250 
tensive Biography, Anecdotes and Memoirs 
of the Lives of the most eminent and eccen- 
tric, public and noble Characters and Courtiers 
of the present polished and enlightened Age 
and Court of His Majesty King George the 
Fourth. In the course of the Biography is 
also separately given, copious Recollections of 
the lately destroyed MS. originally intended 
for posthumous publication, and entitled, 
Memoirs of my own Life and Times, by the 
Ricut Hon. Lorp Byrron.—(So stands 
thus far—the line thus glaring in dashing capi- 
tals to gull the unknowing ones—the title ; 
but, after the armorial motto, and another 
motto from Shakspeare creeps in, in letters 
significantly small) By an English Gentle- 
man, in the Greek Military Service, and 
Comrade of his Lordship. Compiled from 
authentic Documents, and from long per- 
“sonal acquaintance. 3 vols. 8vo.—'To the 
eye of the adept, however, the very mas- 
querade of this title-page has the effect of 
naked sincerity. it is a palpable adyer- 
tisement of quackery. It bears if in its 
very physiognomy. Ner are the Dedica- 
tion and the Introductory Address less in- 
structive to thisend. The former is to. Mr. 
Canning, ‘‘ to whose genius,’’ we are in- 
formed, “ France, Russia, Germany, Italy, 
Greece, and the United States of North 
America, have paid homage as one of the 
brightest ornaments of this country’”’—a 
bespattering, in consequence of which, this 
comrade and acquaintance of whomsoever he 
chooses to write, or rather to compile about, 
assumes to himself anon the honour of be- 
ing ‘under the patronage” of the Right 
Hon. Secretary. In the latter, after lament- 
ing the suppression of Lord Byron’s auto- 
biography, the author, vauntful of the vast 
sources of original information opened to 
him by his comradeship and personal ac- 
quaintance, for discharging the incumbent 
duty of “repairing the loss, and justifying 
Lord Byron to posterity,” thus proceeds: ~~ 
“Jt is with this view—the view of paying that tri- 
bute, and doing that justice to his memory, which, 
strangely unnatural, his relatives have denied him— 
that we now step forward with our volumes of Bio- 
graphy, which, with the advantage of long personal 
acquaintance, we have compiled from most authentic 
and copious documents ; and, since we are deprived 
of his self-written Memoirs, we must rest satisfied 
with the most circumstantial account of his Lord- 
ship, as such documents (and they indeed are all- 
sufficient), and with what his most intimate friends 
and his own writings, can offer, together with such 
particulars as can be gleaned from the mostreputable 
and unquestionable quarters, and saved from the 
« wreck of matter.’ In thesociety and friendship of - 
his Lordship we have been long happy, as well in 
England as in Italy and Greece, alike witnesses of 
his zeal and magnanimity, sharers of his toils, and 
fellow-mourners with the citizens of Missolonghi over 
his cherished remains ; and having followed him to 
his native ‘and dearly beloved England, at once the 
fount and the grave of his happiness and his misery, 
and beheld him laid in the lowly vault of the picturesque 
little village-church of Hucknell, we took our last look, 
and were able to leave his grave only through the re- 
solution of justifying him to posterity, by giving to 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[Oct. 1” 
his country, and to the world at large, the Biography 
of his valuable life.” 
Here is promise enough, one would think ; 
and a pretty specimen (at least in the pas- 
sage we have marked with italies) of the | 
tasteful novel-like sentimentality with which 
the ensuing biography is to be adorned. 
But this is not all; even Lord Byron 
is not subject enough for the mighty mind 
that is to fill out these three octavo volumes 
—nor can the sentimentality of picturesque- 
ness furnish sufficient embellishment. From 
novel we are led to pantomime, and pre- 
sented with the following harlequinade : 
** It will, indeed, be found a most extensive Bio- 
graphy, as it involves Anecdotes and Memoirs of the 
Lives of the most Eminent and Eccentric—Public 
and Noble—Characters and Courtiers of the present 
polished and enlightened Age and Court of his Most 
Gracious Majesty King George the Fourth. Kings, 
Queens, Princes, Dukes, Peers and Peeresses, Lords, 
Ladies, and Commoners, Poets and Poetasters, 
Clowns and Pantaloons, Britons, Franks, Spaniards, 
Italians, Germans, Greeks and Turks, are all in turn 
brought into play, to perform their parts upon the 
stage of the life of the Noble and Eccentric Bard; 
and we may venture to add with confidence, that it 
will afford much interest, and excite im particular 
much pleasure, in the minds of those who have per- 
formed whole acts of their life with him.” 
If we had been any thing but Reviewers, 
these specimens would have been quite 
enough for us :notwithstanding the assurance 
that the Life about to be presented to us was 
such a desideratum that, without it, the 
worlditself, “ this goodly frame of nature,” 
would be absolutely imperfect. 
«©The Life of such a man as Lord Byron—the 
_potte guerriere—was confessedly and indubitably a 
great desideratum in literature; one, indeed, which 
the literary world could not dispense with, but must 
have, remaining absolutely imperfect without it.” 
We, however, have been obliged to wade 
through the three volumes ; pleonasms, puns 
andall:* for ours is not the custom to re- 
view unread, The result is, that we are 
obliged to Pronounce almost all the autho- 
rities and documents so vaunted about, to 
be such as may be derived from newspa- 
pers, reviews, and those apocryphal publi- 
cations with which the Dallases, the Perrys, 
the Medwins, and such-like book-makers, 
had previously inundated the literary mar- 
ket. A more complete specimen of book- 
making, perhaps, was neyer put together 
with paste and scissors. Whole pages of 
quotations, by twelves and twenties at a 
time, are strung together, with prosing de- 
tails of the subjects of his Lordship’s_res- 
pective works, and quotations from them 
that 
* His Lordship, we are told, while a schoolboy, 
although ‘‘weak in body,” and ‘‘ by no means the 
strongest either in frame or constitution,”—‘‘ gave 
many striking proofs of an undaunted and invincible 
spirit, notwithstanding his labouring under the dis- 
advantage of lameness.” The fame of Mr. Moore is 
also vindicated (vol. I. p. 239), by a careful recor: 
of the puns provoked by his name. ie 
