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ΤΟ LORD BYRON.

MY LORD,

HAVING, as a Parent, watched with trembling anxiety, the obstinate and increasing violation of your most sacred duties to God and the land of your nativity, by the continued literary productions we are receiving from you, such as your Juan, your Cain, your Heaven and Earth, &c. &c.; I have ventured to appeal to the honourable feelings which, I trust, still lay, though dormant, in your bosom: I am not willing to believe they are extinct, and I call upon you, as a creature accountable to your Maker; a subject, who ought to be in

allegiance to your King: a Husband and a Father, to forbear!

Of the many, who follow in the same path, their puerilities present the antidote with the poison. One only, over whose head Time must be now weaving his silver threads, has, within the sphere of my observation, so prostitituted real talent: but even he, in mixing his portion of the venom of unholy sentiment, in the perpetually circulating medium of human morals, has never, to my knowledge, dared to rush on the thick bosses of the Almighty buckler, (Job xv. 26.) To "look him," as you daringly express yourself, in your Cain, "in his everlasting face."

It is a common observation, that you are identified with the scenes you describe. If it be so, having drank of the poisoned chalice, how can you present it thus, ad libitum, to the young and the inexperienced? Can you continue to do this, and sit at ease, and laugh at the mischief you commit?

It is true, that some of your sketches continue to present touches of exquisite beauty; but the health of the body poetical, is evidently on the decline. When these flashes occur,

they are as the mere hectic flush accompanying consumptive decay; rendered more beautiful from the gloom, the doubt and the terror attendant on an expectation of approaching dissolution. We catch, with avidity, at these flitting sparklings of Lord Byron's excellence, which, we feel, we are about to lose for ever.

Can you, my Lord, think, that the God who created, equally, your bodily frame and your mental superiority, organized them to minister to his own dishonour? Oh, no, no! your perception is far too keen to admit such blundering reasoning: nor are you privileged to hope that HE, in whom you live and move and have your being, will continue the towering effulgency of your mind to operate as a destroyer of your fellow-men! Dispassionately, you could not desire to possess such satanic

pre-eminence. Do retire to your closet, divested of all prejudice (I think you have nobility of soul, even yet, so to rise above yourself), shake off the egotism which clings, more or less, to all of us; take your Juan in your hand, read it soberly through, and then ask yourself, before God and your own conscience, if it be not literally a "whited sepulchre, which is inwardly full of corruption?"

when the

Will these things ennoble you, books are opened? (Rev. xx. 12.) Will the balance of the sanctuary preponderate when so filled? "When judgment is laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet," "will you not call on the hills to fall on you, and the rocks to hide you?" (Hos. x. 8.) But will this call of annihilation have its answer of peace? Weigh the future with the past, and consider how awful must be the termination of your career, if Divine Sovereignty, in the illimitability of its mercy, does not give you "a new heart, and renew a right spirit within you:"

thereby plucking you as a brand from the

burning.

It was said of Pharaoh, 66 even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth." (Rom. ix. 17, and Exod. ix. 16.) But this purpose to Pharaoh was one of vengeance. May the eternal decision, in your behalf, have been a purpose of love; and, in passing by you, and beholding you in your pollutions and your defilements, may it have said to you, live. (Ezek. xvi.) I would add, may the knowledge of the fact be brought home to your mind!

The tuneful Psalmist of Israel once exclaimed, "No man cared for my soul!" This cannot be your lamentation. I prefer persuasion to satire; the latter cuts deeper, but conciliates less; and I cannot divest myself of the idea, that you show us more of the creature of combining circumstances, than of your