8S THE BYRONS. 



his poem is completed, his cantos are given to the world, they are. 

 bequeathed to the latest generation, the universe is lost in amaze- 

 ment, the Edinburgh dazzled and blinded and confounded by the 

 tenth and masculine muse, and men marvel at their former 

 admiration of less worthy rhymes. 



It is astonishing with what facility the imagination of these 

 young gentlemen transforms every thing about them into the 

 most elevated and exquisite forms. Theirs is the " grasp of 

 inind" and the " flight of fancy." Turner, and Etty, and 8tot- 

 hard, the bewitching Stothard, sink into shade — their creative 

 pencils never worked so magical a change in a few feet of dull 

 canvas or millboard, as the inventive faculties of these " swans'* 

 achieve in less favourable positions. Their broderie is inimitable. 

 The metamorphosis of the pumpkin and rats, and the ragged 

 garb in Cinderella, is an inglorious feat of ingenuity in com- 

 parison. The dark, dirty corner of a counting-house in the 

 Borough or St. Giles's becomes, by a stroke of the pen, trans- 

 muted into " Oak-Dale Priory,'' or with graceful simplicity " The 

 Vicarage,'' or " The Lodge ;" and the short, lusty, little gentle- 

 man, minus two years of his majority, perched on the tall 

 leather-covered stool, turns backslider from the interests of soft- 

 soap, cheese and butter-firkins, to date stanzas from " Ravenna* 

 or " StamhouL," while bestowing divinity upon the pork-butcher's 

 heiress. But the short little bard shares in the metamorphosis of 

 Cheapside or Tooley Street -, he is no less than " Sebastian," or 

 " Albert," or " Rinaldo" tall, and elegant and insinuating, mus- 

 tachioed, and cloaked, and booted, and spurred ; with riches sur- 

 passing those of a Crcesus, and sentimental agonies nothing short 

 of a Werter's. A similar felicitous change takes place in the 

 " fascinating" young haberdasher or cashier in some " Manchester 

 warehouse."' This Apollo, or Adonis — this too happy favourite 

 of the muses measures out tape and twopenny riband, wire-thread, 

 and minnikins to the milliner's deputy, and then hastens to frame 

 a sonnet full of epithets and superlatives, in which the said mil- 

 liner's deputy is apostrophised as 



" A thing too bright for earth," 



and is furthermore saluted as " Ada" " Thyrza" or " Theresa," 

 instead of Becky, Susan, or Deborah. And great is the delight of 

 this ** bright thing," when the next number of the chosen two- 

 penny periodical *, delicately enveloped in tissue paper, is put 

 into her hands, and she reads with sundry palpitations and blushes, 

 dear Simon Twist's effusion, bearing his nom-de-guerre, or more 

 properly " de caresse Alonzo." 



* Allusion is not intended to the cheap but valuable publications, which in the 

 present day offer the rudiments of inestimable instruction to the multitude. The 

 mass of genuine " two-penny trash," which poisoned the minor channels of 

 literature, prior to the appearance of Chambers's very admirable journal, and 

 similar periodicals, are glanced at alone. 



