depravity. If, for a moment, the author appcars to forget himself, and to suffer his muse to breathe of purity and tenderness if a to ich of hu manity, a faint gleam of goodness, awaken our sympathy, he turns upon us with a sneer of contempt; or laughs our sensibility to scorn. Indeed, throughout, we discover the heartless despiser of human nature; - a denaturalised being, who, having exhausted every species of sensual gratification, and drained the cup of sin to its bitterest dregs, is resolved to show that he is no longer human, even in his frailties, but a cool, unconcerned fiend, treating, well-nigh with equal derision, the most pure of virtues and the most odious of vices, dead alike to the beauty of the one and the deformity of the other; yet possessing a restless spirit of seduction, -debasing the nobler part of man, that he may more surely bring into action his baser appetites and passions. To accomplish this, he has lavished all the wiles of his wit, all the enchantments of his genius. In every page the poet is a libertine; and the most unexceptionable passages are mildewed with impurity. The cloven foot of the libidinous satyr is monstrously associated with the angel-wing of genius.

'I'd rather be the wretch that scrawls

His idiot nonsense on the walls;

Not quite a man, not quite a brute,
Than I would basely prostitute

My powers to serve the cause of vice,
To build some jewel'd edifice

So fair, so foul, framed with such art

To please the eye and soil the heart,

That he who has not power to shun,

Comes, looks, and feels himself undone.'

O, my Brethren! how I wish that the style of this discourse could be less accusatory and severe!"

The "Letter of Cato to Lord Byron," next to be quoted, attracted considerable notice; and was, we know not whether justly or unjustly, ascribed to the pen of the Rev. George Croly, D.D., Rector of Romford, in Essex- author of "Paris in i815," a poem "Pride shall have a Fall, a Comedy," "Catiline, a Tragedy,” —“Salathiel, a Romance,” -"Life of George the Fourth." -"Comment on the Apocalypse," &c. &c. &c.

XXX. CATO.

"Whatever your principles, no page of any of your writings has contri, buted to the security or the adornment of virtue. Have you not offended against decency? and repudiated shame? Have you not represented almost every woman as a harlot? How your fame will stand with pos

terity, it would be idle to speculate upon. It is not improbable that something like the doubt which crossed the mind of the senate, whether they should pronounce their deceased emperor a tyrant or a god, will perplex the judgment of succeeding generations as to the credit and character of your poetry. They will hardly know if they shall deify or desecrate a genius so majestic, degrading itself by subjects and sentiments so repulsive. With an insane partiality, we are undervaluing our standard writers, and placing licentious drivellers in their room. The Shakspeares and Miltons of better days are superseded by the Byrons and Shelleys, the Hunts and Moores of our own: but let us hope that the garbage which the present generation luxuriates upon, posterity will nauseate and cast upon the dunghill. With such a teacher as you have shown yourself, how is it possible for the disciples of your school to be any other than most vicious beings? He who brutalises every feeling that gives dignity to social, every principle that imparts comfort to domestic, life- he who represents all chastity as visionary, and all virtue as vile, is not entitled to be considered as a man he is a living literary monster."

The ensuing paragraphs are from a writer who affixes to his lucubration the initials W. C-; but with whose full name and surname we have, after much diligence, failed to make ourselves acquainted.

XXXI. ANON.

"It is to Don Juan, the last of Lord Byron's productions, that he will owe his immortality. It is his only work which excels by its allurement and delight; by its power of attracting and detaining attention. It keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; it is perused with eagerness, and, in hopes of new pleasure, is perused again. The wild and daring sallies of sentiment with which it abounds, the irregular and eccentric violence of wit which pervades every canto, excite at once astonishment and enthusiasm. The original humour, the peculiarity of expression, the incidents, the circumstances, the surprises, the jests of action and of thought, the shades of light and darkness so exquisitely intermingled, impart a peculiarity of charac ter to the work, which places it above all modern, above all ancient fame. Indeed, if we except the sixteen satires of Juvenal, there is nothing in antiquity so bitter or so decisive, as the sixteen cantos of Don Juan. The Roman satirist exhibits a mixture of dignity and aversion, of hatred and invective; the English censor displays a contempt of the various relations of society, of the hypocrisies, the tumults, and the agitations of life. Juvenal disdains to wield the feeble weapon of ridicule- Byron delights to mix seriousness with merriment, and thoughts purely jocular with sentiments of exasperation and revenge. Juvenal is never patheticByron, when he arrives at this species of excellence, destroys its effect by effusions of ridicule or insensibility. Both poets, however, exhibit the

same ebullitions of resentment against the miserable victims which they sacrifice to their fury—the same scorn for mankind—and the same vehemence in depicting their crimes, passions, and follies. Both attack exist ing villany, strike at corruption and profligacy, and trample upon the turpitude and baseness of high life. Both are grave, intrepid, and impla cable. If at any time they relax the sternness of their manner, they never forget themselves. They sometimes smile, indeed, but their smile is more terrible than their frown: it is never excited but when their indignation is mingled with contempt. Don Juan will be read as long as satire, wit, mirth, and supreme excellence shall be esteemed among men: it will continue to enchain every affection and emotion of the mind; and every reader, when he arrives at its conclusion, will view it with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts on departing day."

Another (or the same) Mr. ANON., in a work, in three volumes 8vo., London, 1825, entitled "The Life, Writings, Opinions, and Times of Lord Byron," thus observes

XXXII. ANON. (Second.)

"There are few readers, male or female, young or old, who do not remember, or will blush to acknowledge their acquaintance with, Marmontel's Tales. In one of the best of them, a rustic swain and nymph, in sheer simplicity of heart, but prompted by the impulse of nature, commit exactly the same fault as poor Don Juan and Haidée; the fault of nature rather than the effect of human depravity. For the scenes in the Turkish harem, we may find a parallel in that fashionable work the Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,' in a hundred books of travels, and in a thousand volumes of novels and romances, the peculiar companions by day, and the pillow associates by night, of most of the fair sex. For the intrigues of the Empress Catharine of Russia, one may consult very grave historians out of number; and there is not one, who has treated on that subject, who has passed over so remarkable a trait in her character. But all at once the accumulated torrent of obloquy is poured forth upon the devoted head of Lord Byron! Well - he despised it, and justly he might do so: it will never tarnish a leaf of his laurels. Every man who has once read Don Juan, if he ingenuously confesses the truth, will feel inclined to peruse it again and again. If Byron's works be proscribed on the score of want of decency, it will be necessary to sweep off one half of English literature at once, as libri expurgati. But Byron was a proscribed poet with the puritanical moralists, or exclusively good men!"

A third "ANON.' meets us in the Author of " Don John; or Don Juan unmasked; being a Key to the Mystery at

tending that remarkable publication: with a descriptive View of the Poem."

XXXIII ANON. (Third.)

"In Don Juan, his lordship's muse displays all his characteristic beauties and blemishes soaring to the vastest heights, or creeping to the lowest depths-glancing with an eye of fantasy at things past, at things present, and at things to come. The poem is constructed, like the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of fine gold, silver, and clay. It abounds in sublime thought and low humour, in dignified feeling and malignant passion, in elegant wit and obsolete conceit. It alternately presents us with the gaiety of the ball-room, and the gloom of the scaffold -leading us among the airy pleasantries of fashionable assemblages, and suddenly conducting us to haunts of depraved and disgusting sensuality. We have scarcely time to be refreshed and soothed by the odours of flowers and bursting blossoms, the pensive silence of still waters, and the contem. plation of beautiful forms, before we are terrified and horror-stricken by the ferocious clamours of tumultuous crowds, and the agonies of innocent and expiring victims. This poem turns decorum into jest, and bids defiance to the established decencies of life. It wars with virtue as resolutely as with vice."

Our next author is a pseudonomous one— the writer of a "Letter to Lord Byron, by John Bull," London, 8vo. 1821. This production much excited Lord Byron's curiosity. In one of his letters to Mr. Murray he asks, "Who the devil can have done this diabolically well-written letter?" and subsequently he is found resting his suspicion (unfoundedly, no doubt,) on one of his own most intimate personal friends. We extract a few paragraphs.

XXXIV. JOHN BULL.

"Stick to Don Juan; it is the only sincere thing you have ever written; and it will live many years after all your Harolds have ceased to be, in your own words,

'A school-girl's tale- the wonder of an hour.'

I consider Don Juan as out of all sight the best of your works: it is by far the most spirited, the most straightforward, the most interesting, and the most poetical; and every body thinks as I do of it, although they have not the heart to say so. Old Gifford's brow relaxed as he gloated over it; Mr. Croker chuckled; Dr. Whitaker smirked; Mr. Milman sighed; Mr. Coleridge took it to his bed with him

"I think the great charm of its style is, that it is not much like the style of any other poem in the world. It is utter humbug to say, that it is bor. rowed from the style of the Italian weavers of merry ottava rima: their merriment is nothing, because they have nothing but their merriment; yours is every thing, because it is delightfully intermingled with, and contrasted by, all manner of serious things murder and lust included. It is also mere humbug to accuse you of having plagiarised it from Mr. Frere's pretty and graceful little Whistlecrafts. The measure, to be sure, is the same; but then the measure is as old as the hills. But the spirit of the two poets is as different as can be. Mr. Frere writes elegantly, playfully, very like a gentleman, and a scholar, and a respectable man; and his poems never sold, nor ever will sell. Your Don Juan, again, is written strongly, lasciviously, fiercely, laughingly, -every body sees in a moment that nobody could have written it but a man of the first order, both in genius and in dissipation - a real master of all his tools—a profligate, pernicious, irresistible, charming devil ; — and accordingly the Don sells, and will sell, to the end of time, whether our good friend, Mr. John Murray, honour it with his imprimatur, or doth not so honour it. I will mention a book, however, from which I do think you have taken a great many hints; nay, a great many pretty full sketches, for your Juan. It is one which (with a few more) one never sees mentioned in reviews, because it is a book written on the anti-humbug principle. It is-you know it exceedingly well - it is no other than Faublas,' a book which contains as much good fun as Gi! Blas, or Molière; as much good luscious description as the Héloïse; as much fancy and imagination as all the comedies in the English language put together, and less humbug than any one given romance that has been written since Don Quixote a book which is to be found on the tables of roués, and in the desks of divines, and under the pillows of spinsters - a book, in a word, which is read universally—I wish I could add-in the original.

"But all this has nothing to do with the charming style of Don Juan, which is entirely and inimitably your own—the sweet, fiery, rapid, easy — beautifully easy,- anti-humbug style of Don Juan. Ten stanzas of it are worth all your Manfred-and yet your Manfred is a noble poem, too, in its way. I had really no idea what a very clever fellow you were till I read Don Juan. In my humble opinion, there is very little in the literature of the present day that win stand the test of half a century excent the Scotch novels of Sir Walter Scott, and Don Juan. They will do so because they are written with pertect facility and nature-pecause their materials are all arawn from life."

Coming once more to men with names, we present this extract from a Life of Byron, by the well-known author of "The Annals of the Parish," "The Provost," "The Entail," " Sir Andrew Wylie," "Lawrie Todd," and "The Member,"