And, when he has chas'd his enemies,
Submit to us upon his knees.

Is there an officer of state,
Untimely rais'd, or magistrate,
That's haughty or imperious;
He's but a journeyman to us:
That as he gives us cause to do 't,
Can keep him in or turn him out.

We are your guardians, that increase
Or waste your fortunes how we please;
And, as your humour is, can deal
In all your matters, ill or well.

"T is we that can dispose alone, Whether your heirs shall be your own,

And run stark mad to show your parts; Expound the oracle of laws;

To whose integrity you must,

In spite of all your caution, trust;

And 'less you fly beyond the seas,

Can fit you with what heirs we please;

And force you t' own 'em, though begotten
By French valets, or Irish footmen.
Nor can the rigorousest course

Prevail, unless to make us worse:
Who still the harsher we are us'd,
Are further off from being reduc'd;
And scorn t' abate for any ills,
The least punctilios of our wills.
Force does but whet our wits t' apply
Arts, born with us, for remedy;
Which all your politics, as yet,
Have ne'er been able to defeat:

For when y' have tried all sorts of ways,
What fools d' we make of you in plays
While all the favours we afford,

Are but to gird you with the sword; To fight our battles in our steads,

And have your brains beat out o' your heads:

330

335

And turn them which way we see cause:
Be our solicitors and agents,
And stand for us in all engagements.

And these are all the mighty pow'rs
You vainly boast, to cry down our's;
And what in real value's wanting
Supply with vapouring and ranting:
Because yourselves are terrify'd,
And stoop to one another's pride:
Believe we have as little wit
To be out-hector'd and submit ;
By your example, lose that right

340 In treaties, which we gain'd in fight;
And terrify'd into an awe,

345

Pass on ourselve a salique law:

Or, as some nations use, give place, And truckle to your mighty race; Let men usurp th' unjust dominion, As if they were the better women.

THE Nobleman who at present bears the honours and the name of BYRON, requires not the equivocal aid of ancestry to distinguish him from the common tribe either of patricians or of plebeians. Genius is a brilliant jewel even in a coronet; and though much depends upon the setting, it generally enables its possessor to soar

[great!

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, Beneath the good how far-yet far above the George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron, is the lineal descendant of a family which was of consequence even at the era of the Conquest, being recorded in Doomsday Book as considerable landholders in Lancashire. The subsequent career of the By rons, during the three or four succeeding centuries, was distinguished in almost the only line of distinction which belonged to the baronial rank before the accession of the house of Tudor. Two of them fell at the battle of Cressy, one of them signalized himself in the field of Bosworth, in favour of Henry VII. and several shed their blood in the armies of Charles I. who called Sir John Byron to the peerage in the year 1643.

On the maternal side the ancestry of Lord Byron is equally illustrious: his mother, from whom he takes his second name of Gordon, having been the last of a branch of that family which descended from the Princess Jane Stuart, daughter of James II. of Scotland, who married an Earl of Huntley. A great variety of contingences opened the way to Lord Byron's early accession to the title. William, the fourth Lord Byron, who died in 1738, left five sons, of whom the eldest, the late peer, William, the fifth Lord Byron, owing to an unfortunate event, withdrew from court and parliament, and lived in such strict retirement for many years before his death, that the titles were scarcely ever heard out of the family circle. This nobleman had an only son, William, who went into the army, and was killed in Corsica, long before the death of his father, by which means the present Lord, the infant grandson of the celebrated Admiral Byron, eldest brother to the existing peer, became presumptive heir to the title, to which he succeeded on the death of his great uncle, May 19, 1798. His Lordship's father was twice married, first to Baroness Conyers, the daughter of Lord Holdernesse, by whom he had a daughter; and secondly, to the lady already mentioned, Miss Gordon of Gight, who bore him the present Lord, on the 22d January, 1788, so that his Lordship is at present only in his thirtyfifth year.

If the general voice of rumour may be depended upon, Lord Byron began very early to discover traits of a marked and original character. Some of his early years were spent in Scotland; but he received the chief part of his education at Harrow, from which distinguished school he removed to the University of Cambridge; and much is said at both places of his genius and eccentricity. He early be. gan to court the deathless Muse; for it was soon after his quitting school, that he published his "Hours of Idleness," which being treated with a very disproportionate degree of severity by the critics of the Edinburgh Review, the youthful poet retorted in a Satire of great spirit and severity, called "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," which is believed to have had the extraordinary effect of increasing the mutual esteem of the belligerent parties: the Reviewers have certainly attended to the subsequent productions of his Lordship with great respect; and he on his part, has done all in his power to recall his satires-preventing a fifth edition from being published, even after it was printed. His Lordship's succeeding intimacy with Mr. Moore, whom he had alluded to rather con

temptuously in the mention of his affair with Mr Jeffrey, may very honourably account for this solicitude in part; and the general accordance of his line of literary and political feeling with that of the celebrated Journal in question, will readily answer for the rest. In truth, in the end, his Lordship himself became a conspicuous member of the brilliant coterie at Holland House, which he had been provoked to deride.

On his coming of age in 1809, Lord Byron, after taking his seat in the House of Peers, went abroad, and spent some time in the South and East of Europe, particularly in Greece and its islands. In the year 1811, he returned to England, and in the Spring of 1812, published his celebrated "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," a poem which at once established his fame as a poet, and ensured the greedy attention of the public to every subsequent production by the same hand. In the course of 1813, Lord Byron published three other poems :-" The Giaour," "The Bride of Abydos," and "The Corsair," and since that time, "Lara," "The Siege of Corinth," and "Parisina." Of the character of these celebrated poems, the Critical Review for February 1814, may be consulted with advantage-it will apply more or less to them all.

In January, 1815, Lord Byron led to the altar the accomplished Miss Milbanke, only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke, (since Noel) by whom he has one daughter. This union, so suitable in rank, fortune, and the superior mental endowments of the respective parties, has been unfortunately severed by the acknowledged indiscretion of his Lordship. Of the exact tenor of that indiscretion, very little is correctly known, more than what the beautiful "Fare Thee Well" insinuates, though all manner of vague and extraordinary reports have been circulated. The manner in which that tender expostulation, and the severe "Sketch From Private Life," have been received by certain Journalists, may reasonably excite surprise; as every thing has been taken for granted against his Lordship in the strongest possible sense, and that in a tone approaching to malignity. To speak of the "Fare Thee Well!" as an insult to Lady Byron, is singular enough, as it is a string of emphatic compliment from beginning to end; the simple fact of unforgiveness only being stated, without even being accompanied by the assertion of deserving it. It is the humble plea of acknowledged error which ventures to suggest the beauty of mercy. The "Sketch" is another affair, and so entirely depends upon the facts which gave rise to it, that it will be impossible to judge of any thing, except its talent, until they are made known. To suppose that Lord Byron did not imagine himself injured, would be to infer his insanity; and who, possessed of his powers of satire under the impression of an insidious influence exerted against domestic peace, would not be tempted to exercise them as he has done. On the other hand it is but justice to the individual attacked to admit, that the agonized mind of deeply wounded husband might not be sufficiently cool for nice discrimination; and that a strong satiric talent, exerted in a moment of real or imagined provocation, is always to be understood with some grains of allowance. That Lord Byron was origi nally to blame, the public knows, for he has admitted it; but that he has any way aggravated his primary fault, by writing his subsequent address to Lady Byron, may be reasonably denied. As to the satire, with a total absence of evidence, it is as difficult to determine upon its justice as easy to decide upon its ability. Thus much, however, is certain; a formal separation has taken place, and his Lordship has quitted England for the present; some of the Journalists say, for ever,