pages Rogers thought Byron's finest passage was that on Solitude, in the second canto of the poem : To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean; Converse with Nature's charms, and see her stores unroll'd. But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; If we were not, would seem to smile the less, Here are his moral reflections on a skull :— Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall, The dome of thought, the palace of the soul: And passion's host, that never brook'd control: Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, How vividly he presents to us the scene of a Spanish bullfight : The lists are oped, the spacious area cleared, Thousands on thousands piled are seated round; Skill'd in the ogle of a roguish eye, Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound: Hushed is the din of tongues-on gallant steeds, With milk-white crest, gold spur, and light-poised lance, Four cavaliers prepare for venturous deeds, And lowly bending to the lists, advance · Rich are their scarfs, their chargers featly prance: If in the dangerous game they shine to-day, The crowd's loud shout and ladies' lovely glance, Best prize of better acts, they bear away, And all that kings or chiefs e'er gain, their toils repay. In costly sheen and gaudy cloak arrayed, But all a-foot, the light-limb'd Matadore Stands in the centre, eager to invade The lord of lowing herds; but not before The ground, with cautious tread, is traversed o'er, Thrice sounds the clarion; lo! the signal falls, The sand, nor blindly rushes on his foe: Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit His first attack, wide waving to and fro His angry tail; red rolls his eye's dilated glow. Sudden he stops: his eye is fix'd: away, Away, thou heedless boy! prepare the spear: Now is thy time to perish, or display The skill that yet may check his mad career. With well-timed croupe the nimble coursers veer; On foams the bull, but not unscathed he goes; Streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear; He flies, he wheels, distracted with his throes; Dart follows dart; lance, lance; loud bellowings speak his woes. Foiled, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last, And now the Matadores around him play, Once more through all he bursts his thundering way— Wraps his fierce eye-'tis past-he sinks upon the sand! Byron was a facile writer,—he composed his Bride of Abydos in a single night, and, it is said, without once mending his pen: this is not improbable, since his chirography was not remarkably distinct. The Corsair, which has been thought by some critics his best production, was written in three weeks. Byron is said to have received from Murray, his publisher, for the entire copyrights of his works, upwards of thirty thousand guineas. Among the numerous fine images which adorn Byron's poetry, Wordsworth considered the two following the most felicitous : Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, For Freedom's battle, once begun, Here are some more beautiful gems: Between two worlds life hovers like a star, 'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge: How little do we know that which we are! How less what we may be! The eternal surge Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, By the deep sea, and music in its roar : From all I may be, or have been before, The Rainbow : A heavenly chameleon, Poetry has been sometimes styled the "flower of experience;" and we have an illustration of this in the case of CRABBE, who so well knew, from his own early struggles and privations, both how to pity and portray those of others. He was the poet of the poor, and for the fidelity of his sketches has been called "the Hogarth of verse." Well might Washington Irving-referring to the numerous instances in which the poetic gift has been cradled in obscurity and poverty-quaintly remark, "Genius delights to nestle its off |