of another age however, with different subjects of interest from what we have, can hardly be expected to sympathise strongly in the regret, which we may feel, while contemplating the abuse of such powers and such qualities, as he possessed.

FINIS.

earlier expressions of the feelings of the author. We might justify what has been said, by extracts from the poem; but it would be necessary to quote passages which no light occasion would excuse one for obtruding upon notice.

We read the two first cantos of Don Juan shortly after their appearance. The mass of buffoonery and profligacy which followed, we had not seen till about to prepare the present article. It was the last product of Byron's mind. The great merit aimed at in the work, is drollery. The author drolls upon everything; giving, for instance, in the first canto, a funny account of some shipwrecked sailors driven through hunger to devour one of their companions. It is rambling and incoherent, with frequent disregard of grammar and prosody. It furnishes,

however, a sort of commentary upon the character and life of its author; for he could not write long without writing about himself; and in this work, his disclosures seem to be more liberal, unguarded, and prosaic, than in any other. In reading it, we may be reminded of what Medwin reports him to have said; "Why don't you drink Medwin? Gin and water is the source of all my inspiration." One might have conjectured, perhaps, that a considerable part of it was written under such inspiration.

This production, left unfinished, was the concluding labour of the literary life of a man, who might, in his old age, have been honoured with passionate admiration, and have continued, after death, to pour forth a pure splendour amid the eternal lights of poetry; who might have delighted and ennobled his fellow

men by glorious conceptions and beautiful imaginations; and who might have given all that electric energy to the expression of high and generous sentiments, which was wasted, for the most part, in adding force to the language of selfish melancholy, of misanthropy, or of violent and wicked passions. As it is, we have now to estimate, not what good, but what evil, may be the general result of his writings. There is much of his poetry, it is true, which may be read without injury by a tolerably healthy mind; and there are passages of great strength and great beauty, free from the expression of any wrong sentiment. Nor is there much, which can be seducing to any one in his exhibitions of vice and impiety. He uses no gay colouring. He delights in painting moral disease and insane passions, rather than the loose and voluptuous banquet,