quotes two lines from different poems, in support of his opinion. Now the proper way to cut up is to quote long passages, and make them appear absurd, because simple allegation is no proof. On the other hand, there are seven pages of praise, and more than my modesty will allow said on the subject. Adieu. “P. S.-Write, write, write!!!"

It was at the beginning of the following year that an acquaintance commenced between Lord Byron and a gentleman, related to his family by marriage, Mr Dallas,-the author of some novels, popular, 1 believe, in their day, and also of a sort of Memoir of the noble Poet published soon after his death, which, from being founded chiefly on original correspondence, is the most authentic and trust-worthy of any that have yet appeared. In the letters addressed by Lord Byron to this gentleman, among many details, curious in a literary point of view, we find, what is much more important for our present purpose, some particulars illustrative of the opinions which he had formed, at this time of his life, on the two subjects most connected with the early formation of character -morals and religion.

It is but rarely that infidelity or scepticism finds an entrance into youthful minds. That readiness to take the future upon trust, which is the charm of this period of life, would naturally, indeed, make it the season of belief as well as of hope. There are also then, still fresh in the mind, the impressions of early religious culture, which, even in those who begin soonest to question their faith, give way but slowly to the encroachments of doubt, and, in the mean time, extend the benefit of their moral restraint over a portion of life when it is acknowledged such restraints are most necessary. If exemption from the checks of religion be, as infidels themselves allow, a state of freedom from responsibility dangerous at all times, it must be peculiarly so in that season of temptation, youth, when the passions are sufficiently disposed to usurp a latitude for themselves, without taking a licence also from infidelity to enlarge their range. It is, therefore, fortunate that, for the causes just stated, the inroads of scepticism and disbelief should be seldom felt in the mind till a period of life, when the character, already formed, is out of the reach of their disturbing influence,-when, being the result, however erroneous, of thought and reasoning, they are likely to partake of the sobriety of the process by which they were acquired, and, being considered but as matters of pure speculation, to have as little share in determining the mind towards evil as, too often, the most orthodox creed has, at the same age, in influencing it towards good.

While, in this manner, the moral qualities of the unbeliever himself are guarded from some of the mischiefs, that might, at an earlier age, attend such doctrines, the danger also of his communicating the infection to others is, for reasons of a similar

**Look out for a people entirely destitute of religion: if you find them at all, be assured that they are but few degrees removed from brutes."-Hume.

The reader will find this avowal of Hume turned eloquently to the advantage of religion in a collection of Sermons, entitled, The Connexion of Christianity with Humen Happiness," written by one of Lord Byron's earliest and most valucil frends, the Rev. William Harness.

nature, considerably diminished. The same vanity or daring, which may have prompted the youthful sceptic's opinions, will lead him likewise, it is probable, rashly and irreverently to avow them, without regard either to the effect of his example on those around him, or to the odium which, by such an avowal, he entails irreparably on himself. But, at a riper age these consequences are, in general, more cautiously weighed. The infidel, if at all considerate of the happiness of others, will naturally pause before he chases from their heart a hope of which his own feels the want so desolately. If regardful only of himself, he will no less naturally shrink from the promulgation of opinions which, in no age, have men uttered with impunity. In either case there is a tolerably good security for his silence ;-for, should benevolence not restrain him from making converts of others, prudence may, at least, prevent him from making a martyr of himself.

Unfortunately, Lord Byron was an exception to the usual course of such lapses. With him, the canker showed itself" in the morn and dew of youth," when the effect of such "blastments" is, for every reason, most fatal,-and, in addition to the real misfortune of being an unbeliever at any age, he exhibited the rare and melancholy spectacle of an unbelieving schoolboy. The same prematurity of development which brought his passions and genius so early into action, enabled him also to anticipate this worst, dreariest result of reason; and at the very time of life when a spirit and temperament like his most required control, those checks, which religious prepossessions best supply, were almost wholly wanting.

We have seen, in those two Adresses to the Deity which I have selected from among his unpublished Poems, and still more strongly in a passage of the Catalogue of his studies, at what a boyish age the authority of all systems and sects was avowedly shaken off by his inquiring spirit. Yet, even in these, there is a fervour of adoration mingled with his defiance of creeds, through which the piety implanted in his nature (as it is deeply in all poetic natures) unequivocally shows itself; and had he then_fallen within the reach of such guidance and example as would have seconded and fostered these natural dispositions, the licence of opinion, into which he afterwards broke loose, might have been averted. His scepticism, if not wholly removed, might have been softened down into that humble doubt, which, so far from being inconsistent with a religious spirit, is, perhaps, its best guard against presumption and uncharitableness; and, at all events, even if his own views of religion had not been brightened or elevated, he would have learned not wantonly to cloud or disturb those of others. But there was no such monitor near him. After his departure from Southwell, he had not a single friend or relative to whom he could look up with respect; but was thrown alone on the world, with his passions and his pride, to revel in the fatal discovery which he imagined himself to have made of the nothingness of the future, and the all-paramount claims of the present. By singular ill-fortune, too, the individual who, among all his college friends, had taken the strongest hold on his admiration and affection

"Salute Gifford and all my friends.

"Yours, &c."

As already, before his acquaintance with Mr Matthews commenced, Lord Byron had begun to bewilder himself in the mazes of scepticism, it would be unjust to impute to this gentleman any further share in the formation of his noble friend's opinions than what arose from the natural influence of example and sympathy;-an influence which, as it was felt perhaps equally on both sides, rendered the contagion of their doctrines, in a great measure, reciprocal. In addition, too, to this community of sentiment on such subjects, they were both, in no ordinary degree, possessed by that dangerous spirit of ridicule, whose impulses even the pious cannot always restrain, and which draws the mind on, by a sort of irresistible fascination, to disport itself most wantonly on the brink of all that is most solemn and awful. It is not wonderful, therefore, that, in such society, the opinions of the noble poet should have been, at least, accelerated in that direction to which their bias already leaned; and though he cannot be said to have become thus confirmed in these doctrines-as neither now, nor at any time of his life, was he a confirmed unbeliever, he had undoubtedly learned to feel less uneasy under his scepticism, and even to mingle somewhat of boast and of levity with his expression of it. At the very first onset of his correspondence with Mr Dallas, we find him proclaiming his sentiments on all such subjects with a flippancy and confidence, far different from the tone in which he had first ventured on his doubts,-from that fervid sadness, as of a heart loth to part with its allusions, which breathes through every line of those prayers, that, but a year before, his pen had traced.

Here, again, however, we should recollect, there must be a considerable share of allowance for his usual tendency to make the most and the worst of his own obliquities. There occurs, indeed, in his first letter to Mr Dallas, an instance of this strange ambition, the very reverse, it must be allowed, of hypocrisy, which led him to court, rather than avoid, the reputation of profligacy, and to put at all times the worst face on his own character and conduct. His new correspondent having, in introducing himself to his acquaintance, passed some compliments on the tone of moral and charitable feeling which breathed through one of his poems, had added, that "it brought to his mind another noble author, who was not only a fine poet, orator, and historian, but one of the closest reasoners we have on the truth of that religion of which forgiveness is a prominent principle,-the great and the good Lord Lyttleton, whose fame will never die. His son," adds Mr Dallas," to whom he had transmitted genius, but not virtue, sparkled for a moment and went out like a star,-and with him the title became extinct." To this Lord Byron answers in the following letter.

LETTER XX.

TO MR DALLAS.

"Dorant's Hotel, Albemarle-street, Jan. 20th, 1808 66 SIR, "Your letter was not received till this morning,

I presume from being addressed to me in Notts., where I have not resided since last June, and as the date is the 6th, you will excuse the delay of my

answer.

"If the little volume you mention has given pleasure to the author of Percival and Aubrey, I am sufficiently repaid by his praise. Though our periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, I confess a tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering. But I am afraid I should forfeit all claim to candour, if I did not decline such praise as I do not deserve; and this is, I am sorry to say, the case in the present instance.

66

'My compositions speak for themselves, and must stand or fall by their own worth or demerit: thus far I feel highly gratified by your favourable opinion. But my pretensions to virtue are unluckily so few, that though I should be happy to merit, I cannot accept, your applause in that respect. One passage in your letter struck me forcibly: you mention the two Lords Lyttleton in a manner they respectively deserve, and will be surprised to hear the person who is now addressing you has been frequently compared to the latter. I know I am injuring myself in your esteem by this avowal, but the circumstance was so remarkable from your observation, that I cannot help relating the fact. The events of my short life have been of so singular a nature, that, though the pride commonly called honour has, and I trust ever will, prevent me from disgracing my name by a mean or cowardly action, I have been already held up as the votary of licentiousness, and the disciple of infidelity. How far justice may have dictated this accusation I cannot pretend to say, but, like the gentleman to whom my religious friends, in the warmth of their charity, have already devoted me, I am made worse than I really am. However, to quit myself (the worst theme I could pitch upon) and return to my Poems, I camot sufficiently express my thanks, and I hope I shall some day have an opportunity of rendering them in person. A second edition is now in the press, with some additions and considerable omissions; you will allow me to present you with Reviews have been very indulgent; but the Eclectic a copy. The Critical, Monthly, and Anti-Jacobin has pronounced a furious Philippic, not against the book but the author, where you will find all I have the critique. mentioned asserted by a reverend divine who wrote

"Your name and connexion with our family have been long known to me, and I hope your person will be not less so; you will find me an excellent compound of a 'Brainless' and a 6 Stanhope.' I am afraid you will hardly be able to read this, for my hand is almost as bad as my character, but you will find me, as legibly as possible,

"Your obliged and obedient Servant,
"BYRON."

There is here, evidently, a degree of pride in being thought to resemble the wicked Lord Lyttleton; and, lest his known irregularities should not bear him out in the pretension, he refers mysteriously, as was his habit, to certain untold events of his life, to warrant

Characters in the novel called Percival

the parallel. Mr Dallas, who seems to have been but little prepared for such a reception of his compliments, escapes out of the difficulty by transferring to the young lord's "candour" the praise he had so thanklessly bestowed on his morals in general; adding, that from the design Lord Byron had expressed in his preface of resigning the service of the Muses for a different vocation, he had "conceived him bent on pursuits which lead to the character of a legislator and statesman;-had imagined him at one of the universities, training himself to habits of reasoning and eloquence, and storing up a large fund of history and law." It is in reply to this letter that the exposition of the noble poet's opinions to which I have above alluded is contained.

"SIB,

LETTER XXI.

TO MB DALLAS.

"Dorant's, January 21st., 1808.

"Whenever leisure and inclination permit me the pleasure of a visit, I shall feel truly gratified in a personal acquamtanc with one whose mind has been long known to me in his writings.

"You are so far correct in your conjecture, that I am a member of the University of Cambridge, where I shall take my degree of A. M. this term; but were reasoning, eloquence, or virtue, the objects of my search, Granta is not their metropolis, nor is the place of her situation an El Dorado,' far less an Utopia. The intellects of her children are as stagnant as her Cam, and their pursuits limited to the church-not of Christ, but of the nearest benefice.

"As to my reading, I believe I may aver, without hyperbole, it has been tolerably extensive in the historical; so that few nations exist, or have existed, with whose records I am not in some degree acquainted, from Herodotus down to Gibbou. Of the classics, I know about as much as most schoolboys after a discipline of thirteen years; of the law of the land as much as enables me to keep within the statute-to use the poacher's vocabulary. I did study the Spirit of Laws' and the Law of Nations; but when I saw the latter violated every month, 1 gave up my attempts at so useless an accomplishmeat;-of geography, I have seen more land on maps than I should wish to traverse on foot :-of mathematics, enough to give me the headache without clearing the part affected;-of philosophy, astronomy, and metaphysics, more than I can comprehend;† and of common sense so little, that I mean to leave a Byronian prize at each of our Alma Matres' for the first discovery,-though I rather fear that of the Longitude will precede it.

"I once thought myself a philosopher, and talked nonsense with great decorum: I defied pain, and preached up equanimity. For some time this did very well, for no one was in pain for me but my

* This appeal to the imagination of his correspondent

was not altogether without effect. I considered," says Mr Dallas, these letters, though evidently grounded on some occurrences in the still earlier part of his life, rather as jeux d'esprit than as a true portrait."

He appears to have had in his memory Voltaire's lively account of Zadig's learning:- Il savait de la métaphysique ce qu'on en a su dans tous les âges,-c'est à dire, fort peu de chose," &c.

friends, and none lost their patience but my hearers. At last, a fall from my horse convinced me bodily suffering was an evil; and the worst of an argument overset my maxims and my temper at the same moment, so I quitted Zeno for Aristippus, and conceive that pleasure constitutes the тo xaλov. In morality, I prefer Confucius to the Ten Commandments, and Socrates to St Paul, though the two latter agree in their opinion of marriage. In religion, I favour the Catholic emancipation, but do not acknowledge the Pope; and I have refused to take the Sacrament, because I do not think eating bread or drinking wine from the hand of an earthly vicar will make me an inheritor of heaven. I hold virtue in general, or the virtues severally, to be only in the disposition, each a feeling, not a principle.* I believe truth the prime attribute of the Deity; and death an eternal sleep, at least of the body. You have here a brief compendium of the sentiments of the wicked George Lord Byron; and, till I get a new suit, you will perceive I am badly clothed. I remain," &c.

Though such was, doubtless, the general cast of his opinions at this time, it must be recollected, before we attach any particular importance to the details of easily resisted by him, of displaying his wit at the his creed, that, in addition to the temptation, never expense of his character, he was here addressing a evidently one of those officious, self-satisfied advisers, person who, though, no doubt, well-meaning, was whom it was the delight of Lord Byron at all times to astonish and mystify. The tricks which, when a boy, he played upon the Nottingham quack, Lavender, were but the first of a long series with which, through life, he amused himself, at the expense of all the numerous quacks, whom his celebrity and sociability drew around him.

this letter agree in spirit with many passages both The terms in which he speaks of the university in in the "Hours of Idleness," and his early Satire, and prove that, while Harrow was remembered by him with more affection perhaps than respect, Cambridge had not been able to inspire him with either. This feeling of distaste to his "nursing mother" he entertained in common with some of the most illustrious names of English literature. So great was Milton's hatred to Cambridge, that he had even conceived, says Warton, a dislike to the face of the country,to the fields in its neighbourhood. The poet Gray thus speaks of the same university :-"Surely, it was of this place, now Cambridge, but formerly known by the name of Babylon, that the prophet spoke when he said, the wild beasts of the desert shall dwell there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall build there, and satyrs shall dance there,'" &c. &c. The bitter recollections which Gibbon retained of Oxford, his own pen has recorded; and the cool contempt by which Locke avenged himself on the bigotry of the same seat of learning is even still more memorable.†

The doctrine of Hume, who resolves all virtue into sentiment. See his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals."

+ See his Letter to Anthony Collins, 1703-4, where he speaks of those sharp heads, which were for damning his book, because of its discouraging the staple commodity of the place, which in his time was called hugs' shearing."