We have not so learned the doctrines | evidently been written, not for the purpose of showing, what, however, it often shows, how well its author can write, but for the purpose of vindicating, as far as truth will permit, the memory of a celebrated man who can no longer vindicate himself. Mr. Moore never thrusts himself between Lord Byron and the public. With the strongest temptations to egotism, he has said no more about himself than the subject absolutely required.

of Him who commanded us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and who, when He was called upon to explain what He meant by a neighbour, selected as an example a heretic and an alien. Last year, we remember, it was represented by a pious writer in the John Bull newspaper, and by some other equally fervid Christians, as a monstrous indecency, that the measure for the relief of the Jews should be brought forward in Passion week. One of these humourists ironically recommended that it should be read a second time on Good Friday. We should have had no objection; nor do we believe that the day could be commemorated in a more worthy manner. We know of no day fitter for terminating long hostilities, and repairing cruel wrongs, than the day on which the religion of mercy was founded. We know of no day fitter for blotting out from the statutebook the last traces of intolerance than the day on which the spirit of intolerance produced the foulest of all judicial murders, the day on which the list of the victims of intolerance, that noble list wherein Socrates and More are enrolled, was glorified by a yet greater and holier name.

A great part, indeed the greater part, of these volumes, consists of extracts from the Letters and Journals of Lord Byron; and it is difficult to speak too highly of the skill which has been shown in the selection and arrangement. We will not say that we have not occasionally remarked in these two large quartos an anecdote which should have been omitted, a letter which should have been suppressed, a name which should have been concealed by asterisks, or asterisks which do not answer the purpose of concealing the name. But it is impossible, on a general survey, to deny that the 'ask has been executed with great judgment and great humanity. When we consider the life which Lord Byron had led, his petulance, his irritability, and his communicativeness, we cannot but admire the dexterity with which Mr. Moore has contrived to exhibit so much of the

MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. character and opinions of his friend,

(JUNE, 1831.)

Letters and Journals of Lord Byron; with
Notices of his Life. By THOMAS MOORE,
Esq. 2 vols. 4to. London: 1830.

We have read this book with the great-
est pleasure. Considered merely as a
composition, it deserves to be classed
among the best specimens of English
prose which our age has produced. It
contains, indeed, no single passage
equal to two or three which we could
select from the Life of Sheridan. But,
as a whole, it is immeasurably superior
to that work. The style is agreeable,
clear, and manly, and when it rises
into eloquence, rises without effort or
ostentation. Nor is the matter inferior
to the manner. It would be difficult
to name a book which exhibits more
kindness, fairness, and modesty. It has

with so little pain to the feelings of the living.

The extracts from the journals and correspondence of Lord Byron are in the highest degree valuable, not merely on account of the information which they contain respecting the distinguished man by whom they were written, but on account also of their rare merit as compositions. The letters, at least those which were sent from Italy, are among the best in our language. They are less affected than those of Pope and Walpole; they have more matter in them than those of Cowper. Knowing that many of them were not written merely for the person to whom they were directed, but were general epistles, meant to be read by a large circle, we expected to find them

alever and spirited, but deficient in ease. We looked with vigilance for instances of stiffness in the language and awkwardness in the transitions. We have been agreeably disappointed; and we must confess that, if the epistolary style of Lord Byron was artificial, it was a rare and admirable instance of that highest art which cannot be distinguished from nature.

Of the deep and painful interest which this book excites no abstract can give a just notion. So sad and dark a story is scarcely to be found in any work of fiction; and we are little disposed to envy the moralist who can read it without being softened.

It

intellect, affectionate yet perverse, a poor lord, and a handsome cripple, he required, if ever man required, the firmest and the most judicious training. But, capriciously as nature had dealt with him, the parent to whom the office of forming his character was intrusted was more capricious still. She passed from paroxysms of rage to paroxysms of tenderness. At one time she stifled him with her caresses: at another time she insulted his deformity. He came into the world; and the world treated him as his mother had treated him, sometimes with fondness, sometimes with cruelty, never with justice. indulged him without discrimination, and punished him without discrimination. He was truly a spoiled child, not merely the spoiled child of his parent, but the spoiled child of nature, the spoiled child of fortune, the spoiled child of fame, the spoiled child of society. His first poems were received with a contempt which, feeble as they were, they did not absolutely deserve. The poem which he published on his return from his travels was, on the other hand, extolled far above its merit. At twenty-four, he found himself on the highest pinnacle of literary fame, with Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and a crowd of other distinguished writers beneath his feet. There is scarcely an instance in history of so sudden a rise

The pretty fable by which the Duchess of Orleans illustrated the character of her son the Regent might, with little change, be applied to Byron. All the fairies, save one, had been bidden to his cradle. All the gossips had been profuse of their gifts. One had bestowed nobility, another genius, a third beauty. The malignant elf who had been uninvited came last, and, unable to reverse what her sisters had done for their favourite, had mixed up a curse with every blessing. In the rank of Lord Byron, in his understanding, in his character, in his very person, there was a strange union of opposite extremes. He was born to all that men covet and admire. But in every one of those eminent advan-to so dizzy an eminence. tages which he possessed over others was mingled something of misery and debasement. He was sprung from a house, ancient indeed and noble, but degraded and impoverished by a series of crimes and follies which had attained a scandalous publicity. The kinsman whom he succeeded had died poor, and, but for merciful judges, would have died upon the gallows. The young peer had great intellectual powers; yet there was an unsound part in his mind. He had naturally a generous and feeling heart: but his temper was wayward and irritable. He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked. Distinguished at once by the trength and by the weakness of his

Every thing that could stimulate, and every thing that could gratify the strongest propensities of our nature, the gaze of a hundred drawing-rooms, the acclamations of the whole nation, the applause of applauded men, the love of lovely women, all this world and all the glory of it were at once offered to a youth to whom nature had given violent passions, and whom education had never taught to control them. He lived as many men live who have no similar excuse to plead for their faults. But his countrymen and his countrywomen would love him and admire him. They were resolved to see in his excesses only the flash and outbreak of that same fiery mind which glowed in his poetry. He attacked religion; yet in religious circles hig

depraved than hundreds whose offences have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he has a profession, he is to be driven from it. He is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is supposed, sufficiently chastised. We reflect very complacently on our own severity, and compare with great pride the high standard of morals established in England with the Parisian laxity. At length our anger is satiated. Our victim is ruined and heart-broken. And our virtue goes quietly to sleep for seven years more.

name was mentioned with fondness, | periodical fits of morality. In general, and in many religious publications his elopements, divorces, and family quarworks were censured with singular rels, pass with little notice. We read tenderness. He lampooned the Prince the scandal, talk about it for a day, Regent; yet he could not alienate the and forget it. But once in six or Tories. Everything, it seemed, was to seven years our virtue becomes outbe forgiven to youth, rank, and genius. rageous. We cannot suffer the laws of Then came the reaction. Society, religion and decency to be violated. capricious in its indignation as it had We must make a stand against vice. been capricious in its fondness, flew We must teach libertines that the Enginto a rage with its froward and petted lish people appreciate the importance darling. He had been worshipped of domestic ties. Accordingly some with an irrational idolatry. He was unfortunate man, in no respect more persecuted with an irrational fury. Much has been written about those unhappy domestic occurrences which decided the fate of his life. Yet nothing is, nothing ever was, positively known to the public, but this, that he quarrelled with his lady, and that she refused to live with him. There have been hints in abundance, and shrugs and shakings of the head, and "Well, well, we know," and "We could an if we would," and "If we list to speak," and "There be that might an they list." But we are not aware that there is before the world substantiated by credible, or even by tangible evidence, a single fact indicating that Lord Byron was more to blame than any other man who is on bad terms with his wife. The professional men whom Lady It is clear that those vices which deByron consulted were undoubtedly of stroy domestic happiness ought to be opinion that she ought not to live with as much as possible repressed. It is her husband. But it is to be remem-equally clear that they cannot be rebered that they formed that opinion pressed by penal legislation. It is without hearing both sides. We do therefore right and desirable that pubnot say, we do not mean to insinuate, lic opinion should be directed against that Lady Byron was in any respect to them. But it should be directed against blame. We think that those who con-them uniformly, steadily, and temdemn her on the evidence which is now perately, not by sudden fits and starts. before the public are as rash as those There should be one weight and one who condemn her husband. We will measure. Decimation is always an not pronounce any judgment, we can- objectionable mode of punishment. It not, even in our own minds, form any is the resource of judges too indolent judgment, on a transaction which is so and hasty to investigate facts and to imperfectly known to us. It would discriminate nicely between shades of have been well if, at the time of the guilt. It is an irrational practice, even separation, all those who knew as little when adopted by military tribunals. about the matter then as we know about When adopted by the tribunal of it now had shown that forbearance public opinion, it is infinitely more which, under such circumstances, is but irrational. It is good that a certain common justice. portion of disgrace should constantly But it attend on certain bad actions. is not good that the offenders should

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its

merely have to stand the risks of a be for any one of these, the virtuous

lottery of infamy, that ninety-nine out people who repeated them neither of every hundred should escape, and knew nor cared. For in fact these that the hundredth, perhaps the most stories were not the causes, but the innocent of the hundred, should pay effects of the public indignation. They for all. We remember to have seen a resembled those loathsome slanders mob assembled in Lincoln's Inn to which Lewis Goldsmith, and other abhoot a gentleman against whom the ject libellers of the same class, were in most oppressive proceeding known to the habit of publishing about Bonathe English law was then in progress. parte; such as that he poisoned a girl He was hooted because he had been an with arsenic when he was at the miliunfaithful husband, as if some of the tary school, that he hired a grenadier most popular men of the age, Lord to shoot Dessaix at Marengo, that he Nelson for example, had not been un-filled St. Cloud with all the pollutions faithful husbands. We remember a of Capres. There was a time when still stronger case. Will posterity be- anecdotes like these obtained some lieve that, in an age in which men credence from persons who, hating the whose gallantries were universally French emperor without knowing why, known, and had been legally proved, were eager to believe any thing which filled some of the highest offices in the might justify their hatred. Lord Byron state and in the army, presided at the fared in the same way. His countrymeetings of religious and benevolent men were in a bad humour with him. institutions, were the delight of every His writings and his character had lost society, and the favourites of the mul- the charm of novelty. He had been titude, a crowd of moralists went to guilty of the offence which, of all the theatre, in order to pelt a poor offences, is punished most severely; actor for disturbing the conjugal feli- he had been over-praised; he had excity of an alderman? What there was cited too warm an interest; and the in the circumstances either of the of- public, with its usual justice, chastised fender or of the sufferer to vindicate him for its own folly. The attachments the zeal of the audience, we could never of the multitude bear no small resemconceive. It has never been supposed blance to those of the wanton enchanthat the situation of an actor is pecu-tress in the Arabian Tales, who, when liarly favourable to the rigid virtues, the forty days of her fondness were or that an alderman enjoys any special over, was not content with dismissing immunity from injuries such as that her lovers, but condemned them to which on this occasion roused the anger expiate, in loathsome shapes, and under of the public. But such is the justice cruel penances, the crime of having of mankind. once pleased her too well.

In these cases the punishment was excessive; but the offence was known and proved. The case of Lord Byron was harder. True Jedwood justice was dealt out to him. First came the execution, then the investigation, and last of all, or rather not at all, the accusation. The public, without knowing any thing whatever about the transactions in his family, flew into a violent passion with him, and proceeded to invent stories which might justify its anger. Ten or twenty different accounts of the separation, inconsistent with each other, with themselves, and with common sense, circulated at the same time. What evidence there might

The obloquy which Byron had to endure was such as might well have shaken a more constant mind. The newspapers were filled with lampoons, The theatres shook with execrations. He was excluded from circles where he had lately been the observed of all observers. All those creeping things that riot in the decay of nobler natures hastened to their repast; and they were right; they did after their kind. It is not every day that the savage envy of aspiring dunces is gratified by the agonies of such a spirit, and the degradation of such a name.

The unhappy man left his country for ever. The howl of contumely fol

lowed him across the sca, up the Rhine, | his fine intellect. His verse lost much over the Alps; it gradually waxed of the energy and condensation which fainter; it died away; those who had had distinguished it. But he would raised it began to ask each other, not resign, without a struggle, the what, after all, was the matter about empire which he had exercised over which they had been so clamorous, and the men of his generation. A new wished to invite back the criminal dream of ambition arose before him; whom they had just chased from them. to be the chief of a literary party; to His poetry became more popular than be the great mover of an intellectual it had ever been; and his complaints revolution; to guide the public mind were read with tears by thousands and of England from his Italian retreat, as tens of thousands who had never seen Voltaire had guided the public mind his face. of France from the villa of Ferney. With this hope, as it should seem, he established the Liberal. But, powerfully as he had affected the imaginations of his contemporaries, he mistook his own powers if he hoped to direct their opinions; and he still more grossly mistook his own disposition, if he thought that he could long act in concert with other men of letters. The plan failed, and failed ignominiously. Angry with himself, angry with his coadjutors, he relinquished it, and turned to another project, the last and noblest of his life.

He had fixed his home on the shores of the Adriatic, in the most picturesque and interesting of cities, beneath the brightest of skies, and by the brightest of seas. Censoriousness was not the vice of the neighbours whom he had chosen. They were a race corrupted by a bad government and a bad religion, long renowned for skill in the arts of voluptuousness, and tolerant of all the caprices of sensuality. From the public opinion of the country of his adoption, he had nothing to dread. With the public opinion of the country of his birth, he was at open war. He plunged into wild and desperate excesses, ennobled by no generous or tender sentiment. From his Venetian haram he sent forth volume after volume, full of eloquence, of wit, of pathos, of ribaldry, and of bitter dis-vices which oppression generates, the dain. His health sank under the effects of his intemperance. His hair turned grey. His food ceased to nourish him. A hectic fever withered him up. It seemed that his body and mind were about to perish together.

A nation, once the first among the nations, preeminent in knowledge, preeminent in military glory, the cradle of philosophy, of eloquence, and of the fine arts, had been for ages bowed down under a cruel yoke. All the

abject vices which it generates in those who submit to it, the ferocious vices which it generates in those who struggle against it, had deformed the character of that miserable race. The valour which had won the great battle of From this wretched degradation he human civilisation, which had saved was in some measure rescued by a con- Europe, which had subjugated Asia, nection, culpable indeed, yet such as, lingered only among pirates and robif it were judged by the standard of bers. The ingenuity, once so conmorality established in the country spicuously displayed in every depart where he lived, might be called vir- ment of physical and moral science, tuous. But an imagination polluted had been depraved into a timid and by vice, a temper embittered by mis-servile cunning. On a sudden this fortune, and a frame habituated to the degraded people had risen on their fatal excitement of intoxication, pre-oppressors. Discountenanced or bevented him from fully enjoying the trayed by the surrounding potentates, happiness which he might have derived they had found in themselves somefrom the purest and most tranquil of thing of that which might well supply his many attachments. Midnight the place of all foreign assistance, draughts of ardent spirits and Rhenish something of the energy of their wines had begun to work the ruin of fathers.