For why should I the path go o'er, Has thrice perform'd her stated round, Has thrice retraced her path of light, And chased away the gloom profound, Which once contain'd our youth's retreat; Scarce glimmers through the mist of morn. If thou wert mine, had all been hush'd:- Yes, once the rural scene was sweet, But now I seek for other joys: To think would drive my soul to madness; In thoughtless throngs and empty noise, I conquer half my bosom's sadness. Yet, even in these a thought will steal, In spite of every vain endeavor,And fiends might pity what I feel, To know that thou art lost forever. TO A LADY." On! had my fate been join'd with thine, To thee these early faults I owe, To thee, the wise and old reproving: They know my sins, but do not know Twas thine to break the bonds of loving. For once my soul, like thine, was pure, Perhaps his peace I could destroy, For thy dear sake I cannot hate him. Ah! since thy angel form is gone, My heart no more can rest with any; But what it sought in thee alone, Attempts, alas! to find in many. Then fare thee well, deceitful maid! Twere vain and fruitless to regret thee; Nor Hope, nor Memory yield their aid, But Pride may teach me to forget thee. Yet all this giddy waste of years, This tiresome round of palling pleasures; These varied loves, these matron's fears, These thoughtless strains to passion's measures The two friends were both passionately attached to Harrow; and sometimes made excursions thither together, to revive their schoolboy recollections.] [Mrs. Musters. See antè, p. 394.] *["Our union would have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our fathers--it would have joined lands broad and rich-it would have joined at least one heart, and two persons not ill matched in years, (she is two years my elder,) and-and-and-what has been the result?"-Byron Diary, *!" Our meetings." says Lord Byron, in 1822, "were stolen ones, and a gate leading from Mr. Chaworth's grounds to those of my mother was the place of our interviews. But the I WOULD I WERE A CARELESS CHILD. Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave; Accords not with the freeborn soul, Which loves the mountain's craggy side, And seeks the rocks where billows roll. Fortune! take back these cultured lands, I hate the touch of servile hands, I hate the slaves that cringe around. Place me along the rocks I love, Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar; I ask but this-again to rove Through scenes my youth hath known before. Few are my years, and yet I feel The world was ne'er design'd for me: Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal The hour when man must cease to be? Once I beheld a splendid dream, A visionary scene of bliss: Truth!-wherefore did thy hated beam Awake me to a world like this? I loved-but those I loved are gone; ardor was all on my side. I was serious; she was volatile: she liked me as a younger brother, and treated and laughed at me as a boy; she, however, gave me her picture, and that was something to make verses upon. Had I married her, perhaps the whole tenor of my life would have been different."] 5 Sassenach, or Saxon, a Gaelic word, signifying either Lowland or English. [The imagination all compact," which the greatest poet who ever lived has assigned as the distinguishing badge of his brethren, is in every case a dangerous gift. It exaggerates, indeed, our expectations, and can often bid its possessor hope, where hope is lost to reason: but the delusive pleasure arising from these visions of imagination resembles that of a child, How dull to hear the voice of those Whom rank or chance, whom wealth or power, Have made, though neither friends nor foes, Associates of the festive hour. Give me again a faithful few, In years and feelings still the same, And I will fly the midnight crew, Where boist'rous joy is but a name. And woman, lovely woman! thou, My hope, my comforter, my all! How cold must be my bosom now, When e'en thy smiles begin to pall! Without a sigh would I resign This busy scene of splendid wo, To make that calm contentment mine, Which virtue knows, or seems to know. Fain would I fly the haunts of men- Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind. WHEN I ROVED A YOUNG HIGHLANDER. WHEN I roved a young Highlander o'er the dark heath, And climb'd thy steep summit, oh Morven of snow! To gaze on the torrent that thunder'd beneath, Or the mist of the tempest that gather'd below,' Untutor'd by science, a stranger to fear, And rude as the rocks where my infancy grew, No feeling, save one, to my bosom was dear; Need I say, my sweet Mary, 'twas centred in you? whose notice is attracted by a fragment of glass to which a sunbeam has given momentary splendor. He hastens to the spot with breathless impatience, and finds the object of his curiosity and expectation is equally vulgar and worthless. Such is the man of quick and exalted powers of imagination. His fancy over-estimates the object of his wishes, and pleasure, fame, distinction, are alternately pursued, attained, and despised when in his power. Like the enchanted fruit in the palace of a sorcerer, the objects of his admiration lose their attraction and value as soon as they are grasped by the adventurer's hand, and all that remains is regret for the time lost in the chase, and astonishment at the hallucination under which it was undertaken. The disproportion between hope and possession, which is felt by all men, is thus doubled to those whom nature has endowed with the power of gilding a distant prospect by the rays of imagination. These reflections, though trite and obvious, are in a manner forced from us by the poetry of Lord Byron,-by the sentiments of weariness of life and enmity with the world which they so frequently express, and by the singular analogy which such sentiments hold with well-known incidents of his life.-SIR W. SCOTT.] 1 "And I said, Oh! that I had wings like a dove; for then would I fly away, and be at rest."-Psalm lv. 6. This verse also constitutes a part of the most beautiful anthem in our language. 2 Morven, a lofty mountain in Aberdeenshire. "Gormal of snow," is an expression frequently to be found in Ossian. 3 This will no appear extraordinary to those who have been accustomed to the mountains. It is by no means uncommon, on attaining the top of Ben-e-vis, Ben-y-bourd, &c. to perceive, between the summit and the valley, clouds pouring down rain, and occasionally accompanied by lightning, while the spectator literally looks down upon the storm, perfectly secure from its effects. 4 [In Lord Byron's Diary for 1813, he says,-"I have been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff. How very odd that I should have been so utterly, devotedly fond of that girl, at Yet it could not be love, for I knew not the name,What passion can dwell in the heart of a child? But still I perceive an emotion the same As I felt, when a boy, on the crag-cover'd wild: One image alone on my bosom impress'd, I loved my bleak regions, nor panted for new; And few were my wants, for my wishes were bless'd; And pure were my thoughts, for my soul was with you. I arose with the dawn: with my dog as my guide, I breasted the billows of Dee's rushing tide, For the first of my prayers was a blessing on you. I left my bleak home, and my visions are gone; And delight but in days I have witness'd before: Ah! splendor has raised, but embitter'd, my lot; More dear were the scenes which my infancy knew: Though my hopes may have fail'd, yet they are not forgot; Though cold is my heart, still it lingers with you. When I see some dark hill point its crest to the sky, I think of the rocks that o'ershadow Colbleen;" When I see the soft blue of a love-speaking eye, I think of those eyes that endear'd the rude scene; When, haply, some light-waving locks I behold, That faintly resemble my Mary's in hue, I think on the long-flowing ringlets of gold, an age when I could neither feel passion, nor know the meaning of the word. And the effect! My mother used always to rally me about this childish amour; and, at last, many years after, when I was sixteen, she told me one day: Oh, Byron, I have had a letter from Edinburgh, from Miss Abercromby, and your old sweetheart, Mary Duff is married to a Mr. Cockburn.' [Robert Cockburn, Esq. of Edinburgh And what was my answer? I really cannot explain or ac count for my feelings at that moment; but they nearly threw me into convulsions-to the horror of my mother, an the astonishment of everybody. And it is a phenomenon my existence (for I was not eight years old) which bas puzzled, and will puzzle me to the latest hour of it "--Agi in January, 1815, a few days after his marriage, in a letter to his friend Captain Hay, the poet thus speaks of his childish attachment:-"Pray tell me more-or as much as ven like, of your cousin Mary. I believe I told you our story some years ago. I was twenty-seven a few days ago, anil have never seen her since we were children, and young children too; but I never forget her, nor ever can. Yet will oblige me with presenting her with my best respects. and all good wishes. It may seem ridiculous-but it is, at any rate, I hope, not offensive to her nor hers-in me to pretend to recollect any thing about her, at so early a per ou of both our lives, almost, if not quite, in our nurseries but it was a pleasant dream, which she must pardon me for remembering. Is she pretty still? I have the most perfect idea of her person, as a child; but Time, I suppose, has played the devil with us both."] "Breasting the lofty surge."-SHAKSPEARE. The Dee is a beautiful river, which rises near Mar Lodge, and falls into the sea at New Aberdeen. • Colbleen is a mountain near the verge of the Highlands. not far from the ruins of Dee Castle. 7 [In the spring of 1807, on recovering from a severe illness, Lord Byron had projected a visit to Scotland. The plan was not put into execution; but he thus adverts to it, in a letter dated in August, and addressed to his fair correspondent of But while these soar above me, unchanged as before, Ah! Mary, what home could be mine but with you? TO GEORGE, EARL DELAWARR.' On! yes, I will own we were dear to each other; The friendships of childhood, though fleeting, are true; The love which you felt was the love of a brother, Nor less the affection I cherish'd for you. But Friendship can vary her gentle dominion; Full oft have we wander'd through Ida together, And bless'd were the scenes of our youth, I allow : In the spring of our life, how serene is the weather! But winter's rude tempests are gathering now. No more with affection shall memory blending, However, dear George, for I still must esteem you- you, Repentance will cancel the vow you have made. I will not complain, and though chill'd is affection, That both may be wrong, and that both should forgive. You knew that my soul, that my heart, my existence, You knew, but away with the vain retrospection! For the present, we part,-I will hope not forever; Southwell-On Sunday I set off for the Highlands. A friend of mine accompanies me in my carriage to Edinburgh. There we shall leave it, and proceed in a tandem through the western parts to Inverary, where we shall purchase shelties, to enable us to view places inaccessible to vehicular conveyances. On the coast we shall hire a Tessel, and visit the most remarkable of the Hebrides, and, if we have time and favorable weather, mean to sail as far as Iceland, only three hundred miles from the northern extremity of Caledonia, to peep at Hecla. I mean to collect The recollection seems alone My pensive memory lingers o'er Those scenes regretted ever; As when one parent spring supplies How soon, diverging from their source, And yet, while Beauty's praise is thine, Harmonious favorite of the Nine! Repine not at thy lot. Thy soothing lays may still be read, Still I must yield those worthies merit, Bad rhymes, and those who write them; I really will not fight them.' Perhaps they would do quite as well Now, Clare, I must return to you; Accept, then, my concession. In truth, dear Clare, in fancy's flight I think I said 'twould be your fate Yet since in danger courts abound, From snares may saints preserve you; And grant your love or friendship ne'er From any claim a kindred care, But those who best deserve you! Not for a moment may you stray Your tears be tears of joy! Oh! if you wish that happiness article on "Epistles, Odes, and other Poems, by Thomas Little, Esq."] 1 A bard (horresco referens) defied his reviewer to mortal combat. If this example becomes prevalent, our periodical censors must be dipped in the river Styx: for what else can secure them from the numerous host of their enraged assailants? 2 ["Of all I have ever known, Clare has always been the least altered in every thing from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me to him so strongly at school. I should hardly have thought it possible for society (or the world, as it is called) to leave a being with so little of the leaven of bad passions. I do not speak from personal And though some trifling share of praise, To me were doubly dear; LINES WRITTEN BENEATH AN ELM IN SPOT of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh, How do thy branches, moaning to the blast, And seem to whisper, as they gently swell, And here it linger'd, here my heart might lie; September 2, 1807. [The "Lines written beneath an Elm at Harrow," were the last in the little volume printed at Newark in 1807. The reader is referred to Mr. Moore's Notices, for various teresting particulars respecting the impression produced on Lord Byron's mind by the celebrated Critique of his juvenile experience only, but from all I have ever heard of hirs from others, during absence and distance."-Byron Diary, 1821.] 3 [On losing his natural daughter, Allegra, in April, 1822 Lord Byron sent her remains to be buried at Harrow, "where," he says, in a letter to Mr. Murray, "I OLCE hoped to have laid my own." "There is." he adds, "a spot in the churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking towards Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree, (bearing the name of Peachie, or Peachey,) where used to sit for hours and hours when a boy. This was my favorite spot; but as I wish to erect a tablet to her memory. the body had better be deposited in the church;”—and it was so accordingly.] performances, put forth in the Edinburgh Review,-a journal which, at that time, possessed nearly undivided influence and authority. The Poet's diaries and letters afford evidence that, in his latter days, he considered this piece as the work of Mr. (now Lord) Brougham; but on what grounds he had come to that conchrion he nowhere mentions. It forms, however, from whatever pea it may have proceeded, so important a link in Lord Byron's hlerary history, that we insert it at length.] ARTICLE FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, FOR JANUARY, 1808. Hours of Idleness; a Series of Poems, original and translated. By George Gordon, Lord Byron, a Minor. 8vo. pp. 200. Newark, 1807. THE poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which rether gods nor men are said to permit. Indeed, we do Lot recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that exact standard. His fsons are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get above or below the level, than if they were so much stagcalt water. As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly forward in pleading minority. We have the title-page, and on the very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favorite part of his style. Much stress is laid upon it in the preface; and the poems are conperted with this general statement of his case, by particular dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. Now, the law upon the point of minority we hold to be perfctly clear. It is a plea available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary ground of action. This, if any suit could be brought against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court à certain quantity of poetry, and if judgment were given against him, is highly probable that an exception would be taken, were he to deliver for poetry the contents of this volume. To this Le might plead minority; but, as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath no right to sue, on that ground, for the price in good current praise, should the goods be unParketable. This is our view of the law on the point, and, we dare to say, so will it be ruled. Perhaps, however, in reality, all that he tells us about his youth is rather with a new to increase our wonder than to soften our censures. lle possibly means to say, "See how a minor can write! This poem was actually composed by a young man of eighthen, and this by one of only sixteen!" But, alas! we all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far from hearing, with any degree of surprise, that very poor verses were written by a youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclusive, we really believe this be the most common of all occurrences; that it happens to the life of nine men in ten who are educated in England; and that the tenth man writes better verse than Lord Byron. His other plea of privilege our author rather brings forward in order to waive it. He certainly, however, does aude frequently to his family and ancestors-sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and, while giving up his claim On the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an aubor, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration only that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review, besides our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account. With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure hun, that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet,nay, although (which does not always happen) those feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately upon the fingers,-is not the whole art of poetry. We would treat him to believe, that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem, and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at kast one thought, either in a little degree different from the reas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his candor, whether there is any thing so deserving the name of poetry in verses like the following, written in 1806; and whether, if a youth of eighteen could say any thing so interesting to his ancestors, a youth of nineteen should pab.ish it "Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing "That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish; He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown; Like you will he live, or like you will he perish; When decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own." Now, we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor's volume. Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see at his writing-master's) are odious. Gray's Ode on Eton College should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas, "On a distant View of the Village and School of Harrow." "Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied, How welcome to me your ne'er-fading remembrance, Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied." In like manner, the exquisite lines of Mr. Rogers, " On a Tear," might have warned the noble author off those premises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the following: "Mild Charity's glow, to us mortals below, "The man doom'd to sail with the blast of the gale, As he bends o'er the wave, which may soon be his grave, The green sparkles bright with a Tear." And so of instances in which former poets have failed. Thus we do not think Lord Byron was made for translating, during his nonage, "Adrian's Address to his Soul," when Pope succeeded so indifferently in the attempt. If our readers, however, are of another opinion, they may look at it. "Ah! gentle, fleeting, wavering sprite, Friend and associate of this clay! To what unknown region borne However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are great favorites with Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from Anacreon to Ossian; and, viewing them as school exercises, they may pass. Only, why print them after they have had their day and served their turn? And why call the thing in p. 79 (see p. 390) a translation, where two words (Jeλw λeyev) of the original are expanded into four lines, and the other thing in p. 81, (see ibid.) where μεσονυκτίαις ποθ ̓ ὧραις is rendered by means of six hobbling verses? As to his Ossianic poesy, we are not very good judges, being, in truth, so moderately skilled in that species of composition, that we should, in all probability, be criticising some bit of the genuine Macpherson itself, were we to express our opinion of Lord Byron's rhapsodies. If, then, the following beginning of a " Song of Bards" is by his lordship, we venture to object to it, as far as we can comprehend it. "What form rises on the roar of clouds? whose dark ghost gleams on the red stream of tempests? His voice rolls on the thunder; 'tis Orla, the brown chief of Oithona. He was," &c. After detaining this "brown chief" some time, the bards conclude by giving him their advice to "raise his fair locks" then to "spread them on the arch of the rainbow ;" and "to smile through the tears of the storm." Of this kind of thing there are no less than nine pages; and we can so far venture an opinion in their favor, that they look very like Macpherson; and we are positive they are pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome. It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should use it as not abusing it ;" and particularly one who piques himself (though indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) on being "an infant bard,”-("The artless Helicon I boast is youth")-should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited, on the family seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the self-same subject, introduced with an apology, he certainly had no intention of inserting it," but really "the particular request of some friends," &c. &c. It concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a noble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on Lachin y Gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, and might have learned that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle. As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalize his employments at school and college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, called Granta, we have the following magnificent stanzas: |