384 The Fiend of the Ferry. Q APRIL, 



As the fiend looked up from his feast, which he seemed to enjoy with 

 the relish of an epicure, we felt that we were in danger of forming his 

 dessert ; and darted off accordingly like a herd of deer that had sur- 

 prised a lion at dinner. Never, since that eventful hour, have we en- 

 countered the mysterious object of our terrors ; nor can we find, upon 

 subsequent inquiry, that he was known in the neighbourhood. All 

 trace of him vanished with the tempest ; he went out like a Congreve 

 rocket. We feel as if we had seen the Wandering Jew ! Surely will 

 the surmise be pardoned ? surely it could not have been our old dra- 

 matic and demonized friend, Mr. Obi Smith that prince of terrors and 

 trap-doors! We leave the suggestion for the consideration of the reader. 

 It is the only one we can possibly offer respecting our extraordinary 

 acquaintance, the Fiend of the Ferry ! B. 



LADY BYEON AND MOORE. 



THIS document, which has made its appearance within these few 

 days, (first published, we believe, in the Literary Gazette), belongs to 

 the history of his late lordship's career in a very peculiar manner. It 

 is very well written, and whatever singularity there may appear in its 

 coming forth at so distant a period from the transaction, is amply 

 accounted for by the revival of the subject in Moore's volume. We 

 discharge the biographer of any intention of offending any one, yet his 

 details having been learned from the aggrieving party, it was scarcely 

 possible that they should not have, in some degree, pressed upon the 

 aggrieved. And even now, Lady Byron takes up the pen neither to 

 impeach her late eccentric lord, nor to exonerate herself, but to defend 

 those parents whom it is a duty to defend, and whom her simple and 

 clear statement fully relieves from imputations, sedulously and subtlely 

 enough thrown upon them by his lordship, and certainly not at all 

 softened by his lordship's friends. 



The charges made in this letter are extraordinary. What they were, it 

 is repulsive to conjecture ; and impossible even for strangers to ex- 

 press with public propriety. That the harshest rumours of Lord Byron's 

 habits were common during his life-time, every one knows. That his 

 foreign life had produced upon his reckless nature the injurious effects 

 which, in a more or less degree, they produce on the morals of every 

 voluntary absentee, is unluckily clear from the whole tenor of his later 

 writings ; and that his final withdrawing from his country, was less to 

 shun personal perplexities, or to enjoy Italian sunshine, than to give a 

 free way to his career, at a distance from the restraints of English public 

 opinion, and the salutary fear of the English press, is matter of perfect 

 notoriety. 



But on those points we touch with infinite reluctance. It is more pleasing 

 to us to vindicate a man of genius. Though unhappily, the only way in 

 which Lord Byron can be vindicated is, by throwing the scandal of his 

 conduct from his heart upon his understanding. We think, in contradic- 

 tion to Lady Byron, that he was, at times, nearly insane. Perhaps not so 

 to the degree which would justify the interference of either family or 

 physician ; but certainly with those flying touches of frenzy, of which 

 his uncle, and some other of his relatives by the paternal side, his 

 father's profligate conduct, and his mother's virago temper, seem to have 

 afforded sufficient examples. There are allusions in his play of " Man- 



