"works. I was not sorry for this last 66 arbitrary act, as a very bad translation "of Childe Harold' had just appeared, 66 which I was not at all pleased with. I "did not like my old friend in his new "loose dress; it was a dishabille that did 66 66 not at all become him,-those sciolti versi that they put him into." It is difficult to judge, from the contradictory nature of his writings, what the religious opinions of Lord Byron really were. Perhaps the conversations I held with him may throw some light upon a subject that cannot fail to excite curiosity. On the whole, I am inclined to think that if he were occasionally sceptical, and thought it, as he says, "A pleasant voyage, perhaps, to float, "Like Pyrrho, on a sea of speculation," yet his wavering never amounted to a disbelief in the divine Founder of Christianity. "I always took great delight," observed he, "in the English Cathedral ser"vice. It cannot fail to inspire every 66 66 man, who feels at all, with devotion. Notwithstanding which, Christianity is "not the best source of inspiration for a 66 poet. No poet should be tied down to "a direct profession of faith. Metaphysics open a vast field; Nature, and anti-Mo"saical speculations on the origin of the 66 world, a wide range, and sources of * Don Juan, Canto IX. Stanza 18. 66 66 66 poetry that are shut out by Chris tianity." I advanced Tasso and Milton. "Tasso and Milton," replied he, "wrote on Christian subjects, it is true; but "how did they treat them? The 'Jerusalem Delivered' deals little in Christian 66 doctrines, and the Paradise Lost' makes use of the heathen mythology, which is surely scarcely allowable. Milton dis"carded papacy, and adopted no creed in its room; he never attended divine worship. 66 66 "His great epics,, that nobody reads, prove nothing. He took his text from "the Old and New Testaments. He "shocks the severe apprehensions of the "Catholics, as he did those of the "Divines of his day, by too great a 66 66 familiarity with Heaven, and the in "troduction of the Divinity himself; and, more than all, by making the Devil "his hero, and deifying the dæmons. "He certainly excites compassion for "Satan, and endeavours to make him 66 out an injured personage-he gives him "human passions too, makes him pity “Adam and Eve, and justify himself "much as Prometheus does. Yet Mil66 ton was never blamed for all this. "I should be very curious to know what "his real belief was.* The 'Paradise "Lost' and 'Regained' do not satisfy * A religious work of Milton's has since been discovered, and will throw light on this interesting subject. 66 66 66 me on this point. One might as well say that Moore is a fire-worshipper, or a follower of Mokanna, because he "chose those subjects from the East; or "that I am a Cainist." 66 Another time he said: "One mode of worship yields to an other; no religion has lasted more than "two thousand years. Out of the eight "hundred millions that the globe con"tains, only two hundred millions are 66 Christians. Query, What is to become of the six hundred millions that "do not believe, and of those incalculable millions that lived before Christ? 66 66 66 People at home are mad about Mis sionary Societies, and missions to the |