ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following Critique on Lord Byron's Character and Writings, is reprinted from "The North American Review," a critical Journal which sustains a pre-eminent rank in the periodical literature of America, and which will not sustain any loss in its reputation, from the circulation of this reprint in England.

THE motive which has induced the republication of the following masterly review of the Character and Writings of Lord Byron, originated in a wish to promote the most extensive circulation of a work, in which the justest estimate appears to have been formed of the poetical character and moral influence of the productions of that noble, but ill-fated Bard. Fascinated by the brilliant coruscations of his genius, multitudes have

been intoxicated by his corrupting

and withering sentiments, without any

suspicion of their awful tendency or

ultimate end :

"Virtue he makes ridiculous, and vice

Sets forth in lovely garb, a thing of worth:
Exerting all his powers and artifice

To fill our hearts with vicious baneful mirth:
Our good desires he strives to sacrifice

To evil passions which have filled the earth

Already with enough of ill, to melt

Ev'n his hard heart, could he for once have felt."

Mischievous and destructive as

in themselves the greater portion of the writings of Byron have been, they are rendered doubly so by