CVI. As for the rest, to come to the conclusion Of this true dream, the telescope is gone Which kept my optics free from all delusion, And show'd me what I in my turn have shown; alangh at the absurdity of the poet, might then be enjoyed by the reader, without an apprehension that he was guilty of profanity in giving it. Milton has been blamed by the most udicious critics, and his warmest admirers, for expressing he counsels of Eternal Wisdom, and the decrees of Almighty Power, by words assigned to the Deity. It offends against poetical propriety and poetical probability. It is impossible to deceive ourselves into a moinentary and poetical belief that words proceeded from the Holy Spirit, except on the warrant of inspiration itself. It is here only that Milton fails, and here Milton sometimes shocks. The language and condict ascribed by Milton to his inferior spirits, accord so well with our conceptions and belief respecting their nature and existence, that in many places we forget that they are, in any respect, the creatures of imagination. The blasphemies of Milton's devils offend not a pious ear, because they are devils who utter them. Nor are we displeased with the poet's presumption in feigning language for heavenly spirits, because it is a language that lifts the soul to Heaven; and we more than believe, we know and feel, that, whatever may be the nature of the language of angels, the language of the poet truly interprets their sentiments. The words are human; but the truths they express, and the doctrines they teach, are divine. Nothing of the same kind can be said of any other fable, serious or ludicrous, pious or profane, that has yet been written in any age or language.-Blackwood, 1592.1 The “Vision of Judgment" appeared, as has been already said, in "The Liberal"-a Journal which, consisting chiefly of pieces by the late Mr. Hazlitt and Mr. Leigh Hant, was not saved from ruin by a few contributions, some of the highest merit, by Lord Byron. In his work, entitled "Lord Byron and his Contemporaries," Mr. Hunt assaulted the dead poet, with reference to this unhappy Journal; and his charges were thus taken to pieces at the time in the Quarterly Review: Mr. Hunt describes himself as pressed by Lord Byron Into the undertaking of that hapless magazine: Lord Byron un the contrary, represents himself as urged to the service by the Messrs. Hunt themselves." e. g. Genoa, Oct. 9th, 1822.-I am afraid the Journal is a bad business, and won't do, but in it I am sacrificing myself for others. I can have no advantage in it. I believe the brothers Hunt: to be honest men; I am sure that they are poor ones; they have not a Nap. They pressed me to engage in this work, and in an evil hour I consented; still I shall not repent if I can do them the least service. I have done all I can for Leigh Hunt since he came here, but it is almost useless: his wife is ill; his six children not very tractable; and in affairs of this world he himself is a perfect child. The death of Shelley left them totally aground; and I could not see them in such a state without using the common feelings of humanity; and what means were in my power to set them afloat again.' "Again-Mr. Hunt represents Lord Byron as dropping his connection with The Liberal,' partly because his friends at home (Messrs. Moore, Hobhouse, Murray, &c.) told him it was a discreditable one, and partly because the business !did not turn out lucrative. It is a mistake to suppose, that he was not mainly influenced by the expectation of profit. He expected very large returns from The Liberal Readers in these days need not be told, that periodical works which have a large sale are a mine of wealth: Lord Byron had calculated that matter well.'- Lord Byron and his Contemporaries, p. 50. The failure of the large profits-the non-appearance of the golden visions he had looked for of the Edinburgh or Quarterly returns-of the solid and splendid proofs of this new country, which he should conquer in the regions of notoriety, to the dazzling of all men's eyes and his ownthis it was-this was the bitter disappointment which made him determine to give way.'-Ibid. p. 51. "Now let us hear Lord Byron himself : Genoa, 9r 18th, 1822.-They will, of course, attribute motives of all kinds; but I shall not abandon a man like Hunt because he is unfortunate. Why, I could have no pecuniary motives, and, least of all, in connection with Hunt.' "Genoa, 10re 25th, 1822.-Now do you see what you and your friends do by your injudicious rudeness? actually cemeat a sort of connection which you strove to prevent, and which, had the Hunts prospered, would not, in all probability, have continued. As it is, I will not quit them in their adversity, though it should cost me character, fame, money, All I saw farther, in the last confusion, one; And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, I left him practising the hundredth psalm.' and the usual et cetera. My original motives I already explained; (in the letter which you thought proper to show ;) they are the true ones, and I abide by them, as I tell you, and I told Lesh Hunt, when he questioned me on the subject of that etter. He was violently hurt, and never will forgive me at the bottom; but I cannot help that. I never meant to make a parade of it; but if he chose to question me, I could only answer the plain truth; and I confess, I did not see any thing in the letter to hurt him, unless I said he was a bore," which I don't remember. Had this Journal gone on well, and I could have aided to make it better for them, I should then have left them after a safe pilotage off a lee shore to make a prosperous voyage by themselves. As it is, I can't, and would not if I could, leave them among the breakers. As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion, between Leigh Hunt and me, there is little or none. We meet rarely, hardly ever; but I think him a good-principled and able man, and must do as I would be done by.'" The Reviewer proceeds to comment on Mr. Hunt's general abuse of Lord Byron's manners, habits, and conversation: "The witness is, in our opinion, disqualified to give evidence upon any such subjects: his book proves him to be equally ignorant of what manners are, and incompetent to judge what manners ought to be: his elaborate portraiture of his own habits is from beginning to end a very caricature of absurdity; and the man who wrote this book, studiously cast, as the whole language of it is, in a free-and-easy, conversational tone, has no more right to decide about the conversation of such a man as Lord Byron, than has a pert apprentice to pronounce ex cathedra-from his one-shilling gallery, to wit-on the dialogue of a polite comedy. We can easily believe, that Lord Byron never talked his best when this was his Companion. We can also believe, that Lord Byron's serious conversation, even in its lowest tone, was often unintelligible to Mr. Leigh Hunt. We are morally certain, that in such company Lord Byron talked, very often inof his ignorant, fantastic, lack-a-daisical guest; that he condeed, for the mere purpose of amusing himself at the expense sidered the Magnus Apollo of Paradise Row as a precious butt, and acted accordingly. We therefore consider Mr. Hunt's evidence as absolutely inadmissible, on strong preliminary grounds. But what are we to say to it, when we find it, as we do, totally and diametrically at variance both with the substance and complexion of Lord Byron's epistolary correspondence; and with the oral testimonies of men whose talents, originally superior beyond all possibility of measurement to Mr. Hunt's, have been matured and perfected by study, both of books and men, such as Mr. Hunt never even dreamed of; who had the advantage of meeting Lord Byron on terms of perfect equality to all intents and purposes; and contemporaries, to appreciate Lord Byron, whether as a who, qualified, as they probably were, above any of their poet, or as a man of high rank and pre-eminent fame, ming. ling in the world in society such as he ought never to have sunk below, all with one voice pronounce an opinion exactly and in every particular, as well as looking to things broadly and to the general effect, the reverse of that which this unworthy and ungrateful dependant has thought himself justified in promulgating, on the plea of a penury which no Lord Byron survives to relieve? It is too bad, that he who has, in his own personal conduct, as well as in his writings, so much to answer for-who abused great opportunities and great talents so lamentably-who sinned so deeply, both against the society to which he belonged and the literature in which his name will ever hold a splendid place-it is really too bad, that Lord Byron, in addition to the grave condemnation of men able to appreciate both his merits and his demerits, and well disposed to think more in sorrow than in anger of the worst errors that existed along with so much that was excellent and noble-it is by much too bad, that this great man's glorious though melancholy memory Must also bear the vile attacks whom he fed ;-that his bones must be scraped up from their bed of repose to be at once grinned and howled over by creatures who, even in the least hyena-like of their moods, can touch nothing that mankind would wish to respect without polluting it." Mr. Moore's Verses on Mr. Hunt's work must not be omitted here: THE AGE OF BRONZE: OR, CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD MIRABILIS.' I. "Impar Congressus Achilli." THE "good A wider space, a greener field, is given All is exploded-be it good or bad. Reader-remember when thou wert a lad, Of eloquence between, which flow'd all free, "Next week will be published (as Lives' are the rage) Of knowing how lions behave-among friends. "Nay. fed as he was (and this makes it a dark case) With sops every day from the lion's own pan, He lifts up his leg at the noble beast's carcass, And-does all a dog, so diminutive, can. "However, the book's a good book, being rich in Examples and warnings to lions high-bred, How they suffer small mongrelly curs in their kitchen, Who'll feed on them living, and foul them when dead."] 1 [This poem was written by Lord Byron at Genoa, in the early part of the year 1823; and published in London, by Though Alexander's urn a show be grown, (thrones" But where is he, the modern, mightier far, Is this the man who scourged or feasted kings? Mr. John Hunt. Its authenticity was much disputed at the time.] 2 [Mr. Fox used to say-"I never want a word, but Pitt never wants the word."] [The grave of Mr. Fox, in Westminster Abbey, is within eighteen inches of that of Mr. Pitt, "Where-taming thought to human pride!- 4 [A sarcophagus, of Breccia, supposed to have containe! the dust of Alexander, which came into the possession of the English army, in consequence of the capitulation of Alexandria, in February, 1802, was presented by George III. to the British Museum.] [Sesostris is said, by Diodorus, to have had his chariot drawn by eight vanquished sovereigns: "High on his car Sesostris struck my view, His giant limbs are arm'd in scales of gold."-POPE.] [St. Helena.] 1 1 Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs, Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face IV. How, if that soaring spirit still retain To date the birth and death of all it hid; The bust of his son.] 4 [Sir Hudson Lowe.] Captain Basil Hall's interesting account of his interview with the ex-emperor occurs in his " Voyage to Loo-choo."] [The circumstances under which Mr. O'Meara's dismissal from his Majesty's service took place will suffice to show how little "the stiff surgeon" merited the applause of Lord Byron. In a letter to the Admiralty Board by Mr. OM.. dated Oct. 28, 1818, there occurred the following Faragraph:In the third interview which Sir Hudson Lowe had with Napoleon Bonaparte, in May, 1816, he proposed to the latter to send me away, and to replace me by Mr. Baxter, who had been several years surgeon in the Corsican Rangers. Failing in this attempt, he adopted the resolution of manifesting great confidence in me, by loadme with civilities, inviting me constantly to dine with tim, conversing for hours together with me alone, both in his own house and grounds, and at Longwood, either in my own room, or under the trees and elsewhere. On some of these occasions he made to me observations upon the Lenefit which would result to Europe from the death of Napoleon Bonaparte; of which event he spoke in a manner which, considering his situation and mine, was pecubarly distressing to me."-The Secretary to the Adoralty was instructed to answer in these terms:-" It is mpossible to doubt the meaning which this passage was inended to convey; and my Lords can as little doubt that the insinuation is a calumnious falsehood: but if it were true, and if so horrible a suggestion were made to you, directly or indirectly, it was your bounden duty not to have jost a moment in communicating it to the Admiral on the That name shall hallow the ignoble shore, Or carried onward in the battle's van, To form, like Guesclin's dust, her talisman. His name shall beat the alarm, like Ziska's drum." V. Oh heaven! of which he was in power a feature; Thou Rome, who saw'st thy Caesar's deeds outdone! spot, or to the Secretary of State, or to their Lordships. An overture so monstrous in itself, and so deeply involving, not merely the personal character of the governor, but the honor of the nation, and the important interest committed to his charge, should not have been reserved in your own breast for two years, to be produced at last, not (as it would appear) from a sense of public duty, but in furtherance of your own personal hostility against the governor. Either the charge is in the last degree false and calumnious, or you can have no possible excuse for having hitherto suppressed it. In either case, and without adverting to the general tenor of your conduct, as stated in your letter, my Lords consider you to be an improper person to continue in his Majesty's service; and they have directed your name to be erased from the list of naval surgeons accordingly." O'Meara died in 1836.] [Bonaparte died the 5th of May, 1821.] Or from the pyramid's tall pinnacle Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet For which rude Charles had wept his frozen tear To this the soldier lent his kindling match, Pales before thine, and quenchless Hecla 's tame; For gaping tourists, from his hackney'd height: Thou stand'st alone unrivall'd, till the fire in which all empires shall expire! To come, Thou other element! as strong and stern, Her offspring chill'd; its beams are now forsaken. The conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again To turn the bear's, and wolf's, and fox's guide; The forest monarch shrinks, but finds no lair! Oh ye! and each, and all! Oh France! who found Thy long fair fields, plough'd up as hostile ground, Disputed foot by foot, till treason, still His only victor, from Montmartre's hill Till woo'd by danger, his yet weeping bride! Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave [Gustavus Adolphus fell at the great battle of Lutzen, in November, 1632.] 2 [The Isle of Elba.] 3 I refer the reader to the first address of Prometheus in Eschylus, when he is left alone by his attendants, and before the arrival of the Chorus of Sea-nymphs. [Thus translated by Potter: "Ethereal air, and ye swift-winged winds, Ye rivers springing from fresh founts, ye waves, The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave, VI. Bat 'twill not be the spark 's awaken'd-lo! The infaut world redeems her name of "Now." Where Greece was-No! she still is Greece once more. One common cause makes myriads of one breast, The self-same standard streams o'er either world: But driven from thence awhile, yet not for aye, By Christians, unto whom they gave their creed, VII. But not alone within the hoariest clime The dawn revives: renown'd, romantic Spain Yet left more anti-christian foes than they : The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both By turns; the haughtiness whose pride was sloth: The famous hymn, ascribed to Callistratus:- The tyrant slew, and bade oppression end," &c. &c.] [For the first authentic account of the Russian intrigues in Greece, in the years alluded to, see "Gordon's History of the Greek Revolution," (1832,) vol. i.] 3 ["Santiago y serra España!" the old Spanish war-cry.] 4 [See ante, p. 20.] The Aragonians are peculiarly dexterous in the use of this weapon, and displayed it particularly in former French wars. |