ation was of more value to Lord Byron, than it afterwards became. The acquaintance strengthened; and Mr. Dallas superintended the publication of the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers; and of the first two cantos of Childe Harold; acting, at once, as critic and corrector of the press. For these and for other services, he was rewarded, but not, as he thought, repaid by the copyright of several of Lord Byron's publications. Their friendship, however, was not formed to last, and was broken off long before the death of Lord Byron.

Captain Medwin's intimacy with Lord Byron commenced at a late period in the life of the latter, when he had not an extensive choice of associates. The authenticity of his book has been controverted. Mr. Murray, B 2

Lord Byron's publisher, has proved, that much of the conversation, reported to have passed respecting himself, is incorrect and injurious. Still the question arises, whether this want of correctness is to be charged upon Lord Byron or Captain Medwin; and there seems to be no satisfactory ground for deciding against the latter. Inaccuracies of statement, likewise, have been pointed out by a writer in a late number of the Westminster Review, supposed to be Lord Byron's friend, Mr. Hobhouse. As to some of them, there may be a doubt, as in the former case, which of the two individuals concerned is responsible. For others, however, Captain Medwin must be regarded as solely accountable. The article, which has been referred to, proves that he has not always been care

ful in the statement of facts, that he has committed some blunders;* and, perhaps, that he has sometimes ascribed to Lord Byron, rather what he might have said, than what' he did say. But, on the whole, this attack upon Captain Medwin's book may serve rather to confirm than to weaken one's belief in its general credibility. With an evident perception on the part of the writer, that its statements are not honorable to Lord Byron, and a strong inclination to detect mistakes, still little is disproved or contradicted, which would much affect our estimate of Lord

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* Captain Medwin represents Byron as saying that the words," Thou tremblest"-"'Tis with age then," which occur in his Marino Faliero, 'were taken from the Old Bailey proceedings. Some judge observed to the witness, "Thou tremblest'-''Tis with cold then,' was the reply." "Who does not know," asks his reviewer, "that this famous speech, which the Conversation writer made his Lord Byron say, was made in the Old Bailey, was uttered by Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, on his way to the scaffold. That the real Lord Byron should make so ludicrous a blunder is morally impossible." Lord Byron refers to the reply of Bailly in his note on the passage.

Byron's character, or even manners. No motive is assigned by the reviewer, to explain why the author should have reported the conversation of Lord Byron falsely, except one, a desire to appear more intimate with him, than he really was. The accounts of Medwin correspond to the impression, which Byron has given of himself by his writings, and by the notorious facts in his life. His conversation, as reported by the former, is in general such as one might suppose it would be. The style of expression corresponds with that of his prose writings. The remarks upon almost all subjects, even those of mere literature, are superficial; the result of unsettled principles of judgment and taste. The temper discovered is characteristic. He is represented as talking much of himself and his works; as full of spleen toward others,

especially those who had been most nearly allied to him, and as hardly concealing his contempt for his few remaining associates, such as Shelley, "the snake," as he was pleased to call him, and Leigh Hunt, "the author of Nimini Pimini, and Follyage," titles which he applied to his poems. He appears as a thorough libertine, devoid of all the proper feelings of a man, toward his wife, his mother, and it may be added, for the case is glaring, toward the degraded females with whom he had been connected. He seems to have regarded woman, only as an object of sensuality and insult. The same character is obvious in some of his later writings.

Supposing, however, Lord Byron's conversation to be, in general, correctly reported in this book, still it is questionable how far