1925.] 
that are in.every mouth, and anecdotes that 
have been again and ‘again repeated. To 
swell out the bulk of nothingness, the same 
biographical ground is trod over four diffe- 
_ rent times—in the history of the successive 
works—in the history of the travels which 
furnished the subjects and materials of these 
works—in three chapters of a pretended 
Sketch, or Recollections of the destroyed 
MS.—in chapter after chapter of extracts 
(so pretending) from various letters of Lord 
Byron ; in which, however, the extracts are 
very thinly strewn, and consist almost en- 
tirely of little scraps which have already ap- 
peared in other publications. Then we 
have, also, some five chapters of extracts 
from letters, generally not original either, 
of other persons about Lord Byron; some 
of. the manufacturers of which knew pro- 
bably about as much of his Lordship as 
the pretended “ comrade and acquaintance”’ 
himself. After these (as if all the rest had 
not been mere gleanings—and gleanings even 
from the common field) we have a couple of 
chapters of professed gleanings ; and, to bring 
up the rear, no less than seven chapters 
(two-thirds ofthe third volume) of the his- 
tory of the Greek insurrectionary war. 
In the pretended Recollections of the 
Destroyed MS. (the contents of which, it is 
taken for granted, will be believed “ to be no 
-irrecoyerable secret, since they were perused 
by Lady L b, and Lady B h, and 
other persons of feminine, or loquacious gen- 
_ der’’), there is one passage of most atrocious 
profligacy, ostentatiously marked with in- 
verted commas, as though it were a literal 
quotation ; but which is of itself quite suffi- 
cient to destroy the credibility of the whole ; 
for will it be believed, that even the myste- 
ries of the wedding-chamber could be made 
the subject of whole pages of descant by the 
noble bridegroom? could be put upon per- 
manent record destined for the public gaze ? 
—that neither the chamber-door, the cur- 
tains, nay, the coyerlet of the bed, could be 
a sanctuary against the exposition of the 
licentious and malicious pen? Could Lord 
Byron—could any gentleman—could any 
thing that had the feelings, or was wor- 
thy of the name of man, have penned such 
a profanation? 
But the morals of this trumped-up pub- 
lication are just of a piece with its authen- 
ticity. “ Nature,’ says this delicate and 
sentimental book-maker— 
“* Nature revolts at a perpetuity even of conjugal 
bliss. There is something in the idea of the loss of 
liberty, that sits uneasy upon the stomachs of some 
folks, while others give a gulp and swallow it down 
with a few wry faces, ‘ Our state,’ said a galley-slave, 
chained to the oar, ‘ would not be so bad, if it was 
not for the name of it.’ It may be much the same 
with marriage.” 
Drunkenness, according to the same au- 
thority, is the very soul of poetry and of 
genius. 
_‘* Men of every kind of genius (and Poets in parti- 
eular) are fond of « potations deep.’ ”—* A Poet with- 
out his bottle is like a workman without hi tools ; 
Domestic and Foreign. 
251 
he may possess talent, will, and industry, but he can- 
not get on.” ‘ 
The criticisms are also of equal acumen ; 
and the language sometimes not inferior to 
the other merits: as perhaps the reader may 
have conjectured from the few quotations 
we have made, without particular references 
to such phrases as “ disrelish for company 
not proceeding from morosity or misan- 
thropy,” &c. But censure is wearied, not 
exhausted ; and for the sake of relief we will 
observe, as the nearest to commendation 
the compiler bas furnished us with the op- 
portunity of approaching, that there are 
some few anecdotes, or episodes rather, that 
we do not remember to have met with be- 
fore (as that of the Protégé, p. 93—8, and 
of the Circassian Slave, p. 123—3]1, vol. 3), 
so honourable to Lord B. that we should 
like to have them upon better authority : 
but, coupled with the general contents of 
these fudge volumes of “‘ Life, Writings, Opi- 
nions and Times,” we can regard them only 
as pretty outlines for novels and romances. 
As for the “extensive Biography, Anecdotes 
and Memoirs of other eminent, eccentric, 
public, noble, &c. &c.&e. characters ;” that 
panorama of the age of his most Gracious 
Majesty King George the Fourth, promised 
in the harlequinade puff of the address— 
for these we have looked in vain through 
the whole exhibition. Glimpses of distin- 
guished names, indeed, we have ; but of bio- 
graphies, or even anecdotes, not so much 
even as might have been picked up from 
the gleanings of newspapers. 
The first yolume is adorned with a hand- 
somely engraved portrait of Lord B.; the 
second with a verybeautiful one of the Coun» 
tess Guiccioli; and the third is accompanied 
by a. fac-simile of his Lordship’s hand- 
writing, commending the original pictures 
from which the portraits are professed to be 
engrayed. 
A Eetter to the Right Hon. Sir Charles 
Long, on the Improvements proposed, and 
now carrying on in the Western Part of 
London. 8vo.—In this small, but very de- 
sultory pamphlet, which rambles backwards 
and forwards from Temple-bar to Tothill- 
street, from Charing-cross to Chelsea+ 
hospital, from ponds and palaces to pro- 
visions for orphans and the tippling of 
Chelsea pensioners at low public-houses, 
and from banking the Thames to musing 
among the remains of Phidias at Monta- 
gue house,—and which seems to have been 
written with no very accurate information 
relative to the plans of improvement al- 
ready resolved upon, or in agitation,—there 
are some suggestions worth attention (as, 
for example, the removal of that barba- 
rous incumbrance Exeter ’Change, and 
widening of the Strand from Charing-cross 
to Fileet-street); but there is also much 
superfluous and unavailing matter, and 
much bad taste,-—such as veneration for 
that filthy obstruction Temple Bar—itself a 
bar, indeed, to every prospect of a proper 
2K2 opening 
