416 
Oh, Mrs. Fry! why go to Newgate? Why 3 
Preach to poor rogues? And wherefore not begin 
With C--It-n, or with other houses? Try 
Your hand af harden’d and imperial sin. 
To meni the people’s an absurdity,— 
A jargon,—a mere philanthropic din. 
Unless you make their betters better ;—Fie! 
i thought you had more religion, Mrs. Fry. 
We .are fully persuaded that his 
lordship had no more intention to im- 
peach than we to depreciate the 
motives or conduct of the benevolent 
individual in question; but, unfortu-* 
nately, the general position involved 
in the passage above quoted is incon- 
trovertible. EXven in the very few 
instances where interested motives 
have no share, the religionists of our 
day are marvellously attentive to self- 
security. No idea of giving umbrage 
to the powers that be, ever enters their 
mild and gentle’ bosoms. The spirit, 
which animated Paul in the presence 
of Felix, or which, in Jater days, dic- 
tated the fearless haranyues of John 
Knox, and the splendid denunciation 
by Bossuet of exalted and successful 
vice, on his first appearance as a 
metropolitan preacher, we shall vainly 
look for in our modern apostles. To 
imitate these perilous though noble 
examples, incedere per ignes cinert 
suppositos, is no part of their practical 
code. ‘Vo preach to the convicted, 
and to seck proselytes among the 
heathen, are cheaper and casier modes 
of purchasing a reputation, than to 
attack vice sheltered by rank and opu- 
lence, and to convert persons frem the 
semblance of religion to its substance. 
At the commencement of the ele- 
venth canto, the poet’s attention 
appears so exclusively directed to 
Berkeley and materialism, with other 
questions thence arising, that we be- 
lieve, however exquisite his lucubra- 
tions, few readers will be much de- 
lighted with them. On the resumption 
of bis narrative, we find Juan standing 
on Shooter’s-hill; and, in the very 
midst of his reflections on the security 
of life and property in a free country, 
his soliloquy is interrupted by four 
footpads, who offer him the disagree- 
able alternative of parting with his 
money or his life. One of them our 
hero dispatches with a pistel, on which 
his comrades take to. flight; and the 
envoy of Catharine, after waiting the 
coroner’s inquest, reaches the British 
metropolis without any more adven- 
tures. His history in the present 
cantos extends no farther; and the 
description of the metropolis, with 
News from Parnassus, No. XXIX. 
[Dec. Ty, 
Juan’s occupations on becoming en- 
rolled among its fashionables, though . 
exeellent in their way, are not adapted 
for extracting. One passage, how- 
ever, Which refers to the author. him- 
sclf, we quote, both on account of the: 
admirable conclusion of the parallel 
contained in it, and because his. lord- 
ship has been taxed by many of our 
coutemporaiies with egotism, for as- 
serting what appears to us indispu- 
tably true :— : 
In twice five years, the’ ereatest living poct,” 
Like to the champion in the fisty ring, 
Is call’d on to support his claim, or show it;— 
Although ’tis an imaginary thing. 
Even I,—albeit Pm sure Licid not know it, 
Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king,— 
Was reckou’d, a considerable time, 
The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme. > 
But ‘‘ Juan”? was my Moscow, and ‘ Faliero” 
My Leipsic, and. my Mont Saint Jean seems 
“Cain ;” 
Ta Belle Alliance” of dunces down at zero, 
Now that’s the lion fallen, may rise again : 
But f will fall at least us fell my hero, 
Nor reign at all, or as ammonarch reiEn; 
Or to some lonely isle of jailors go, 
With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe, 
A very few general remarks upon 
the present cantos will suflice, as the 
observations which we made upon 
those which preceded them are equally 
applicable in the present instance. 
We may however observe, that those 
now before us haye upon the whole. 
more of the lofty and _ pathetié style of 
poetry than the cantos which we last 
had occasion to notice; and we feel 
it a duty to the author to suggest to 
those readers, who Seem disappointed 
at the occasional inequality visible in 
this poem, that it wouid- be unreason- 
able to expect any writer to produce 
eleven cantos of a poetical work, of 
which some parts shall not excel 
others. , Without reverting to the 
hacknied “aliqguando bonus dormitat 
Homerus,’ we may remind such per- 
sons; that the illustrious writer of the 
“« Aneid,” who was no less distin- 
guished for his diligence and care in 
composition than for his exalted ge- 
nius, is admitted: by all his admirers 
to have imparted to the first six books 
a degree of poetical. splendor and 
beauty immeasurably superior to that 
found in those which sueceed: them ; 
and it would be teo much to expect 
from the playful efforts of Lord Byron 
greater uniformity of excellence than 
attended the laborious assiduity of 
Virgil. To those who have censured 
the apparently irreverent mention of» 
the Deity in one passage of the ‘‘ Don 
Juan,” we would recommend an 
attentive perusal of Blackmore’s 
“ Creation,” 
