venice, after he had put on his cap and taken his cane, having previously embarked his effects, an inauspicious mood overtook him, and he gave orders that if all was not ready before one o'clock, to postpone the journey. He re-called a gift because it be-tokened ill-luck, and turn

ed back from a visit upon remembering that it was Friday. He even sent back a coat which a tailor brought him on that day, and yet, with true poetic inconsistency, sailed for Greece on Friday. He cherished the most melancholy associations in regard to the anniversaries of his birth and marriage, and had many strange views of the fate of an only child. But the most remarkable among Byron's many superstitious ideas, was his strong presentiment of an early death. This feeling weighed upon him so heavily that he delayed his departure from Ravenna week after week, in the hope of dissipating so sad a feeling before engaging in his Grecian expedition; and when stress of weather obliged him to return to port, he spoke of the "bad beginning" as ominous. In short, he acknowledged that he sometimes believed "all things depend upon fortune and nothing upon ourselves." How far this tendency to fatalism influenced his conduct it would be difficult to ascertain. But opinions of this nature, grafted upon a constitutional liability to depression, certainly help to explain many of the anomalies of Byron's character.

The physical infirmities of the poet have never been sufficiently considered. No one can read his account of his own sensations without feeling that he was seldom in health. They are not the only sufferers who labour under specific diseases, the ravages of which are obvious to the eye. There is a vast amount of pain and uneasiness, even of a corporeal nature, which is not ranked among the legitimate "ills that flesh is heir to." In nervous persons particularly, how numerous are the trials for which science has discovered no remedy. He used to "fatigue himself into spirits ;" and always rose in a melancholy humour; and constantly talks of being "hippish" and of his liver being touched, and of having an "old feel." He fancied that like Swift he should "die