the Englishman, of which his poems contain unambiguous proofs; and he also availed himself of the means afforded by various travellers to forward some friendly salutation to his unknown admirer. At length a manuscript Dedication of Sardanapalus, in the most complimentary terms, was forwarded to him, with an obliging inquiry whether it might be prefixed to the tragedy. The German, who, at his advanced age, was conscious of his own powers and of their effects, could only gratefully and modestly consider this Dedication as the expression of an inexhaustible intellect, deeply feeling and creating its own object. He was by no means dissatisfied when, after long delay, Sardanapalus appeared without the Dedication; and was made happy by the possession of a fac-simile of it, engraved on stone, which he considered a precious memorial. "The noble Lord, however, did not abandon his purpose of proclaiming to the world his valued kindness towards his German contemporary and brother poet, a precious evidence of which was placed in front of the tragedy of Werner. It will be readily believed, when so unhoped-for an honour was conferred upon the German poet-one seldom experienced in life, and that too from one himself so highly distinguished-he was by no means reluctant to express the high esteem and sympathizing sentiment with which his unsurpassed contemporary had inspired him. The task was difficult, and was found the more so, the more it was contemplated ;for what can be said of one whose unfathomable qualities are not to be reached by words? But when a young gentleman, Mr. Sterling, of pleasing person and excellent character, in the spring of 1823, on a journey from Genoa to Weimar, delivered a few lines under the hand of the great man as an introduction, and when the report was soon after spread that the noble Peer was about to direct his great mind and various power to deeds of sublime daring beyond the ocean, there appeared to be no time left for further delay, and the following lines were hastily written : "Ein freundlich Wort kommt eines nach dem andern Es ruft uns auf zum Edelsten zu wandern, "Wie soll ich dem, den ich so lang begleitet, “Wohl sey ihm doch, wenn er sich selbst empfindet ! "The verses reached Genoa; but the excellent friend to whom they were addressed was already gone, and to a distance, as it appeared, inaccessible. Driven back, however, by storms, he II.] AMONG HIS MOST PRECIOUS PAPERS. 521 landed at Leghorn, where these cordial lines reached him just as he was about to embark, on the 24th of July, 1823. He had barely time to answer by a well-filled page, which the possessor has preserved, among his most precious papers, as the worthiest evidence of the connection that had been formed. Affecting and delightful as was such a document, and justifying the most lively hopes, it has acquired now the greatest, though most painful value, from the untimely death of the lofty writer, which adds a peculiar edge to the grief felt generally throughout the whole moral and poetical world at his loss; for we were warranted in hoping that, when his great deeds should have been achieved, we might personally have greeted in him the pre-eminent intellect, the happily acquired friend, and the most humane of conquerors. "At present we can only console ourselves with the conviction that his country will at last recover from that violence of invective and reproach which has been so long raised against him, and will learn to understand that the dross and lees of the age and the individual, out of which even the best have to elevate themselves, are but perishable and transient, while the wonderful glory to which he in the present and through all future ages has elevated his country, will be as boundless in its splendour as it is incalculable in its consequences. Nor can there be any doubt that the nation, which can boast of so many great names, will class BYRON among the first of those through whom she has acquired such glory." APPENDIX III. CONTROVERSY BETWEEN BYRON AND BOWLES AS TO THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF POPE. (See p. 108, note 1.) In this Appendix are printed (1) Bowles's Invariable Principles of Poetry (1819); and (2 and 3) Byron's Two Letters [John Murray] on Bowles's Strictures on Pope. The following account of the controversy explains some of the allusions. to The Rev. William Lisle Bowles published, in 1806, an edition of Pope's Works in ten volumes. As editor, he criticized with some severity the character of Pope both as a man and a poet. It was the criticism on Pope's morals against which Byron protested in English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers (lines 369-384) "Each fault, each failing scan; The first of poets was, alas! but man. Perch on thy pen, and flutter o'er thy page," etc., etc. Ten years later, Pope's poetical character was championed by Thomas Campbell, in his "Essay on English Poetry," prefixed to his Specimens of the British Poets (7 vols., 1819: vol. i. pp. 262-271). Bowles replied to Campbell's "Essay" in his Invariable Principles of Poetry, in a Letter addressed to Thomas Campbell, Esq., occasioned by some Critical Observations in his "Specimens of British Poetry," particularly relating to the Poetical Character of Pope (1819). As this pamphlet · III.] BYRON'S NAME INTRODUCED. 523 gives the key to the controversy, it is here reprinted in the form in which it was published by Bowles in the third edition (1822) of his Two Letters to the Right Honourable Lord Byron, under the title of An Answer to some Observations of Thomas Campbell, Esq., in his Specimens of British Poets. So far, except by Byron, Pope's moral character had not been defended. But the Quarterly Review for July, 1820, contained an article by Isaac Disraeli, which was nominally a review of Spence's Anecdotes of Books and Men. In this article Disraeli not only supported Campbell, and ridiculed the Invariable Principles of Poetry, but severely condemned Bowles for his attack on the moral character of Pope. Professing to quote from Bowles an "anecdote of exquisite 'naïveté,” Disraeli introduces Byron's name into the controversy. Byron, in English Bards, etc., had misunderstood and misquoted Bowles's lines in The Spirit of Discovery (see Poems, vol. i. p. 325, note 1), and represents him as saying that the woods of Madeira had "trembled to a kiss." Disraeli thus quotes (p. 425) Bowles's account of his correction of Byron's mistake "Soon after Lord Byron had published his vigorous satire called 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers,' in which, alas! pars magna fui, I met his Lordship at our common friend's house, the author of 'The Pleasures of Memory,' and the still more beautiful poem, 'Human Life.' As the rest of the company were going into another room, I said I wished to speak one word to his Lordship. He came back with much apparent courtesy. I then said to him, in a tone of seriousness, but that of perfectly good humour, 'My lord, I should not have thought of making any observations on whatever you might be pleased to give to the world as your opinion of any part of my writings; but I think if I can shew that you have done me a palpable and public wrong, by charging me with having written what I never wrote, or thought of, your own principles of justice will not allow the impression to remain.' I then spoke of a particular couplet which he had introduced into his satire "Thy woods, Madeira, trembled with a kiss.'-Byron. And taking down the POEM, which was AT HAND, I pointed out the passage, etc." The allusion to Byron offered him the excuse to plunge into the controversy, and to write the first and second Letter to on the Rev. Wm. L. Bowles's Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope. Only the first of the letters was published at the time (1821). To it Bowles replied with Two Letters to the Right Honourable Lord Byron, in answer to His Lordship's Letter to* on the Rev. Wm. L. Bowles's Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope: more particularly on the question, whether POETRY be more immediately indebted to what is SUBLIME or BEAUTIFUL in the Works of NATURE, or the Works of ART (1821). With the publication of this pamphlet the controversy between Bowles and Byron ended. Byron's second Letter was not printed till 1835. Meanwhile the war of pamphlets had grown more bitter. Bowles answered the Quarterly Review in A Reply to the Charges brought by the Reviewer of Spence's Anecdotes in the Quarterly Review for October, 1820, against the last Editor of Pope's Works. This pamphlet, written for The Pamphleteer, is dated October 25, 1820, and is published in vol. xvii. of that periodical (pp. 73-96). In the course of his reply (p. 96), Bowles attributes the Quarterly Review article to Octavius Graham Gilchrist, a grocer at Stamford, and a contributor both to the Quarterly and the London Magazine. Bowles apparently knew that Gilchrist had reviewed John Clare's Poems, descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery in the preceding number of the Quarterly (May, 1820, pp. 166-174). He also knew that Gilchrist, writing anonymously in the London Magazine for February, 1820, had already defended Pope's moral character in a review of Spence's Anecdotes, and had acknowledged the authorship in the same periodical in July, 1821. On this supposed evidence he attacks Gilchrist as the author of the Quarterly article. "When I think," he says, "of the utter defiance of "truth he has manifested, two lines from his favourite and "much-injured poet rush irresistibly into my mind : "Honest and rough, your first son is a Squire, To this attack Gilchrist replied in a Letter to the Rev. William Lisle Bowles, in Answer to a Pamphlet recently Published under the title of "A Reply to an unsentimental |