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Thus, we do not think Lord Byron was made for translating, during his non-age, Adrian's Address to his Soul, when Pope succeeded so indifferently in the attempt. If our readers, however, are of another opinion, they may look at it.

Ah! gentle, fleeting, wavering sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay!

To what unknown region borne,
Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight?
No more with wonted humour gay,

But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.
However, be this as it may, we fear his trans-

from

ly, however, does allude frequently to his family and ancestors-sometimes in notes; and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration only, that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our Review, beside our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account. With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet; nay, al-lations and imitations are great favourites with though (which does not always happen) those feet Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, should scan regularly, and have been all countAnacreon to Ossian; and viewing them as schooled accurately, upon the fingers, it is not the exercises, they may pass. Only, why print them whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to after they have had their day and served their believe, that a certain portion of liveliness, turn? As to his Ossianic poesy we are not very somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a good judges, being, in truth, so moderately skill poem, and that a poem in the present day, to ed in that species of composition, that we should, be read, must contain at least one thought, ei- in all probability, be criticising some bit of the ther in a little degree different from the ideas genuine Macpherson itself, were we to express of former writers, or differently expressed. We our opinion of Lord Byron's rhapsodies. If, then, put it to his candour, whether there is any thing is by his Lordship, we venture to object to it, the following beginning of a "Song of Bards,' so deserving the name of poetry in verses like the following, written in 1806; and whether, if as far as we can comprehend it. "What form a youth of eighteen could say any thing so unrises on the roar of clouds, whose dark ghost interesting to his ancestors, a youth of nineteen gleams on the red stream of tempests? His voice should publish it. olls on the thunder; 'tis Orla, the brown chief some time, the bards conclude by giving him of Oithona." After detaining this "brown chief" their advice to "raise his fair locks;" then to "spread them on the arch of the rainbow;" and "to smile through the tears of the storm." this kind of thing there are no less than nine pages; and we can so far venture an opinion in son; and we are positive they are pretty nearly their favour, that they look very like Macpheras stupid and tiresome.

Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing

From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu! Abroad, or at home, your remembrance imparting New courage, he'll think upon glory and you. Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation, Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret: Far distant he goes, with the same emulation;

The fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget. That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish, He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your

renown;

Like you will he live, or like you will he perish;
When decay'd, may he mingle his dust with

your own.

Now we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor's volume.

Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see at his writing-master's) are odious. -Gray's Ode on Eton College should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas " On a distant view of the village and school of Harrow. Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance

Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied; How welcome to me your ne'er fading remembrance,

Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied. In like manner, the exquisite lines of Mr. Rogers "On a Tear," might have warned the noble author off those premises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the following:

Mild Charity's glow,
To us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt

Where this virtue is felt,

And its dew is diffused in a Tear.
The man doom'd to sail,
With the blast of the gale,
Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o'er the wave,
Which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a Tear.

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but they should "use it as not abusing it ;" and It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; particularly one who piques himself (though ininfant-bard," ("The artless Helicon I boast is deed at the ripe age of nineteen) of being "an youth;")-should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited, on the family-seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the self-same subject, introduced with an apology, "he certainly had no intention of inserting it, but really "the particular request of some friends," etc. It concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a noble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on Lachin y Gair, a mountain were he spent part of his youth, and might have learnt that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle.

As the author has dedicated so large a part
of his volume to immortalize his employments at
school and college, we cannot possibly dismiss it
without presenting the reader with a specimen
Greek motto,
of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a
lowing magnificent stanzas:
called Granta, we have the fol-

There, in apartments small and damp,
The candidate for college-prizes
Sits poring by the midnight-lamp,
Goes late to bed, yet early rises.

Who reads false quantities in Sele,
Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle,
Deprived of many a wholesome meal,
In barbarous Latin doom'd to wrangle:
Renouncing every pleasing page
From authors of historic use,
Preferring to the letter'd sage
The square of the hypothenuse.

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Still barmless are these occupations,

That hurt none but the hapless student, Compared with other recreations,

Which bring together the imprudent.

We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college psalmody as is contained in the following Attic stanzas.

Our choir would scarcely be excused,
Even as a band of raw beginners;
All mercy now must be refused

To such a set of croaking sinners.

If David, when his toils were ended,

He

them as we find them, and be content; for they
are the last we shall ever have from him.
is, at best, he says, but an intruder into the
groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret,
like thorough-bred poets; and though he once
roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands
of Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this
advantage. Moreover, he expects no profit from
his publication; and, whether it succeeds or not,
"it is highly improbable, from his situation and
pursuits hereafter," that he should again condes-
cend to become an author. Therefore, let us
take what we get and be thankful. What right
have we poor devils to be nice? We are well

Had heard these blockheads sing before him, off to have got so much from a man of this Lord's
To us his psalms had ne'er descended:

In furious mood he would have tore 'em!

But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take

station, who does not live in a garret, but “has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth.

NOTE TO THE LETTER OF BOWLES' | replied Sheridan, "I remember little, except that

STRICTURES ON POPE.

Cowper's Dutch delineation of a wood drawn up
like a seedsman's catalogue.
[p. 690.
I will submit to Mr. Bowles's own judgment
passage from another poem of Cowper's, to be
compared with the same writer's Sylvan Sampler.
In the lines to Mary,

Thy needles, once a shining store,
For my sake restless heretofore,
Now rust disused, and shine no more,

My Mary, contain a simple, household, "indoor," artificial, and ordinary image. I refer Mr. Bowles to the stanza, and ask if these three lines about "needles" are not worth all the boasted twaddling about trees, so triumphantly re-quoted? and yet in fact what do they convey? A homely collection of images and ideas associated with the darning of stockings, and the hemming of shirts, and the mending of breeches; but will any one deny that they are eminently poetical and pathetic as addressed by Cowper to his nurse? The trash of trees reminds me of a saying of Sheridan's. Soon after the "Rejected Address" scene, in 1812, I met Sheridan. In the course of dinner, he said, "Lord Byron, did you know that amongst the writers of addresses was Whitbread himself?" I answered by an inquiry of what sort of an address he had made. "Of that,"

there was a phoenix in it." A phœnix!! Well, how did he describe it?" "Like a poulterer;" answered Sheridan; "it was green, and yellow, and red, and blue: he did not let us off for a single feather." And just such as this poulterer's account of a phenix, is Cowper's a stick-picker's detail of a wood, with all its petty minutiæ ef this, that, and the other.

One more poetical instance of the power of art, and even its superiority over nature, in poetry, and I have done ;-the bust of Antinous! Is there any thing in nature like this marble, excepting the Venus? Can there be more poetry gathered into existence than in that wonderful creation of perfect beauty? But the poetry of this bust is in no respect derived from nature, nor from any association of moral exaltedness; for what is there in common with moral nature and the male minion of Adrian? The very execution is not natural, but super-natural, or rather superartificial, for nature has never done so much.

Away, then, with this cant about nature and "invariable principles of poetry!" A great artist will make a block of stone as sublime as a mountain, and a good poet can imbue a pack of cards with more poetry than inhabits the forests of America. It is the business and the proof of a poet to give the lie to the proverb, and sometimes to "make a silken purse out of a sow's ear;" and to conclude with another homely proverb, "a good workman will not find fault with his tools."

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TO THE PUBLISHER.
SIR,

down sort of tune, that reminded me of the
"Black Joke," only more "affettuoso,"
"till it
made me quite giddy with wondering they were
not so. By and bye they stopped a bit, and I
thought they would sit or fall down:-but, no;
with Mrs. H.'s hand on his shoulder, “quam
familiariter" (as Terence said when
school), they walked about a minute, and then
at it again, like two cockchafers spitted on the
same bodkin. I asked what all this meant, when,
with a loud laugh, a child no older than our
Wilhelmina (a name I never heard but in the

was at

I AM a country-gentleman of a midland-county. I might have been a Parliament-man for a certain borough, having had the offer of as many votes as General T. at the general election (in 1812). But I was all for domestic happiness; as fifteen years ago, on a visit to London, I married a middle-aged Maid of Honour. We lived happily at Hornem - Hall till last season, when my wife and I were invited by the Count-Vicar of Wakefield, though her mother would ess of Waltzaway (a distant relation of my spouse) to pass the winter in town. Thinking no harm, and our girls being come to a marriageable (or as they call it, marketable) age, and having besides a Chancery - suit inveterately entailed upon the family estate, we came up in our old chariot, of which, by the bye, my wife grew so much ashamed in less than a week, that I was obliged to buy a second-hand barouche, of which I might mount the box, Mrs. H. says, if I could drive, but never see the inside-that place being reserved for the Honourable Augustus Tiptoe, her partner-general and opera-knight. Hearing great praises of Mrs. H.'s dancing (she was famous for birth - night - minuets in the latter end of the last century), I unbooted, and went to a ball at the Countess's, expecting to see a country-dance, or, at most, cotillions, reels, and all the old paces to the newest tunes. But, judge of my surprise, on arriving, to see poor dear Mrs. Hornem with her arms half round the loins of a huge hussar-looking gentleman I never set eyes on before; and his, to say truth, rather more than half round her waist, turning round, and round, and round, to a d-d see-saw up and

call her after the Princess of Swappenbach), said "Lord, Mr. Hornem, can't you see they are valtzing," or waltzing (I forget which); and then up she got, and her mother and sister, and away they went, and round-abouted it till supper-time. Now that I know what it is, I like it of all things, and so does Mrs. H.; though I have broken my shins, and four times overturned Mrs. Hornem's maid in practising the preliminary steps in a morning. Indeed, so much do I like it, that having a turn for rhyme, tastily displayed in some election-ballads, and songs in honour of all the victories (but till lately I have had little practice in that way), I sat down, and with the aid of W. F., Esq., and a few hints from Dr. B. (whose recitations I attend, and am monstrous fond of Master B.'s manner of delivering his father's late successful D. L. Address), I composed the following hymn, wherewithal to make my sentiments known to the Public, whom, nevertheless, I heartily despise as well as the Critics.

I am, SIR, yours,

HORACE HORNEM.

MUSE of the many twinkling feet! whose
charms

Are now extended up from legs to arms;
TERPSICHORE!-too long misdeem'd a maid—
Reproachful term-bestow'd but to upbraid—
Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine,
The least a vestal of the virgin Nine.
Far be from thee and thine the name of prude;
Mock'd, yet triumphant; sneer'd at, unsubdued;
Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly,
If but thy coats are reasonably high;
Thy breast-if bare enough-requires no shield;
Dance forth-sans armour thou shalt take the
field,

And own-impregnable to most assaults,
Thy not too lawfully begotten “Waltz.“

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This poem has been attributed to Lord Byron: the question of its authenticity remaining undeeided, it is here given by way of appendix.

Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine (Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine), Long be thine import from all duty free, And Hock itself be less esteem'd than thee; In some few qualities alike-for Hock Improves our cellar-thou our living stock. The head to Hock belongs-thy subtler art Intoxicates alone the heedless heart: Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims, And wakes to wantonness the willing limbs.

Oh, Germany! how much to thee we owe,
As heaven-born Pitt can testify below;
Ere cursed Confederation made thee France's,
And only left us thy d-d debts and dances;
Of subsidies and Hanover bereft

We bless thee still-for George the Third is left!
Of kings the best-and last, not least in worth,
For graciously begetting George the Fourth.
To Germany, and Highnesses Serene,
Who owe us millions-don't we owe the Queen?
To Germany, what owe we not besides?
So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides;
Who paid for vulgar, with their royal blood,
Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic stud;
Who sent us-so be pardon'd all her faults-
A dozen Dukes-some Kings-a Queen-and
Waltz.

But peace to her-her Emperor and Diet, Though now transferr'd to Bonaparte's "fiat;" Back to my theme-0! Muse of motion say, How first to ALBION found thy Waltz her way?

Borne on the breath of hyperborean gales, From Hamburg's port (while Hamburg yet had mails),

Ere yet unlucky Fame-compell'd to creep
To snowy Gottenburg-was chill'd to sleep;
Or, starting from her slumbers, deign'd arise,
Heligoland to stock thy mart with lies;
While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send,
Nor owed her fiery exit to a friend;
She came-Waltz came-and with her certain sets
Of true despatches, and as trae gazettes;
Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch,
Which Moniteur nor Morning-Post can match;
And-almost crush'd beneath the glorious news-
Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue's;
One envoy's letters, six composers' airs,
And loads from Frankfort and from Leipzig fairs;
Meiner's four volumes upon womankind,
Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind;
Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, and to back it,
Of Heyne, such as should not sink the packet.
Fraught with this cargo-and her fairest freight,
Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a mate,
The welcome vessel reach'd the genial strand,
And round her flock'd the daughters of the land.
Not decent David, when, before the ark,
His grand pas-seul excited some remark;
Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho thought
The knight's fandango friskier than it ought;
Not soft Herodias, when with winning tread
Her nimble feet danced off another's head;
Not Cleopatra on her galley's deck,
Display'd so much of leg, or more of neck,
Than thou, ambrosial Waltz, when first the moon
Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune!

To you-ye husbands of ten years! whose brows Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse; To you, of nine years less-who only bear The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear, With added ornaments around them roll'd, Of native brass, or law-awarded gold; To you, ye matrons, ever on the watch To mar a son's, or make a daughter's match; To you, ye children of-whom chance accords Always the ladies, and sometimes their lords; To you-ye singlé gentlemen! who seek

'Torments for life, or pleasures for a week;
As love of Hymen your endeavours guide,
To gain your own, or snatch another's bride;
To one and all the lovely stranger came,
And every ball-room echoes with her name.

Endearing Waltz-to thy more melting tune Bow Irish jig, and ancient rigadoon; Scotch reels avaunt! and country-dance forego Your future claims to each fantastic toe; Waltz-Waltz-alone both legs and arms demands, Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands; Hands which may freely range in public sight Where ne'er before-but-pray "put out the light." Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier Shines much too far or I am much too near; And true, though strange-Waltz whispers this remark,

"My slippery steps are safest in the dark! But here the Muse with due decorum halts, And lends her longest petticoat to Waltz.

Observant travellers! of every time; Ye quartos! publish'd upon every clime; O say, shall dull Romaika's heavy round, Fandango's wriggle, or Bolero's bound; Can Egypt's Almas-tantalizing groupColumbia's caperers to the warlike whoopCan aught from cold Kamtschatka to Cape Horn With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be borne? Ah, no! from Morier's pages down to Galt's, Each tourist pens a paragraph for "Waltz."

Shades of those belles, whose reign began of yore, With George the Third's-and ended long beforeThough in your daughters' daughters yet you thrive,

Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive!
Back to the ball-room speed your spectred host;
Fool's Paradise is dull to that you lost.
No treacherous powder bids conjecture quake;
No stiff starch'd stays make meddling fingers ache
(Transferr'd to those ambiguous things that ape
Goats in their visage, women in their shape);
No damsel faints when rather closely press'd,
But more caressing seems when most caress'd;
Superfluous hartshorn, and reviving salts,
Both banish'd by the sovereign cordial "Waltz."
Seductive Waltz!-though on thy native shore
Even Werter's self proclaim'd thee half a whore;
Werter-to decent vice though much inclined;
Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind-
Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Stael,
Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball;
Thee fashion hails-from Countesses to queans,
And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes;
Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads,
And turns-if nothing else-at least our heads;
With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce,
And cockneys practise what they can't pronounce.
Gods! how the glorious theme my strain exalts,
And rhyme finds partner rhyme in praise of
"Waltz.

Blest was the time Waltz chose for her debut; The Court, the Regent, like herself were new; New face for friends, for foes some new rewards, New ornaments for black and royal guards; New laws to hang the rogues that roar'd for bread; New coins (most new) to follow those that fled; New victories-nor can we prize them less, Though Jenky wonders at his own success: New wars, because the old succeed so well, That most survivors envy those who fell; New mistresses-no-old-yet 'tis true, Though they be old, the thing is something new ; Each new, quite new-(except some ancient tricks); New white-sticks, gold-sticks, broom-sticks, all new sticks!

With vests or ribands-deck'd alike in hue,
New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue;
So saith the Muse-my——, what say you?
Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain
Her new preferments in this novel reign ;
Such was the time, nor ever yet was such,
Hoops are no more, and petticoats not much;
Morals and minuets, Virtue and her stays,
And tell-tale Powder-all have had their days.
The ball begins-the honours of the house
First duly done by daughter or by spouse,
Some potentate-or royal or serene-
With K-t's gay grace, or sapient G-st-r's mien,
Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flash
Might once have been mistaken for a blush.
From where the garb just leaves the bosom free,
That spot where hearts were once supposed to be;
Round all the confines of the yielded waist,
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced;
The lady's in return may grasp as much
As princely paunches offer to her touch.

And thou, my Prince! whose sovereign taste
and will

It is to love the lovely beldames still;
Thou, ghost of Q- ! whose judging sprite
Satan may spare to peep a single night,
Pronounce if ever in your days of bliss-
Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this ;
To teach the young ideas how to rise,
Flush in the cheek and languish in the eyes;
Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame,
With half-told wish, and ill-dissembled flame;
For prurient nature still will storm the breast-
Who, tempted thus, can answer for the rest?

But ye-who never felt a single thought
For what our morals are to be or ought;
Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,
Say-would you make those beauties quite so
cheap?
Hot from the hand promiscuously applied,

Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip, Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side;

One hand reposing on the royal hip;
The other to the shoulder no less royal
Ascending with affection truly loyal;

Where were the rapture then to clasp the form,
From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm?
At once Love's most endearing thought resign,
To press the hand so press'd by none but thine;
To gaze upon that eye which never met
Another's ardent look without regret;
Approach the lip which all, without restraint,
Come near enough-if not to touch-to taint;

Thus front to front the partners move or stand,
The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand;
And all in turn may follow in their rank,
The Earl of Asterisk-and Lady-Blank;
Sir-such a one-with those of Fashion's host,
For whose blest surnames-vide "Morning-Post;"If such thon lovest-love her then no more,
(Or if for that impartial print too late,
Search Doctors' Commons six months from my
date)-

Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow,
The genial contact gently undergo;
Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk,
If "nothing follows all this palming work?"
True honest Mirza-you may trust my rhyme-
Something does follow at a fitter time;
The breast thus publicly resign'd to man,
In private may resist him--if it can.

O ye! who loved our grandmothers of yore, Fitzpatrik, Sheridan, and many more!

Or give-like her-caresses to a score;
Her mind with these is gone, and with it go
The little left behind it to bestow.

Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus balspheme?
Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme.
Terpsichore forgive!-at every ball

My wife now waltzes-and my daughters shall;
My son (or stop-'tis needless to inquire-
These little accidents should ne'er transpire;
Some ages hence our genealogic tree
Will wear as green a bough for him as me),
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends,
Grandsons for me-in heirs to all his friends.

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Quam familiariter. (p. 773. My Latin is all forgotten, if a man can be said to have forgotten what he never remembered; but I bought my title-page-motto of a Catholic priest for a three shilling Bank-token, after much haggling for the even sixpence. I grudged the money to a Papist, being all for the memory of Perceval and "No Popery;" and quite regretting the downfal of the Pope, because we can't burn him any more.

Muse of the many-twinkling feet! [p. 773. "Glance their many-twinkling feet."-GRAY.

On Hounslow's heath to rival Wellesley's fame. [p. 773. To rival Lord Wellesley's, or his nephew's, as the reader pleases :-the one gained a pretty woman, whom he deserved by fighting for; and the other has been fighting in the Peninsula many a long day, "by Shrewsbury clock," without gaining any thing in that country but the title of "the Great Lord," and "the Lord," which savours of profanation, having been hitherto applied only to that Being, to whom "Te Deums" for carnage are the rankest blasphemy.-It is to be presumed

the General will one day return to his Sabine
farm, there

To tame the genius of the stubborn plain,
Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain!

The Lord Peterborough conquered continents in a summer; we do more-we contrive both to conquer and lose them in a shorter season. If the "Great Lord's" Cincinnatian progress in agriculture be no speedier than the proportional average of time in Pope's couplet, it will, according to the farmer's proverb, be "ploughing with dogs."

By the bye-one of this illustrious person's new titles is forgotten-it is, however, worth remembering "salvador del Mundo!"-credite posteri! If this be the appellation annexed by the inhabitants of the Peninsula to the name of a man who has not yet saved them-query-are they worth saving even in this world? for, according to the mildest modifications of any Christian creed, those three words make the odds much against them in the next.-"Saviour of the World," quotha!-it were to be wished that he, or any one else, could save a corner of it-his country. Yet this stupid misnomer, although it shows the near connexion between Superstition and Impiety, so far has its use, that it proves there can be little to dread from those Catholics (inquisitorial Catholics too) who can confer such an appellation on a Protestant. I suppose next

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