into notice. On the whole, perhaps, it is better than his first effort; but how far he had improved by age, may be judged of in some degree by its conclusion.

But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home,
And sketch the group-the picture's yet to come.
My Muse 'gan weep, but ere a tear was spilt,
She caught Sir William Curtis in a kilt!
While thronged the chiefs of every Highland clan
To hail their brother, Vich Ian Alderman!
Guildhall grows Gael, and echoes with Erse roar,
While all the common Council cry, 'Claymore!'
To see proud Albyn's Tartan's as a belt
Gird the gross sirloin of a City Celt,

She burst into a laughter so extreme,

That I awoke-and lo! it was no dream!

Here, reader, will we pause ;-if there's no harm in
This first-you'll have, perhaps, a second Carmen.'

Byron, in his first satire, talks of treading 'the path which Pope and Gifford trod before.' The question, whether he be equal to Gifford, is not worth discussing; but his

D

resemblance to Pope is that of a satyr,'

butting with his horns, to

his glittering shafts of war.'

'Hyperion with

The verses of

Single words

Pope are vivid with meaning. open a view of a train of thoughts, or throw a flash of light upon some striking image. There is a consistency in his conceptions of character, and in all the figures and epithets by which they are emblazoned, which makes us feel a conviction at once, of the sincerity of the writer, and of the correctness of his perceptions. This conviction is, for the most part, just, for Pope was a conscientious satirist, and proud of his adherence to truth;

"Truth guards the poet, sanctifies his line,

And makes immortal, verse as mean as mine."

It has contributed to make his verses immortal; for in satire, our natural sentiments

require justice. The characters of most of those, against whom he directed his wit or his indignation, remain fixed in the memories of men, as he has drawn them. No poem of the kind can be compared in vigour and effect with that in which he made a common slaughter of the low, profligate, but, some of them, noted and mischievous writers of his times

Δείνη δε κλαγγή γενετ' αργύρεοιο βιοιο.*

Its great fault is the gross indecency of some passages; but the age, in which Pope wrote, was not civilized, like the present, by the influence of female taste and litera

ture.

Byron's suppression of his 'English Bards aud Scotch Reviewers' was no loss to his

* Dreadful was the clang of the silver bow.

reputation, and little favour to those whom he had made the objects of his satire; for his attacks were not of a kind to be felt or remembered even by them, except as mere intended insults or expressions of ill will. He himself, however, appears to have looked back upon the work with considerable satisfaction; and alludes to it repeatedly in that poem, in which he gave the last exhibition of his character. He was, professedly a warm admirer of Pope; and, in the latter years of his life, defended his poetical merit against the attack of Bowles; but there is hardly more of philosophical criticism in his defence, than in the writings of his opponent. His admiration of Pope, was natural; not merely from a perception of the real power of that poet, but also from the circumstance, that he stood alone in

age, enjoying that preeminent distinction, to possess which, in some form or another, was Byron's strongest passion. There was a rank granted to Pope, which has hardly, if at all, been conceded to any other writer. He was looked up to as the moral and literary censor of his age. We are, at first view, struck with passages in his poetry, as written in a tone of great assumption, but when we examine the history of his life and writings, we find that he assumed no more than was conceded.

But, whatever might be the intrinsic merit of the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' still, a satire well versified, the production of

a young, profligate nobleman, and abounding in personality, would find many readers and admirers. It soon ran through three editions, to the last of which was annexed