Such, too, are the verses addressed to Thyrza, and which apparently relate to the same real or imaginary object of affection.

And didst thou not, since death for thee
Prepared a light and pangless dart,

Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see,
Who held, and holds thee in his heart?
Oh! who like him had watch'd thee here?
Or sadly mark'd thy glazing eye,
In that dread hour ere death appear,
When silent sorrow fears to sigh,

Till all was past? But when no more
"Twas thine to reck of human wo,
Affection's heart drops, gushing o'er,
Had flow'd as fast as they now flow.

*

Ours was the glance none saw beside;

The smile none else might understand;
The whisper'd thought of hearts allied,
The pressure of the thrilling hand;
The kiss so guiltless and refined

That Love each warmer wish forbore;
Those eyes proclaim'd so pure a mind,

Even passion blush'd to plead for more.

The tone that taught me to rejoice,

When prone, unlike thee, to repine;
The song, celestial from thy voice,

But sweet to me from none but thine;

But if in worlds more blest than this

Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere,
Impart some portion of thy bliss,

To wean me from mine anguish here.
Teach me too early taught by thee!
To bear, forgiving and forgiven;
On earth thy love was such to me;

It fain would form my hope in heaven!

Other passages might be quoted equally touching. No one had more power than Byron, to utter that thrilling voice, which speaks a mind desolate, but unbroken. In these poems it is connected with the most passionate and tender expressions of affection for the dead, and with a moral purity and elevation of sentiment, which he has scarcely elsewhere discovered. But even

these poems are polluted by his libertinism. With singular perversion of taste, he has thought it worth while to find a place for a stanza from one of his earlier productions, which has been already quoted,

Though gay companions o'er the bowl,
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though pleasure fire the maddening soul,
The heart-the heart is lonely still.

It may be objected, likewise, that the general tone of feeling is too much that of one,

Who will not look beyond the tomb,
And dares not hope for rest before.

There were various circumstances, which contributed to the popularity of this publication. It was written by a young nobleman, a circumstance, which, if it possessed any merit, was alone sufficient to give it

celebrity. Its author was, or soon became, a man of the first notoriety in the highest circles of fashion. He had travelled, where few Englishmen had travelled before, having visited Ali Pacha in his den. The poem of Childe Harold was thought to shadow forth his own wayward, gloomy, wicked, but very interesting character. It contained much concerning Greece; and the "woods that wave o'er Delphi's steep," the "isles that crown the Ægean deep," the "streams that wander in eternal light," are poetical in their very names; and of these names there is a profusion in the second canto of Childe Harold. The favourable judgment of Gifford had been secured by the most lavish flattery in Byron's former poetry; and it is strange, and almost ludicrous, to observe the importance attached to his critical opinions, both

by Mr. Dallas and Lord Byron. The latter, in one of his letters to Mr. Dallas, says, 66 as Gifford has ever been my Magnus Apollo, any approbation such as you mention, would, of course, be more welcome than, 'all Bokhara's vaunted gold, than all the gems of Samarkand."" In a subsequent letter, however, he seems to have viewed the matter in a juster light. He says, "his praise is nothing to the purpose. What could he say? He could not spit in the face of one, who had praised him in every possible way." But, without doubt, the consideration in which Gifford was held, depended much upon the circumstance of his being, at that time, the editor of the Quarterly Review. In addition to all this, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, upon the appearance of this publication, notwith