MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 







-_-"' ...-TO!"? *?' * 



THE LIFE AND WORKS OF LORD BYRON. VOL. XV. LONDON : -i,> 



MURRAY. 



AMONG other interesting novelties in this volume is a prefatory paper, 

 entitled, " Some observations upon an article in Blackwood's Magazine, No. 

 XXIX., August 1819," We shall make a few extracts, as it tends, in some 

 degree, to give a new insight into the character and opinions of the departed 

 bard. The observations are thus prefaced : " To J. D'Israeli, Esq., the 

 amiable and ingenious author of ' The Calamities and Quarrels of Au- 

 thors;' this additional Quarrel and Calamity is inscribed by one of the 

 number. He commences his remarks with asserting that he has been 

 unjustly treated in being represented as the author of Don Juan, and men- 

 tions several other anonymous publications previously attributed to him ; 

 (among others, Songs to Madame Lavalette, Odes to St. Helena, Vam- 

 pires, and what not of which, (he says) , I never composed nor read a 

 syllable beyond their titles in advertisements. " With regard to Don 

 Juan," he continues, " I neither deny nor admit it to be mine every body 

 may form their own opinion ; but, if there be any who now, or in the 

 progress of that poem, if it is to be continued, feel, or should feel themselves 

 so aggrieved as to require a more explicit answer, privately and personally, 

 they shall have it." He then proceeds to make a most violent attack upon 

 Southey, Colridge, Wordsworth, and Professor Wilson, the last of whom, 

 he treats as the writer of the article which has given rise to his " Observa- 

 tions." After venting his wrath, in no very measured terms, upon the 

 Lakists, he proceeds to take a review of the present state of English poetry, 

 which he sums up by saying, " as t told Moore not very long ago, we are 

 all wrong except Rogers, Crabbe, and Campbell." He, however, does 

 justice to some who had been the objects of his severest satire in his 

 " English Bards," and, among others, speaks of Hayley's " Triumphs of 

 Temper" as, one poem " that will not be willingly let die." Of Southey, 

 he thus speaks : " He has written ' Wat Tyler/ and taken the office of 

 poet laureate he has in the ' Life of Henry Kirke White/ denominated 

 reviewing ' the ungentle craft/ and has become a reviewer he was one of 

 the projectors of a scheme, called ' Pantisocracy/ for having all things, 

 including women, in common, and he sets up as a moralist he denounced 

 the battle of Blenheim, and he praises the battle of Waterloo he loved 

 Mary Wolstonecraft, and he tried to blast the character of her daughter he 

 wrote treason, and serves the king he was the butt of the Antijacobin, and 

 he is the prop of the Quarterly Review, licking the hands that smote him, eating 

 the bread of his enemies, and writhingbeneath his own contempt he would fain 

 conceal, under anonymous bluster, and a vain endeavour to obtain the esteem of 

 others, after having for ever lost his own, hisleprous sense of his own degradation. 

 What is there in such a man to ' envy ?' who has envied the envious ? Is 

 it his birth, his name, his famej or his virtues, that I am to ' envy ?' I was 

 born of the aristocracy, which he abhorred, and am sprung by mother, from 

 the kings who preceded those whom he has tried himself to sing. It cannot, 

 then, be his birth. As a poet, I have, for the past eight years, had nothing 

 to apprehend from a competition ; and for the future ' that life to come in 

 eveiy poets creed/ it is open to all. That he is not content with his success 

 as a poet may reasonably be believed he has been the nine-pin of Reviews : 

 the Edinburgh knocked him down, and the Quarterly set him up ; the 

 government found him useful in the periodical line, and made a point of 

 recommending his works to purchasers, so that he is occasionally bought 

 (I mean his books as well as the author !) and may be found on the same 



