Lady Byron, Campbell, and Moore. 



Campbell is an able poet, and a man of good intentions ; but he has 

 taken up a hazardous cause. Lady Byron is a woman of education and 

 birth ; but having first made the grand mistake of resisting the will 

 of her family for the indulgence of her own, in marrying for fame a 

 man whom she could not respect for virtue ; she next made the grand 

 mistake of setting her parents' reputation above that of her husband, in 

 contradiction to the wise and sacred precept, that the "wife should leave 

 father and mother and cleave to the husband." 



That Lord Byron hated that father and mother is palpable ; and that he 

 used to fly into paroxysms of scorn and rage when they were spoken of, 

 is perfectly true. Whether this was caused by peevishness or folly on 

 their side is another question. But he had a right, as a husband, to be in- 

 dignant at his wife's leaving his house without his permission ; and he 

 had a right to taunt any woman with hypocrisy, as well as want of duty, 

 who writes to him a letter full of fondling, at the moment when she was 

 determined on abandoning him for ever. Had her ladyship ever read 

 the book in which it is declared that the " husband is the head of the 

 wife ?" or remembered that ritual in which it is declared that she 

 weds " for better for worse, till death do them part ?" For a wife's de- 

 sertion there can be no ground, short of starving or blows. It is a bur- 

 lesque to say that nothing graver than " Dear duck," at the head of her 

 final letter, would have prevented Lord Byron from dashing his head 

 against the wall. 



But, if married people will be liable to sudden quarrels and partings, 

 where is the proof of any attempt to return on this woman's part ? of 

 any effort to soothe the temper whose irritability she knew before she mar- 

 ried ? of any decent sorrow over his grave ? Did even her carriage, or the 

 carriage of her family, attend his funeral ? Has she since given the most 

 trivial instance of female fondness for the memory of a man with whom 

 she was so closely united ? What honours has she paid to the tomb of a 

 great being by whose fame alone she is at this hour distinguished from 

 the mob of title ? Nothing. But we have her at the end of half a dozen 

 years disturbing the honours of him whom her duty and feeling might 

 have kept in his country, to be its living ornament, instead of being cast 

 away in a barbarous and remote tomb. And for whom is this disturbance 

 made ? To vindicate the civility, and so forth, of two such people as 

 Sir Ralph Milbanke and his wife, about whom the world cares no more 

 than about the giants in Guildhall. 



PRESENT POLICY OF EUROPE TOWARDS THE BARBARY STATES. 



THAT Great Britain should be a party to the present policy of Europe 

 towards the Barbary States, must create the greatest surprise in those 

 who reflect on her name and resources ; a policy which began in error, 

 has continued in injustice, and which presents one of the strangest 

 anomalies that can be conceived. We continually quarrel and cavil 

 with the Moors for the observance of particular etiquette, and a regard 

 of minor and insignificant privileges, whilst we consent to tolerate that 

 general system of dishonesty to the world, out of which these disputes 

 grow. How much longer the Barbary powers shall be allowed to exact 

 a. toll for crossing the high seas must be left to the feelings of those 

 nations interested in its payment to determine ; meanwhile it may not be 



