of language," and an air of quaint and original expression assumed, to render the sentiment at once impressive and piquant. The grave of Churchill, however, might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance between their history and character. The satire of Churchill flowed with a more profuse, though not a more embittered, stream; while, on the other hand, he cannot be compared to Lord Byron in point of tenderness or imagination. But both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise. The writings of both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness. In the flower of his age, Churchill died in a foreign land. Here, we trust, the parallel will cease, and that the subject of our criticism will long survive to honour his own.1

Two other pieces in this miscellany recall to our mind the wild, unbridled, and fiery imagination of Coleridge. To this poet's high poetical genius we have always paid deference, even where, perhaps, he has, too frequently for his own popularity, wandered into the wild and mystic, and left the

1 Such was the vain hope we then expressed. Alas! the resemblance was doomed to be completed in the catastrophe which we deprecated. [1830.]

reader at a loss accurately to determine his mean ing. Perhaps in that called the Spell the resemblance may be fanciful, but we cannot allow it to be so in the singular poem called Darkness, well entitled,

"A dream which is not all a dream."

In this case, our author has abandoned the art so peculiarly his own, of showing the reader where his purpose tends, and has contented himself with presenting a mass of powerful ideas unarranged, and the meaning of which we certainly confess ourselves not always able to attain. A succession of terrible images is placed before us, flitting and mixing, and disengaging themselves as in the dream of a feverish man-Chimeras dire, to whose existence the mind refuses credit, which confound and weary the ordinary reader, and baffle the comprehension even of those more accustomed to the flights of a poetic muse, are dashed off as in an Arabesque painting. The subject is the progress of Utter Darkness, until it becomes, in Shakspeare's phrase, the "burier of the dead," and the assemblage of terrific ideas which the poet has placed before us only fail in exciting our terror from the extravagance of the plan. These mystical prolusions do indeed produce upon us the effect described in Henry More's lines, quoted in Southey's Omniana"A lecture strange he seem'd to read to me; And though I did not rightly understand His meaning, yet I deem'd it to be

Some goodly thing."

But the feeling of reverence which we entertain

for that which is difficult of comprehension, gives

way to weariness whenever we begin to suspect that it cannot be distinctly comprehended by any

one.

To speak plainly, the framing of such phantasms is a dangerous employment for the exalted and teeming imagination of such a poet as Lord Byron, whose Pegasus has ever required rather a bridle than a spur. The waste of boundless space into which they lead the poet, the neglect of precision which such themes may render habitual, make them, in respect to poetry, what mysticism is to religion. The meaning of the poet as he ascends upon cloudy wing, becomes the shadow only of a thought, and having eluded the comprehension of others, necessarily ends by escaping from that of the author himself. The strength of poetical conception, and beauty of diction, bestowed upon such prolusions, is as much thrown away as the colours of a painter, could he take a cloud of mist, or a wreath of smoke, for his canvass.

Omitting one or two compositions of less interest, we cannot but notice the Dream, which, if we do not misconstrue it, has a covert and mysterious relation to the tale of Childe Harold. It is written with the same power of poetry, nor have we here to complain of obscurity in the mode of narrating the vision, though we pretend not to the skill or information necessary to its interpretation. It is difficult, however, to mistake who or what is meant in the conclusion, and more especially as the tone too well agrees with similar passages in the continuation of Childe Harold.

"The Wanderer was alone as heretofore:
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compass'd round
With Hatred and Contention.

he lived

Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains; with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the Universe

He held his dialogues; and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;

To him the book of Night was open'd wide,
And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd
A marvel and a secret-Be it so."

Works, vol. x., pp. 252-3.7

The reader is requested to contrast these lines with the stern and solemn passage in which Childe Harold seems to bid a long and lasting farewell to social intercourse, and, with exceptions so cautiously restricted and guarded as to be almost none, brands the mass of humanity whom he leaves behind him as false and treacherous.

"I have not loved the world, nor the world me;

I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd

To its idolatries a patient knee,—

Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud

In worship of an echo; in the crowd

They could not deem me one of such; I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud

:

Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

"I have not loved the world, nor the world me

But let us part fair foes; I do believe,

Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things-hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave

Snares for the failing; I would also deem
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve;

That two, or one, are almost what they seem— That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream." Works, vol. viii., p. 184.

Though the last of these stanzas has something in it mystic and enigmatical, yet, with the passage already quoted from the Dream, and some other poems which are also before the public, they remove the scrupulous delicacy with which otherwise we would have avoided allusion to the mental sufferings of the noble poet. But to uncover a wound, is to demand a surgeon's hand to tent it. With kinder feelings to Lord Byron in person and reputation no one could approach him than ourselves: we owe it to the pleasure which he has bestowed upon us, and to the honour he has done to our literature. We have paid our warmest tribute to his talents: it is their due. We will touch on the uses for which he was invested with them: it is our duty; and happy, most happy, should we be, if, in discharging it, we could render this distinguished author a real service. We do not assume the office of harsh censors-we are entitled at no time to do so towards genius, least of all in what may be termed its hour of adversity; and we are prepared to make full allowance for the natural effect of misfortune upon a bold and haughty spirit.

"When the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knee of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, the Thing of Courage,
As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize,
And, with an accent tuned in self-same key,
Returns to chiding fortune."

But this mode of defiance may last too long, and