good; and the mind finds its aliment in what is accidentally congenial with its crude combinations and fantastic imaginings. The secret of genius, if not early discovered to itself, begins soon to develop its effects on the moral character. Bitter rebuke or correction, or ridicule, more tormenting than either, when applied to divert it from its favorite indulgences, rankle deeply and long in its remembrance, and awaken unsocial and malignant feelings. In the lament of Tasso, Byron exemplifies this-

I was chid for wandering; and the wise
Shook their white aged heads o'er me, and said
Of such materials wretched men were made-
And then they smote me, and I did not weep,
But curst them in my heart, and to my haunt
Returned and wept alone, and dreamed again
The visions which arise without a sleep.

The consciousness or discovery that the every day world has no sympathy with itself, is soon made by genius; and when, as is generally the case, it is spurned and trampled upon and wounded, by the coarse, the ignorant, the vulgar and the brutal, what wonder that it should recriminate? what wonder if, in the words of our author, it should sometimes "retaliate the injustice it conceives itself to have sustained—not in requiting society for the evil it has done, with good to that society-but with evil to the possessor himself?""

Thus is the man of genius predisposed to be more easily seduced by the allurements of the world, in the first instance; and afterwards driven into irregularity by the misconception of his feelings, the rejection of his principles, and the envy of his powers, which consoles itself for his intellectual superiority, by blazoning his moral infirmities. Too often, perhaps, reposing on the consciousness of his own originality, and the certainty of his fame, he sets the opinions of the world at defiance, and is disposed to war on that which it holds most awful and sacred. But this is the perversion, not the natural tendency of genius.Its earlier aspirations are for better things, but connected with ideal forms and associations which never can be realized. There is a void which never can be filled; a yearning for intense emotion, which never can be reciprocated. The day dreams of youth pass away; its hopes are shattered, but its longings still remain, and are unsatisfied.

There the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness,
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess;
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.

Thus the highest conceptions of abstract virtue may only lead to actions in themselves vicious. Jealousy, irritability, misanthropy and scepticism, find their way into the heart. The man whom fortune has not deserted, follows blindly the meteor light of the passions; but too often want, without the practical talent to provide for its necessities, has been superinduced upon the essential miseries of genius. Foresight, frugality and economy, have been words unknown in its vocabulary, since Hermes was sent a begging, and Apollo to tend sheep.

Mr. Simmons, with great propriety, avoids any application of his theory to particular events in the private history of Lord Byron. These have been so variously, and always, no doubt, so erroneously narrated, that it would be impossible to speak of them with certainty, even if it were not in some measure sacrilegious to violate the charter of the illustrious dead. Having spoken of the noble author as the poet of passion, and cited some beautiful illustrations of his power in describing its effects, the writer proceeds

"That the Being in whose soul dwelt such conceptions and such forms of beauty-such passionatè desires, forever reaching after the unattainable and the definite, and seeking relief in disappointment by wreaking his whole being upon the expression of that disappointment-that such a Being should have been unhappy, and even incapacitated for the free exercise of the humbler duties and practical purposes of life, is only what might have been predicated of the peculiar constitution of his character. Whatever may

have been the errors of Lord Byron's life, they were evidently those of a great and uncontroulable mind. His heart, we are persuaded, never conceived one ungenerous thought, or prompted to one ignoble action. It was the mind, the burning restless mind, that o'er informed his feelings. His heart appeared to weep over the frailties it never gave birth to, and could not controul. There was an eternal action and reaction going on between his feelings and his understanding. But, unhappily for his peace, the latter always maintained the ascendency they had early acquired over the formSetting aside all consideration of the effects which are supposed to result from a neglected education, and early habits

er.

-those false links that bind

At times the loftiest to the meanest mind

-we are tempted to think that Lord Byron's genius was of that intense and peculiar temperament which admits of no other modification than that which the gradual confirmation of an original and powerful but unhappy bias, is calculated to effect. And as there is nothing which acquires strength so much from indulgence as that morbid sensibility which is peculiar to genius, there is nothing so difficult to oppose-and yet so destructive of happiness for the want of disipline."

The remarks on the poetry of Byron, in this pamphlet, evince in the writer a quick and full perception not only of the dazzling but of the more delicate and less obvious beauties of this Vol. II. No. VIII.

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highly gifted minstrel. He has pointed out some exquisite passages, which we do not remember to have seen particularly noticed before. The speculation on the essential character of poetry, according to the definition of Lord Bacon, that "it adapts the shows of things to the desires of the mind," which precedes these quotations, is ingenious, but perhaps fruitless. That definition does indeed, as our author says, embrace all works of pure fiction. Without taking into account, as a necessary quality, the commonly received notion of a certain measure, necessarily leading to a certain inversion of phraseology, the use of certain words in a peculiar sense, and the coinage of others, by which every language soon comes to possess a distinct poetical dialect, it is impossible to mark, by any abstract character, the boundary line between prose and poetry. Not that we agree with Mr. Simmons, in his assertion, that, according to Bacon's definition, we must admit Robinson Crusoe to be the work of a poet. It is, indeed, true, as he observes, that the geometrician participates with the poet, in the faculty of invention; and the creations of Defoe were produced by a process of thought or reasoning, analogous to that of the mathematician in solving a problem. From given data, he supposed all the probable and natural results. His hero, in his lonely island, was troubled with no thick-coming fancies. A thunderstorm had some agency in producing his religious melancholy, which was increased by dreams and terrible visions; but the former was a plain matter of fact thunderstorm, directly calculated to frighten him, and convince him that he was in the power of superior and resistless agents ;—he began to think seriously about his own responsibilities, and removed his ammunition to a safer place. His dreams were such as every common seaman might have had, in his situation, without a particle of romance in their character. He did not con

jure up aerial imagery in the distant and undefined objects around him; but adjusted his spy glass, and ascertained that it was the outline of a remote shore, or so many canoes, each containing a certain number of savages. When he saw the print of a footstep in the sand, and could not account for the impression, he supposed it had been made by the devil. All this is in good keeping; but certainly, it does not follow, necessarily, that the author was a poet.

The desires of the mind which poetry seeks to satisfy, are for incidents where the immediate connexion of cause and effect is rather obscured, than obtruded upon the judgment for its sanction;-for objects, on which the mind can itself work,

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and be delighted with its own operations. We would reject, with our author, the accuracy required by Bowies, from a descriptive poet; for the moment description becomes technically accurate, it ceases to be poetry at all. There can be no finer illustration of the power of a genuine poet, in throwing out by a few strong lines, a vivid combination of images, which the imagination instantly appropriates and fills up for itself, than the picture of eastern scenery in Lord Byron's Dream," which our author has quoted. Again, in adapting the shows of things' to the desires of the mind, poetry takes no account of the practical difficulties and minutia which the writer of fiction that aims at vraisemblance, is obliged to avoid or overcome. The position is certainly correct that the poetry which appeals to the heart is more sure of general perusal and admiration, than that which merely plays round the fancy. And the more strong and universal the feelings are to which it addresses itself, the more certain is its success. All can weep for the sorrows of Medora; but there are few, we apprehend, who can sympathize with the emotion of Wordsworth, too profound to find relief in tears, at the sight of a daffodowndilly. When we have, however, ascertained all the essentials which constitute poetry, we must still, as was before remarked, add the requisite of a certain rhythm, or it will be impossible to exclude from its pale many works of imagination, in whole or in part, which have always past for simple prose.

Our remarks have been rambling and superficial. But we have little space to indulge in farther comment on the subjects. started by Mr. Simmons. One, in particular, merits observation-the principle of self, or the incorporation of the writer's own original feelings with those of all his characters, and with the effect of all his descriptions, which runs through the works of Lord Byron. This has been more apparent to his readers, because his private history has been so long the subject of public conversation. To suppose, however, that when the incidents of his life have ceased to be the subject of curiosity, the interest of his poetry must also decline, is, as our author well observes, a most idle and inconsecutive mode of reasoning. The fancy of no poet has ever soared into the regions of invention, without carrying with it the mark and character of its possessor; as the falcon bears inscribed on its coliar the name of him, to whom this goodly hawk belongeth.' And as the circumstances, which were once fresh in the knowledge of a cotemporary generation, become forgotten, or are dimly recalled by those who succeed, ideal associations occupy their places, and invest the embodied thoughts to which they origi

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nally gave color, with a mysterious but perpetual interest. Were Lord Byron's history lost in oblivion, would Childe Harold's pilgrimage therefore be no longer read by posterity? "It will be of little importance for them to know where the noble suffer er was born,

To whom related or by whom begot;

What were the nature of the wrong he bore, or in what manner they were inflicted; it will be sufficient for them to know that he was a sufferer, and had wrongs to be forgiven

Hopes sapped-name blighted-life's life lied away.

It will be enough for them to feel and know this, in order to sympathize profoundly with those emotions of the soul which have thrown a melancholy gloom around the sublimest inspirations of the Bard."

We recommend the work we have been noticing, as an elegant and able exposition of the subjects at which we have glanced. The writer shows much judgment, taste and information. We hope the present pamphlet may be received with sufficient favor to induce him to enlarge his dissertation. We regret that it is very much disfigured by villainous typographical blunders.

ORPHIC HYMN TO SLEEP.

Of gods and men almighty king,
Sole lord of every breathing thing
On earth, puissant sleep!

To all thy bland approach is known,
O'er all thy potent links are thrown,
While sorrow's hosts thy sceptre own,
And care forgets to weep.

The toil-worn limbs thine art renews,
The wo worn heart thy sacred dews
In healing balsam steep;

Image of death, thine opiate charm
Fraternal terrors can disarm,
Soothe sinking nature's wild alarm,
And bid life's pulses leap.

Brother, as ancient rhymes express,
Of death and of forgetfulness,
Attend my call, O sleep!
Around thy fragrant odors shed;
All redolent with perfume spread
Thy curtains; lap thy votary's head

In slumbers soft and deep.