his statements are to be depended upon, Captain Medwin's visits were frequently, as he says, at eleven o'clock in the evening; and considering the accounts which he gives of Lord Byron's habits of life, the latter could not always, at that hour, be expected to recollect or to state facts with great accuracy. The general air of his conversation, as reported, may lead one to suspect, likewise, that his vanity sometimes betrayed him into extravagancies. Disposed, therefore, as one may be, from the present state of the evidence, to regard the book as, in the main, a credible narrative of Lord Byron's conversations; yet on account of the probable inaccuracies both of the speaker and the reporter, it is to be appealed to with caution; but with proper caution some use may be made of it.

The conversations reported by Medwin, took place during two of the last years of Lord Byron's life. But in the degradation into which he fell, when he had become the author of Cain and Don Juan, we must not forget his extraordinary powers. At that period, "all that gives gloss to sin had passed away,"

"And rooted stood in manhood's hour,

The weeds of vice without the flower."

The moral change between youth and middle age, was perhaps, only such as might have been anticipated; but there were seasons in his life, when the passions and vices, which at last completed their work of ruin, seem to have lost something of their force; and the evil spirit, of which he was the prey, seems to have been driven off, by the strong action of his genius and his better nature.

He had the power, beyond almost any other poet, of uttering deep tones of feeling, which dwelt upon the mind, and called forth strong sympathy, even when connected with a perverted ostentation of lamentable defects of character. His life, too, forms a melancholy story, melancholy enough in reality, without our being deceived by the affectation of wretchedness, which he assumed for the purpose of poetical display. He was unfortunate in the moral influences which operated upon his character. Much of compassion, therefore, some lingerings of sympathy, and admiration for his genius, though his intellectual powers were great only within a limited sphere, mingle with the reprobation, with which his life and writings must on the whole be regarded. At one period of his course, an observer, ignorant of the evil to

which he had been exposed, might have applied to him the lines of his favorite poet

"Blest with each gift of nature and of art,
And wanting nothing but an honest heart."

With more kindness, however, and, perhaps, more justice, one might have ascribed to him a character, which he himself has drawn, as that of his Manfred.

This should have been a noble creature; he
Hath all the energy which would have made
A goodly frame of glorious elements,
Had they been wisely mingled; as it is,

It is an awful chaos-light and darkness—

And mind and dust-and passions and pure thoughts,
Mixed, and contending without end or order,
All dormant or destructive.

Lord Byron's father, who was notorious for his profligacy, died while his son was a child. The marriage of his father with his

mother was preceded by an elopement, and appears to have alienated the families of both parties. It was, as may be supposed, an unhappy one. His mother, in whose care he was left, appears to have been unfit to form or influence his character in a proper manner. He is represented by Medwin, as speaking of her without feeling or reserve; and his letters to her discover little tenderness or respect. This is the more remarkable, as his mother and himself seem to have been almost alone in the world. According to Dallas, they were, during his youth, neglected by his other relations.

At the University he fell, according to every account, including his own; into a course of reckless profligacy. The following is an extract from his reply to Mr. Dallas' first letter, written in his twentieth year.