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cloak of mystery which he now carefully threw over, and now pettishly withdrew from, his own character-the impossibility of either thoroughly hating, or loving, or laughing at him-the unique and many-sided puzzle which he thus made, had the effect of maddening the public, and of mystifying his critics. Hal is charged by Falstaff with giving him medicines to make him love him. Byron gave men medicines to educe toward himself a mixture of all possible feelingsanger, envy, admiration, love, pity, blame, horror, and, above all, wonder as to what could be the conceivable issue of a life so high and so low-so earthly and so unearthly-80 spiritual and so sensual-so melancholy and so mirthful, as he was notoriously leading. This was the perpetual stimulus to the readers of his works-this the face and figure, filling the margins of all his pages. This now is over. That strange life is lived-that knot, too hard and twisted for man, is away elsewhere to be solved-that heart, so differently reported of by different operators, has undergone the stern analysis of death. His works have now emerged from that fluctuating and lurid shadow of himself, which seemed to haunt and guard them all; and we can now judge of them, though not apart from his personal history, yet undistracted by its perpetual protrusion. In the next place, Byron was the victim of two opposite currents in the public feelingone unduly exalting, and the other unduly depressing his name-both of which have now so far subsided, that we can judge of him out of the immediate and overbearing influence of either. And in the last place, as intimated already, no attempt has been made since his death, either to collect the scattered flowers of former fugitive criticism, to be bound in one chaplet round his pale and noble brow, or to wreath for it fresh and independent laurels. Moore's life is a long apology for his memory, such as a partial friend might be expected to make to a public then partial, and unwilling to be convicted of misplaced idolatry. Macaulay's critique is an elegant fasciculus of all the fine things which, it had occurred to him, might be said on such a theme-exhibits, besides, the coarse current of Byron's life caught in crystal and tinged with couleur de rose, like a foul winter stream shining in ice and evening sunshine-and has many beautiful remarks about his poems; but neither abounds in original

views, nor gives, what its author could so admirably have given, a collection of common opinions on his entire genius and works, forming a full-length portrait, ideally like, vigorously distinct, and set, in his own brilliant imagery and language, as in a frame of gold.

Our endeavor at present is to make some small contribution towards a future likeness of Byron. And whatever may be the effect of our remarks upon the public, and however they may or may not fail in starting from slumber the "coming man " who shall criticise Byron as Thomas Carlyle has criticised Jean Paul, and Wilson, Burns: this, at least, shall be ours we shall have expressed our honest convictions-uttered an idea that has long lain upon our mindsand repaid, in part, a debt of gratitude which we owe to Byron, as men owe to some terrible teacher, who has at once roused and tortured their minds; as men owe to the thunderpeal which has awakened them, sweltering, at the hour when it behoved them to start on some journey of life and death.

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We propose to methodise our paper under the following outlines: We would, in the first place, inquire into Byron's purpose. Secondly, into the relation in which he has stood to his age, and the influence he has exerted over it. Thirdly, into the leading features of his artistic execution. Fourthly, speak of the materials on which his genius fed. Fifthly, glance at the more characteristic of his works. And, sixthly, try to settle his rank as a poet. We would first ask at Byron the simple question, What do you mean?" A simple question truly, but significant as well, and not always very easy to answer. It is always, however, our duty to ask it; and we have, in general, a right, surely, to expect a reply. If a man come and make us a speech, we are entitled to understand his language as well as to see his object. If a man administer to us a reproof, or salute us with a sudden blow, we have a double right to turn round and ask, "Why?" Nay, if a man come professing to utter an oracular deliverance, even in this case we expect some glimmer of definite meaning and object; and if glimmer there be none, we are justified in concluding that neither has there been any oracle. "Oracles speak;" oracles should also shine. Now, in Byron's case, we have a man coming forward to utter speeches, to administer reproofs, to smite the public on both

cheeks in the attitude of an accuser, impeaching man-of a blasphemer, attacking God-of a prophet expressing himself, moreover, with the clearness and the certainty of profound and dogmatic conviction; and we have thus more than a threefold right to inquire, what is your drift, what would you have us to believe, or what to do? Now here, precisely, we think, is Byron's fatal defect. He has no such clear, distinct, and overpowering object, as were worthy of securing, or as has secured, the complete concentration of his splendid powers. His object! What is it? Not to preach the duty of universal despair; or to inculcate the propriety of an "act of universal, simultaneous suicide;" else, why did he not, in the first place, set the example himself, and from "Leucadia's rock," or Etna's crater, precipitate himself, as a signal for the species to follow and why, in the second place, did he profess such trust in schemes of political amelioration, and die in the act of leading on a revolutionary war? Not to teach, nor yet to impugn any system of religion: for if one thing be more certain about him than another, it is, that he had no settled convictions on such subjects at all, and was only beginning to entertain a desire toward forming them when the "great teacher," death, arrived. Nor was his purpose merely to display his own powers and passions in imposing aspects. Much of this desire indeed mingled with his ambition, but he was not altogether a vain attitudinizer. There is sterling truth in his taste and style of writing-there is sincerity in his anguish and his little pieces, particularly, are the mere wringings of his heart. Who can doubt that his brow, the index of the soul, darkened as he wrote that fearful curse, the burden of which is "Forgiveness?" The paper on which was written his farewell to Lady Byron, is still extant, and it is all blurred and blotted with his tears. His poem entitled "The Dream," is as sincere as if it had been penned in blood. And was he not sincere in sleep, when he ground his teeth to pieces in gnashing them? But his sincerity was not of that profound, constant, and consistent kind which deserves the stronger name of earnestness. It did not answer to the best description in poetry of the progress of such a spirit, which goes on

"Like to the Pontic sea

Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps right on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont."

It was a sincerity such as the falsest and the most hollow of men must express when stung to the quick; for hath not he, as well as a Jew, "eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions. Is he not fed with the same food, and hurt by the same weapons? If you prick him, does he not bleed? If you tickle him, does he not laugh? If you poison him, does he not die? And if you wrong him, does he not revenge?" Purpose, therefore, in its genuine simplicity, and quiet deep sincerity, was awanting in Byron's character. And this greatly accounts for the wreck which he became; and for that misery-a misery which was wonderful, passing the wo of man—which sat down upon his spirit. Many accounts have been given of his grief. Macaulay says that he was a spoiled child. Shelley declares

"The thought that he was greater than his kind
Had struck, methought, his eagle spirit blind
By gazing at its own exceeding light."

But the plain prose and English of it lay in his union of intensity of power with the want of intensity of purpose. He was neither one thing nor yet another. Life with him was neither, on the one hand, an earnest single-eyed effort, nor was it, could it be, a mere display. He believed, and trembled as he believed, that it was a serious thing to die, but did not sufficiently, if at all, feel that it was as serious a thing to live. He would not struggle: he must shine; but could not be content with mere shining without struggle. And hence, ill at ease with himself, aimless and hopeless, "like the Cyclops-mad with blindness," he turned to bay against society-man-and his Maker. And hence, amid all that he has said to the world—and said so eloquently, and said so mournfully, and said amid such wide, and silent, and orofound attention-he has told it little save his own sad story.

We pass, secondly, to speak of the relation in which he stood to his age. The relations in which a man stands to his age are perhaps threefold. He is either before it or be

hind it, or exactly on a level with it. He is either its forerunner; or he is dragged as a captive at its chariot wheels; or he walks calmly, and step for step, along with it. We behold in Milton the man before his age-not, indeed, in point of moral grandeur or mental power; for remember, his age was the age of the Puritans, the age of Hampden, Selden, Howe, Vane, and of Cromwell, who was a greater writer than Milton himself-only, it was with the sword that he wrote -and whose deeds were quite commensurate with Milton's words. But in point of liberality of sentiment and width of view, the poet strode across entire centuries. We see in Southey the man behind his age, who, indeed, in his youth, took a rash and rapid race in advance, but returned like a beaten dog, cowed, abashed, with downcast head, and tail between his legs, and remained, for the rest of his life, aloof from the great movements of society. We behold in Brougham one whom once the age was proud to claim as its child and champion, the express image of its bustling, restless, versatile, and onward character, and of whom we still at least say, with a sigh, he might have been the man of his time. In which of these relations, is it asked, did Byron stand to his age? We are forced to answer, in none of them. He was not before his age in any thing-in opinion, or in feeling. He was not, in all or many things, disgracefully behind it; nor did he move with equal and measured step in its procession. He stood to the age in a most awkward and uncertain attitude. He sneered at its advancement, and he lent money, and ultimately lost his life, in attempting to promote it. He spoke with uniform contempt, and imitated with as uniform emulation, the masterpieces of its literature. He abused Wordsworth in public, and in private "rolled him as a sweet morsel under his tongue;" or rather, if you believe himself, took him as a drastic dose, to purify his bilious and unhappy nature, by the strongest contrasted element that he could find. He often reviled and ridiculed revealed religion, and yet read the Bible more faithfully and statedly than most professed Christians-made up in superstition what he wanted in faith —had a devout horror at beginning his poems, undertaking his journeys, or paring his nails on a Friday-and had he lived, would probably have ended, like his own Giaour, as

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