The consistency of his literary principles is the same with that of his political-now eulogizing-now abusing. Does he really imagine that we have forgotten his "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers?" or though we have, that Scott and Moore can ever forget it. Yet, on these distinguished writers he has poured abuse as virulent as its retraction was mean: to Moore, under the familiar and colloquial appellative of "my dear Moore," he dedicates one of his poems, no matter which; they are all only Lord Byron in various masquing habits,the costume changed, but the same hideous likeness faithfully preserved.

I have done with his want of all religious creed, his desertion of that only anchor of the soul, with his defalcation in all public feeling, or political principle; with his revolting inconsistency in literary opinion.

I pass on to his satire (yes, his satire, for that predominates throughout all his works). Misanthropy is verysatirical, and I know no work of Lord Byron's that may not properly be termed a satire on religion, morality, social order, or domestic feeling; but his satire is not satire; it is only the morbid effusion of universal misanthropy. He lashes not with the hope of causing amendment, but of inflicting pain: the arm is strong, and the scourge is heavy; but there is no benefit in the blow; it might be keenly retorted on him, "strip thy own back."

The genuine satirist selects appropriate subjects, and marks them with discriminating severity. Is this the characteristic of his satire, who, feeling nothing too high for his temerity, or his talents, and nothing too low for his malignity, sometimes reviles his sovereign, and sometimes lampoons a scullion? After this who will value or dread his ostracism?

A charge still heavier remains against his writings: the noblest intellectual power may suffer eclipse under a passing cloud of scepticism; in the strife of the political warfare, a man may sometimes be seen among the enemy's ranks, whom we know to be in his heart on the other side. But what writer can assign a

cause,(I do not talk of pleading an excuse, for that is impossible) for the predominant impurity of his works, but the predominant depravity of his mind.

The works of Lord Byron are just fit to be bound up with those of Cleland and Parny: it is incredible how females can peruse them, or how husbands and fathers can suffer their infamous impurity to shed its venom on the female mind. Look to his Parisina,-his Manfred,-his-look to all he has ever written.

Crime itself appears too vapid for his taste; simple fornication is not enough, it must be seasoned by adultery, by incest, by every loathsome, and ineffable combination. Vice, in its unmodified state, is not sufficiently meretricious.

The harlot must be arrayed in the tempting and transparent splendor of the Coa vestimenta. The Priapus must be attired in full-dress, drawers of the thinnest silk to make his hideous organism more prominent and obstrusive; the object of passion in order to stimulate the raging debility of exhausted sensuality, must be an adultress, a stepmother, or a sister; with a reference to the atrocious indecencies of Don Juan I shall not pollute my page.

After this it seems idle to notice lighter defects in Lord Byron's compositions; yet while admitting the unquestioned and unquestionable eminence of his genius, I know not any writer whose pages present more frequent instances of violation of every rule of good composition. His rhyme is often harsh, eccentric, and prosical; if wit be justly defined the discovery of a resemblance between remote objects, no specimen of it occurs in his writings. I know not a single simile or metaphor that ever brought one acquainted with a resemblance unknown before.

He paints from his own mind more than from nature or life; nor from either of the latter does he appear to have learned one beautiful combination, or one powerful contrast. He appears to have looked on nature with the eye of a man who was trying to make the most of a stormn, and powerfully depict its thunderings and lightnings; but

nobody knows why, and nobody eares where; like Conrad, or like Manfred, battle with the devil to the last breath, and give him, (as he is well able), the worst of it after all.

In the progress of the composition, three things must be chiefly attended to as constituting the very essence of the admired prototype-first, let there be no narrative: the interest derived from watching the progress of animating events, the opposition of character, or the strife of conflicting interests and passions must be altogether neglected or effaced; there must be no variations of light and shade, no soft gradations of colouring, no lovely and mingling attenuations of tint, like those of the rainbow, melting into each other, and dissolving and uniting the bright and contracted hues into one arch of peace;" no, let the whole atmosphere be black, heaven shut out, and earth all darkness, let one predominating tinge of "ebon grain" swallow up every object and every colour, and while genius like his alone, sends a flash across the gloom, let it be like the brilliant and terrific lightning of a midnight storm that makes darkness more awful, and light itself blasting and horrible.

Secondly, let the essence of the poem be wholly physical-let the females be arrayed in all the meretricious and intoxicating sensuality of the serail, but they must not have one charm of mind, one attraction of virtue-" their large blue eyes, fair locks, and snowy hands,' must be taken at a fair appraisement in lieu of one intellectual trait, one pure feeling, one virtuous energy-if ever they display resolution, let it be in the appropriate and feminine act of murder -while the milder heroines (like Medora) have only to conclude a life of prostitution and outlawry, by lying down to die (on the singular incident of their lovers going out on a piratical expedition) with a bouquet of flowers in their hands, (as it was formerly the custom to equip their less guilty brothers of the gibbet in England) and "dye in their calling like clever Tom Clinch." Lastly, let it not be possible for the ut

• Vide Swift.

most malice of ingenuity to extort a moral from the work-let it be turned and sifted every way, but let the last and hopeless confession of the reader be "who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" Let the bravoes and the banditti, the harlots and the murderesses die without remorse, as they have lived without feeling-let them begin in blasphemy and end in despair-let them not shew "one compunctious visiting of nature"-let the heroes, after a course of incestuous adultery, die like Hugo, insulting the parent whom they have violated nature to injure--or let them, in their last hours, contend with the demon whose hideousness is annihilated and lost in the preternatura! deformity and turpitude of his victim, who is able to give "bloody instructions" to his teacher, and even to school him out of his own book--and finally, let the reader rise from the page with the conviction that there is nothing new under the sun, since Job's wife has long ago extracted the quintessence of Lord Byron's morality, and presented it in four short words; "Curse God and die." As Lord Byron perhaps never read the book, he may be forgiven the apparent plagiary.

To imagine a poem so constructed is easy, but to imagine such a being as the author, requires an union of incredibilities that night startle the strongest imagination--we must then try to imagine a man who, while his country is called to a trial more awful than any the page of history exhibits, more interesting to a son of that country than all his darling Greece ever sustained, or had virtuous energy to sustain, stood apart (with all his pretensions to keen sensibilities and lofty feelings) and contented himself with sneering in cold-blooded apathy at the patriotism he did not feel, the wisdom he did not possess, and the valour he shrunk from imitating.

Let us try to imagine a man, who, possessed of a genius sublime and unrivalled, delights only in its prostitution, as the ancient king of Lydia found even the beauties of his wife insufficient for his felicity till he had exhibited her naked charms to his favourite.

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Let us try to imagine a man, who, blessed, or (as he would make it out) cursed with all the lavish and glorious opulence of nature, genius, and fortune (powers that rarely unite in their favours), tramples the pearls under his feet, and malignantly turns to rend the giver-who, bound to life by every tie that can render life lovely or precious -a companion fair and pure,-a child -and that child a daughter too-can fling them off-ramble into remote regions with unintellectual harlots, and leave for the consolation of the deserted wife, a satire on a kitchen maid—a man who, enabled and qualified to enjoy, to embellish, and to dignify every scene of polished intercourse, and intellectual luxury, prostitutes his life away amid sceptics and sensualists-a man who, gifted with the finest and most keenlypointed darts in satire's own quiver, bas allowed vice to riot, and folly to revel in his sight unsmitten and unhurt, and reserved their swiftest and sharpest aim only to be directed against religion, patriotism, moral feeling, and conjugal fidelity.

A man who, affecting (and it is but affectation) a superiority that exempts bim from chastisement or censure, pretending to be seated in the clouds far above the lightning and thunder of public opinion, and laughing at their futile explosion, yet shews the wincing of a gailed jade at the slightest touch of criticism, and retaliates with a fierceness of invective, a trepidation of jealousy, and

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an eagerness of mingled rage, fear, and acrimony, that has terrified even the Edinburgh reviewers into submission and praise.

Lastly, a man who, "knew he but his happiness, of men the happiest, he" runs wild about the world, in a fit of misanthropy run mad, and cursed with a satiety of every blessing, tries to make the world believe he is miserable, and to persuade it to be as miserable as himself-if imagination sinks under such a task, the original is to be met with in Lord Byron.

I have detained public attention too long with a subject which derives its importance only from its mischief. have one question to propose to the readers and admirers of Lord Byron (the power of his genius has made the terms synonimous)--what man ever rose wiser, better, or happier, from the perusal of his writings ?-what female ever closed his pages strengthened in rectitude, confirmed in chastity, or softened to benevolence? Did man or woman ever carry away from his writings one principle of action, one rule of life, one thought, one image that might suggest comfort in this life, or hope in the next? I have done with him-I leave his character to the painting of a bold, and one would almost think a prophetic pen.

He is one whom-" brighter reason prompts to bolder crimes-when heavenly talents make infernal hearts-that insurmountable extreme of guilt.".

M. ENIGILDE FREDIANI, advanta

geously known in Italy by the publication of some poetical pieces, has lately terminated a very extensive range or series of travels in Africa and the East. This gentleman set out from Leghorn in the latter end of Sept. 1817: he repaired first to Egypt, where he visited all the antiquities of the country. He ascended the Nile, explored Thebes, where he saw Lord Belmore, M. Bro2T ATHENEUM VOL. 6.