1825.] 
not easily be exhausted. A mind of intui- 
tive perception, like Lord Byron’s, a heart 
of quick and strong emotion, and a frank- 
mess and force of language to give vent to 
his impressions, were almost inevitably led 
‘to many of those scornful ebullitions of 
‘overwhelming ridicule, with which he has 
covered his political adversaries.” 
This, in our estimation, is in the very 
‘spirit of that philosophic candour, with- 
‘out which, criticism is but a cloak for 
hireling sophistry, and the servility, or 
‘the malevolence, of faction. 
On the subject of personalities, there 
are also other passages, in these “ Let- 
ters,” breathing the same spirit of im- 
‘partial discrimination. Thus, in p. 235, 
it is admitted, that 
“€ Some of his personal attacks are malig- 
nant, low and mean, and could only have 
sprung from base and ungenerous passions ; 
while some of his praises are a& fulsome 
and unfounded as his censures! It could 
‘be easily shewn, that he has bitterly, foully 
and unprovokedly attacked some whom he, 
jn his heart, admired, whom he studied 
intently, whose spirit he endeavoured to 
eatch, and to whom he was indebted for 
many noble thoughts, and some powerful 
Janguage |” 
Illustrations of this must occur to the 
mind of every reader familiar with the 
writings of Byron and his contempora- 
ries. Thus, for example, after having 
reprobated blank verse in general (even 
that of Shakspeare and Milton), and 
held up Wordsworth, in particular, to 
derision and contempt, the very next 
effusions he sent into the world, “ The 
Dream,” and, still more conspicuously, 
that wilder dream of desolate sublimity, 
“which was not all a dream,’ were 
blank-verse poems, in emulation of the 
very style of Wordsworth: and it may 
eyen be said of all the blank verse, of 
which the noble poet was afterwards 
not eparing, that it was then only good 
when the modulation of Wordsworth 
was evidently in his ear, His dramatic 
blank-verse was frequently very de- 
fective, and in apparently opposite 
extremes,—ostentatiously poetical in 
phrase, and affectedly prosaic in ar- 
rangement.* 
* Abundant instances of this twofold 
defect may be found in his Doge, his Fos- 
cari, his Sardanapalus, &c., though, in the 
latter especially, there are passages of splen- 
did and glorious exception. Sir E. Brydges 
takes little notice of the dramas of Lord 
Byron; except his Manfred and his Cain: 
in which, however, the critic is perfectly 
tonsistent; for he lays it down as a princi- 
ple, to estimate an author by what he 
Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism.—No. XLIII. 
211 
Sir E. Brydges thus-proceeds :— 
“* There are Other blots of a similar cast, 
for which 1 can find no excuse. Is it not 
unmanly to insult the ashes of the dead, 
who have fallen victims: to the greatest 
misfortune, the most lamentable disease, 
to which poor humanity is subject? And 
all this from political, not personal, anti- 
pathy! Are political antipathies to breed 
personal hatred, which shall insult the 
grave ?—the grave, too, of the most gentle- 
manly, the mildest-mannered, the boldest- 
hearted man in Europe! These are traits, 
which, whenever I would feel admiration 
for the genius and the poetry of Lord Byron, 
I am necessitated to efface from my recol- 
lection. To me, no words of reprobation 
appear too strong for such an exhibition of 
horrible blackness of feeling !’’ * 
Though not agreeing, entirely, with 
Sir E. Brydges, in all particulars, re- 
specting the character of the personage 
alluded to in this passage, the sentiment 
it conveys has our unqualified approba- 
tion. The criticism is equally just in 
point of morals and of taste: and the 
poem referred to, if regarded in any 
other point of view than as a satire on 
the hollow and fulsome flattery of the 
no less profane Laureate, can scarcely 
be too severely reprobated. But, per- 
haps, this is not the only instance, in 
the writings of Lord Byron, which might 
induce one to admit, with the author of 
these Letters (if we could admit his 
metaphor), that : 
_ “ The heart, for a moment, sinks in de- 
spondency, to behold, in frail human nature, 
the union of such frightful darkness with 
such gigantic splendour /”’ + 
We have quoted enough, in the way 
of censure, to shew that Sir E. Brydges 
1s 
has done best, and not by his compara- 
tive failures. And this, in point of est- 
mation, undoubtedly, is just; but, yet, the 
interests of literature as unquestionably re- 
quire, that the defective should be noticed 
also. The shoals that are to be avoided 
should be pointed out, as well as the land- 
marks made conspicuous, that shew the 
port to which we steer. . 
* A “black feeling!’"—-the colour of a 
touch/// The blind man, who thought 
scarlet must be like the sound of a trumpet, 
was nearer, one would think, to the mark. 
But more of this hereafter. 
+ What antithesis there can be between 
the frightful and the gigantic, or what greater 
affinity proportions of bulk can have to 
splendour than to darkness, we leave Sir 
i. Brydges to explain. Our business, at 
present, is with the philosophy of his criti- 
eism, not with the critical structure of his 
periods, or the congruity of his metaphors. 
Z2E 2 
