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The flaming sword of Angantyr himself, as it figures in Runic mythology, never had more pomp and circumstance attending its interment, than has this shadowy brand of lord Byron! Perhaps there is no modern writer of similar dimensions so worthy a place in the next edition of Scriblerus. Poetical enthusiasm must be kept within the bounds of nature; at any rate we do not think lord Byron is one of the eagle-pinioned tribe who can

Soar through the trackless bounds of space

and indulge in those fine phrenzies which are impervious to ordinary capacities.

The ensuing lines are in far better taste, and exhibit, we think, our author's happiest manner, both in the delineation of a tranquil and of a troubled scene.

"Clear, placid Leman, thy contrasted lake,
With the wide world I dwell in, is a thing
Which warns me with its stillness to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved,

That I, with stern delights should e'er have been so moved."

And now,

"The sky is changed!-and such a change! Oh night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wond'rous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light

Of a dark eye in woman! Far along

From peak to peak the ratt'ling crags among,

Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,

But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers from her misty shroud,

Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud."

The illustrations that follow, though their force is, perhaps, weakened by extension, are strikingly appropriate, and possess great poetical beauty.

They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn:
The tree will wither, long before it fall;

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The hull drives on, tho' mast and sail be torn;
The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the wall
In massy hoariness; the ruin'd wall

Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone;
The bars survive, the captive they enthral;

The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun;
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on."

Among his descriptions of Alpine scenery, lord Byron has paid a just tribute to the memory of that Julia, who gave to a former age an example of self devotedness, similar to that, which the French revolution has afforded in our own time, and whose filial piety recals to our remembrance, the memorable words of the daughter of Malesherbes to her more fortunate companion:"you have the glory of saving your father, and I have the consolation to die with mine!"

We passed over the stanzas relating to Waterloo; for Scott and Southey have traversed the ground before, and the public by this time have "supped full with horrors." A more unreproved banquet as well as unexpected, is furnished in the 57th and 58th pages. The sketches of Rousseau, Voltaire, and Gibbon, are given with much discrimination and strength of outline, so as to excite in us the fervent wish that lord Byron might no longer employ his pencil in caricaturing ideal Harolds, but rather exercise its skill on a gallery of portraits from real characters.

Of the minor faults in this canto, may be mentioned a more frequent ruggedness of versification than we recollect to have before witnessed in its author. Examples are not wanting of that petty play of fancy, which, for want of a more definite term, is styled conceit; and the thing signified, together with its sign, would agree better with a structure of verse formed, like that of. Leigh Hunt, on the Italian model. There are instances of tautology, as, "wild-bewildered;" of expletive, where "Brunswick did hear;" and of the obsolete, like "sheen," "bient," &c. which are neither useful nor ornamental. These, indeed, are trifles; if any thing can justly be so classed in a writer of celebrity, whose blemishes are far more easily imitated than his beauties. That the works of lord Byron contain beauties, both of thought and expression, is not denied. They certainly do; but unfess

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finer and more frequent than those of any other-which they certainly do not-their evil is more than a counterpoise to their good, and leaves them little claim to rank with their less exceptionable cotemporaries. Fortunately for the lovers of English poetry, the present, beyond any preceding era, has adorned the United Kingdom with a cluster of poets, whose lives and writings reflect mutual lustre on each other. In the north, beside the lofty strains of their dramatic muse, we have the bold and beautiful imagination of Campbell, with the elevation of an angel and the tenderness of a man; and Scott, whose varied and mellifluous versification is glowing with the prismatic colours, and like the mists of the Highlands, embodying a spirit. In England; the claimants crowd upon our memory-Montgomery, whose lips seem to be purified by a living spark from the altar, like those of the bard whom he most resembles in his fervours of piety and patriotism;-Wordsworth the philosophy of whose rural reveries, if not always intelligible is often affecting; and Southey, whose protean genius through all its transformations, whether as a British druid, or a Spanish chronicler, an Arabian Dervise, or an Indian Bramin, is constantly followed with delight and admiration!

Visions of glory spare the aching sight!

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We have considered lord Byron as a poet only-as such only, we should wish to regard him; but he has chosen to obtrude himself upon us by combining the memoirs of the man with the minstrelsy of the writer. It has been usual for matrimonial dissention to confine itself to the family-hearth, for the sole edification and amusement of children and domestics, and the world without was never the wiser. But such guarded decorums were only for plebeians; and the quarrels of lords and ladies, like those of Olympian Deities are to agitate a universe. The names of lord and lady Byron have been "hung on high" by the gazettes of Europe, and, thanks to the invention of letters and the facilities of commerce, they seem to be destined to attain similar ❝ bad eminence," in our own distant republic. We should have passed them by, however, with mingled feelings of pity, contempt, and indignation, did not the present production contain references and confessions, that call for more decided animadversion. That lord

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Byron should avow his contempt for "church links," and his preference of "unwed" love, excites no surprise; being perfectly in accordance with all his former writings, in which love is constantly represented as an instinct rather than a sentiment, and where we discover not even one instance of any other than an illicit connection. Love, to his lordship's taste, must be lawless as his Corsair, or licentious as his Giaour; and, to do him justice, he seems as incapable of feigning as of feeling the comforts of a legitimate attachment. Here, then, in itself considered, was no matter for astonishment. The wonder is, only, how a poem containing such sentiments would be prefaced and concluded with a direct address to his daughter--an infant daughter! Should the passage in question ever meet her eye, surely it will be obliterated by her tears! Those whom the majesty of heaven could not arrest, have sometimes been awed by the innocence of infancy-but we grow solemn. Cumberland dedicated his works to his daughter, sir Philip Sydney, to his sister, Mr. Roscoe, to his wife:-for they were calculated to excite no glow but that of grateful exultation. Even Wilkes, in his poetic trifles that have a similar designation, breathes nothing but refinement. Should lord Byron ever address another poem to his child, may it be such as she can read without a blush for her unworthy parent.

The minor poems attached to this volume had not been published when these remarks were written, and we have already occupied so many pages that we shall not trespass any longer on the reader, than to acknowledge, that this canto contains some just reflections, and much moralizing truth. But these expressions, from so polluted a source, are to us, we confess, only less disgusting than the effrontery with which their opposites are as frequently avowed, and forcibly remind us of De la Bonde's Prophecy concerning Rousseau.

"And in those days there shall come a philosopher, preaching from the borders of a lake. And when he talks about virtue and morality, no one shall be able to discover what is either virtue of morality."

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GENERAL WASHINGTON TO FRANCIS HOPKINSON, Esq.
Mount Vernon, 16th May, 1875.*

DEAR SIR,

In for a penny, in for a pound, is an old adage.—I am so hackneyed to the touches of the painter's pencil, that I am now altogether at their beck, and sit like patience on a monument whilst they are delineating the lines of my face.

It is a proof among many others of what habit and custom may effect.-At first, I was as impatient at the request, and as restive under the operation, as a colt is of the saddle.-The next time, I submitted very reluctantly, but with less flouncing,-now, no dray moves more readily to the thill, than I to the painter's chair. It may easily be conceived therefore that I yielded a ready acquiescence to your request, and to the views of Mr. Pine.

Letters from England, recommendatory of this gentleman, came to my hands previous to his arrival in America—not only as an artist of acknowledged eminence, but as one who had discovered a friendly disposition towards this country-for which, it seems, he had been marked.

It gave me pleasure to hear from you-I shall always feel an interest in your happiness-and with Mrs. Washington's compliments and best wishes joined to my own, for Mrs. Hopkinson and yourself,

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-I was

Two days ago I received your favour of May 1st.greatly disappointed, sir, in the information you gave me, that

For the original of this letter, the editor is indebted to his friend Joseph Hopkinson, Esq. M. C.-the elder son of the gentleman to whom it is addressed.

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