in himself, but if he is well to do, and can spare some of his superfluities, if he can lend us his purse or his countenance upon occasion, he then "buys golden opinions" of us;-it is but fit that we should speak well of the bridge that carries us over, and in return for what we can get from him, we embody our servile gratitude, hopes, and fears, in this word respectability. By it we pamper his pride, and feed our own necessities. It must needs be a very honest, uncorrupted word that is the go-between in this disinterested kind of traffic. We do not think of applying this word to a great poet or a great painter, to the man of genius or the man of virtue, for it is seldom we can spunge upon them. It would be a solecism for any one to pretend to the character who has a shabby coat to his back, who goes without a dinner, or has not a good house over his head. He who has reduced himself in the world by devoting himself to a particular study, or adhering to a particular cause, excites only a smile of pity, or a shrug of the shoulders, at the mention of his name; while he who has raised himself in it by a different course, who has become rich from want of ideas, and powerful from want of principle, is looked up to with silent homage, and passes for a respectable man.

Respectability means a man's situation and success in life, not his character or conduct. The city merchant never loses his respectability till he becomes a bankrupt. After that we hear no more of it or him. The justice of the peace, and the parson of the parish, the lord and the 'squire, are allowed, by immemorial usage, to be very respectable people, though no one ever thinks of asking why. They are a sort of fixtures in this way. To take an example from one of them. The country parson may pass his whole time, when he is not employed in the cure of souls, in flattering his rich neighbours, and leaguing with them to snub his poor ones, in seizing poachers and encouraging informers; he may be exorbitant in exacting his tithes, harsh to his servants, the dread and by-word of the village where

he resides, and yet all this will not hinder his patron from giving him another living to play the petty tyrant in, or prevent him from riding over to the 'squire's in his carriage, and being well received, or from sitting on the bench of justices with due decorum and with clerical dignity. The poor curate, in the meantime, who may be a real comfort to the bodies and minds of his parishioners, will be passed by without notice. Parson Adams, drinking his ale in sir Thomas Booby's kitchen, makes no very respectable figure; but sir Thomas himself was right worshipful, and his widow a person of honour!-A few such historiographers as Fielding would put an end to the farce of respectability, with others like it.

London is, perhaps, the only place in which the standard of respectability at all varies from the standard of money. There things go as much by appearance as by weight; and he may be said to be a respectable man who cuts a certain figure in company by being dressed in the fashion, and venting a number of common-place things with a tolerable grace and fluency. If a person there brings a certain share of information and good manners into a mixed society, it is not asked, when he leaves it, whether he is rich or not. Lords and fiddlers, authors and common-councilmen, editors of newspapers and parliamentary speakers meet together, and the difference is not so much marked as one would suppose. To be an Edinburgh Reviewer is, I suspect, the highest rank in modern literary society.

Constable's Edinburgh Magazine.

BATTLE OF ALBUERA.

HARK! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note?
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath?
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote;
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves?—the fires of death,
The bale-fires flash on high :-from rock, to rock
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe ;
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,

Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock.

Lo! where the giant on the mountain stands,
His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun,
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon!
Restless it rolls, now fix'd, and now anon
Flashing afar, and at his iron feet

Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done;
For on this morn three potent nations meet,

To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet.

By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see
(For one who hath no friend, no brother there)
Their rival scarfs of mix'd embroidery,

Their various arms that glitter in the air!

What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair, And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey! All join the chase, but few the triumph share; The grave shall bear the chiefest prize away, And Havock scarce for joy can number their array.

;

Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice
Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high;
Three gaudy standards flout the pale-blue sky;
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory!
The foe, the victim, and the fond ally
That fights for all, but ever fights in vain,
Are met as if at home they could not die-

To feed the crow on Talavera's plain,
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain.

pave their way

There shall they rot-Ambition's honour'd fools! Yes, honour decks the turf that wraps their clay! Vain sophistry! in these behold the tools, The broken tools that tyrants cast away By myriads, when they dare to With human hearts-to what?-a dream alone,Can despots compass aught that hails their sway? Or call, with truth, one span of earth their own, Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone?

Oh, Albuera! glorious field of grief!

As o'er thy plain the pilgrim prick'd his steed,
Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief,

A scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed?
Peace to the perish'd! may the warrior's meed,
And tears of triumph, their reward prolong!-
Till others fall where other chieftains lead,
Thy name shall circle round the gaping throng,
And shine in worthless lays the theme of transient
song!

Byron.

END OF VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.