‘1825.] 
reprobation of the age—or of futurity, 
which cannot excuse the citizen who 
abjures his native land. The combina- 
tion of these two circumstances pro- 
duced an accumulation of calumnies, 
and even execrations, against the hus- 
band (more unfortunate than culpable) 
of Miss Milbank. Encumbered with 
such a weight of prejudices, he should 
have avoided offence in his conduct 
abroad, and not have afforded pretence 
for verifying them to those hypocritical 
moralists so common in his country. 
As a writer, Byron has given proofs 
of his genius: he is a great poet; but 
his brilliant and striking example may 
injure the art of composition, with whose 
secrets he was nevertheless well ac- 
quainted. Already his imprudent. imi- 
tators have formed a vicious school. 
With respect to morality, he merits 
censure, so much the more heavy, as 
his works may give grounds to malevo- 
lence, or even candour, to suspect him 
of some stains as lasting as the brand of 
fire, or the stamp of crime. . He seemed 
to feel an infernal pleasure in debasing 
humankind, which yet his muse often 
renders more grand and beautiful than 
nature: like the inspiration of Grecian 
sculpture. After having raised man up 
to heaven, and there brought him to the 
contemplation of eternal truth, he de- 
lights to precipitate and chain him down 
in hell: that is to say, in the only place 
where the God of the universe is ab- 
sent, And yet, he does not give to the 
damned that regret of their celestial 
abode, which Milton has so vividly de- 
picted in his fallen angels. No- one, 
perhaps, among the ancients or the 
moderns has represented love, youth, 
grace and beauty, in more lively colours 
than the author of the Corsair and the 
Giaour.* But why has he persisted in 
describing a desperate fatality to his 
heroines? All die unhappy, as though 
they had been struck at their birth with 
a fatal anathema. If we admire in 
Lord Byron those sublime hymns to all 
the virtues, we know not by what secret 
envy, or principle of self-condemnation, 
it is—that he never delineates one ex- 
empt from some horrible’ admixture. 
Some mysterious crime always op- 
* He has done it more exquisitely still 
in the Haidee of his Don Juan. But, 
alas! he only makes her every thing that 
is lovely, tender, sweet and amiable in the 
unpracticed innocence and native glow of 
feminine youth, to betray her into volup- 
tuousness, and make her the riotous para- 
mour and victim of vice.—Enrr. 
Madame Belloc’s Defence of Lord Byron. 
115 
presses his heroes: Gidipus’ enigma un- 
discovered: guilt goads them with the 
fury of remorse. Lord Byron has 
traced a true picture, profound and 
even terrible, of the torments of con- 
Science; it recalls and surpasses the 
Eumenides of ischylus;. but it re- 
turns too often. The author shews too 
much affection for it. To hear him 
speak of it, he might be supposed a new 
Orestes, giving vent to the involuntary 
groans of a heart which can no longer 
confine its fatal secret. Nevertheless, 
such is the attraction, the power, the 
magic of this extraordinary being, that 
he impassions, blinds and subdues his 
readers. Reason herself finds it diffi- 
cult to resist him. She is obliged to 
exert all her strength and authority to 
dispel the dangerous illusions of this 
tempter; and to contradistinguish, in 
the same writer, the angel from the 
demon of poetry. 
Such is the client whose cause a wo- 
man has embraced: the culprit whom 
she undertakes to exculpate at the tri- 
bunal of posterity—like those kings 
dethroned by death, whom Egypt de- 
tained on the threshold of the tomb, to 
pronounce judgment on them before 
the people who had been witnesses of 
their lives. How has Madame Belloc 
undertaken so bold a project? How 
is it that she has not feared the ma- 
levolence too commonly indulged to- 
ward those of her sex who step beyond 
the narrow circle in which our jealous 
severity would retain them ? 
Madame Belloc, at the commence- 
ment of her work, replies, unconsciously, 
to these questions, in a way as natural 
as it is satisfactory. 
** The death of a man of genius strikes 
us with grief, and causes painful surprise : 
we can hardly credit it. We are alarmed 
at the fatal power of destiny. Can so 
much talent be annihilated? Can he die 
who emanates immortal recollections ? 
“ The poet is sovereign over all nature ; 
it is to him alone she opens all her charms 
—he is master of all life; the past and 
the future are his; he heightens the pre- 
sent with his magic illusions; and these 
illusions are of more worth than realities! 
How often, my bosom swollen with sighs, 
my heart beating with happiness, have I 
rendered thanks to the genius that awakens 
such sublime emotions! A crowd of ge- 
nerous thoughts throng within me; I feel 
myself grow; I pant for glory—not that 
which flatters pride; but that powerful 
sympathy which unites all noble minds. 
I feel respect mingled with tenderness for 
talent; it vibrates to the bottom of my 
heart, I would give ten years of my life 
Q2 to 
