scientiously scrupulous, even where the grounds of his scruples might seem questionable; and his dismissing the Fox and Grenville administration, on the subject of Catholic Emancipation, could not be wondered at, since he had parted with Pitt on the same grounds. In both cases, the nation gave him credit for the utmost sincerity; and many sympathized with his feelings, who doubted the solidity of the grounds on which they were awakened. His Majesty set, in his own conduct, as well as in the regulation of his family and household, the example of a sincere and pious Christian. His faith illustrated his conduct, and his conduct did credit to the doctrines which he received and defended.

Here, then, we pause, arrived by a circular path at the point from which we commenced. This Monarch, so worthy of affection, so devoted to his people, so faithful in the discharge of every duty, so blameless in his private conduct, whose greatest errors were the fruits of the best intentions, opened his career amid a storm of turbulence and calumny, and closed it, virtually at least, amidst national calamity, amounting nearly to despair. He nailed the colours of Britain to the mast; but he was not rewarded by seeing them float triumphant over all her enemies! He reaped not in this world the reward of his firmness, his virtue, his enduring patriotism; but was stricken with mental alienation, while he wept, broken-hearted, over the bed of a beloved and amiable daughter, and died the secluded inhabitant of a private apartment, in darkness, mental as well as bodily.

Deep, therefore, is our conviction, while com

paring the life of George III. with its termination, that Heaven had destined for our beloved Sovereign a far richer reward, in the applause of his own conscience, whilst struggling with so many difficulties; and when these, with all the troubles of life, had disappeared, in the exchange of a temporal crown, entwined with thorns, for that glory which passeth not away.

[First Published in the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, 1824.]

AMIDST the general calmness of the political atmosphere, we have been stunned, from another quarter, by one of those death-notes, which are pealed at intervals, as from an archangel's trumpet, to awaken the soul of a whole people at once. Lord Byron, who has so long and so amply filled the highest place in the public eye, has shared the lot of humanity. He died at Missolonghi, on the 19th of April, 1824. That mighty Genius, which walked amongst men as something superior to ordinary mortality, and whose powers were beheld with wonder, and something approaching to terror, as if we knew not whether they were of good or of evil, is laid as soundly to rest as the poor peasant whose ideas never went beyond his daily task. The voice of just blame, and that of malignant censure, are at one silenced; and we feel almost as if the great luminary of Heaven had suddenly disappear

ed from the sky, at the moment when every telescope was levelled for the examination of the spots which dimmed its brightness. It is not now the question, what were Byron's faults, what his mistakes; but how is the blank which he has left in British literature to be filled up? Not, we fear, in one generation, which, among many highly gifted persons, has produced none who approached Byron in ORIGINALITY, the first attribute of genius. Only thirty-seven years old-so much already done for immortality so much time remaining, as it seemed to us shortsighted mortals, to maintain and to extend his fame, and to atone for errors in conduct and levities in composition,-who will not grieve that such a race has been shortened, though not always keeping the straight path, such a light extinguished, though sometimes flaming to dazzle and to bewilder? One word on this ungrateful subject ere we quit it for ever.

The errors of Lord Byron arose neither from depravity of heart-for nature had not committed the anomaly of uniting to such extraordinary talents an imperfect moral sense-nor from feelings dead to the admiration of virtue. No man had ever a kinder heart for sympathy, or a more open hand for the relief of distress; and no mind was ever more formed for the enthusiastic admiration of noble actions, providing he was convinced that the actors had proceeded on disinterested principles. Lord Byron was totally free from the curse and degradation of literature-its jealousies, we mean, and its envy. But his wonderful genius was of a nature which disdained restraint, even when

restraint was most wholesome. When at school, the tasks in which he excelled were those only which he undertook voluntarily; and his situation as a young man of rank, with strong passions, and in the uncontrolled enjoyment of a considerable fortune, added to that impatience of strictures or coercion which was natural to him. As an author, he refused to plead at the bar of criticism; as a man, he would not submit to be morally amenable to the tribunal of public opinion. Remonstrances from a friend, of whose intentions and kindness he was secure, had often great weight with him; but there were few who could or dared venture on a task so difficult. Reproof he endured with impatience, and reproach hardened him in his error; so that he often resembled the gallant war-steed, who rushes forward on the steel that wounds him. In the most painful crisis of his private life, he evinced this irritability and impatience of censure in such a degree, as almost to resemble the noble victim of the bullfight, which is more maddened by the squibs, darts, and petty annoyances of the unworthy crowds beyond the lists, than by the lance of his nobler, and, so to speak, his more legitimate antagonist. In a word, much of that in which he erred, was in bravado and scorn of his censors, and was done with the motive of Dryden's despot," to show his arbitrary power." It is needless to say, that his was a false and prejudiced view of such a contest; and that if the noble bard gained a species of triumph, by compelling the world to read poetry, though mixed with baser matter, because it was his, he gave, in return, an unworthy triumph to the