POE 
cufe for telling us what was about to be done in that 
abbey. This is, we think, an original trick. 
Rokeby has not met with fo many admirers as the 
other productions of Scott; but is perhaps equally defer- 
ving. There is, it mult be confefled, a great deal of extra¬ 
vagance in this poem ; but nevertheless it is truly inter- 
efting, very moral in its conftruCtion, and full of variety 
of thought. 
Scott is remarkable for fcotticifms in his poetry. It is 
a curious queftion why thefe in his hands are fo difagree- 
able. It is perhaps becaufe the ear which delights in the 
euphony of the Scotch cannot endure the haflinefs which 
enfues from its mixture with our own Iterner accents. 
Elfe the fault is not certainly in the language of Cale¬ 
donia. It has furnilhed Burns with multitudes of rhymes 
and fweet fonorous cadences unknown to England, but 
truly delicious to her ear. But Burns would have been 
a poet in any time. He is one of the eternal fpirits of 
fong. In his poetry, virtue had a true laudator. The 
touches of moral feeling he breathed over a glafs of ale are 
worth nil the didaClic poetry in the world. They were 
the effufions of a mind truly benevolent; and, as long as 
beautiful verfe, elegant thoughts, and moral exprelfions, 
fhall pleafe, and as long as hypocrify (hail be derided, 
Burns will be read. The beginning of his “ Tam O’Shan- 
ter,” and the “ Epiftle to a Young Friend,” are among 
the firft of his larger productions. 
The peculiar excellences of Moore are fo apparent, 
and have been fo much difcuffed, that to name him is to 
defcribe his works. The originality with which, in his 
“ Lalla Rookh,” he treated the difficult fubjeCts of orien¬ 
tal fcenery and characters, the fparkling images with 
which he adorns them, the elegant, fweet, and varied, 
verfe, in which he clothes them, the fublime and intenfe 
paffion with which he inverts them, confpire to elevate 
him to the higheft rank amongft our poets. In his 
“Loves of the Angels,” the fame marks of dazzling 
beauty of imagery, and exquifite verfification, appear; but 
the difficulty of his fubjeCt was too great. This poem 
did not exalt his reputation. His unrivalled excellence 
lies, however, in his fongs. They have never been ap¬ 
proached by any one. To call him Anacreon Moore is 
no praife. The advance of poetry in general fince the 
time of the Teian bard has given Moore a great ad van- 
tage. There is a tone of exquifite and pure feeling, and 
a variety of fubjeCt, in Moore’s fongs, that the Greek 
does not poffefs the fiighteft claim to. If any analogy 
can be good between the two, it is as regards verfification. 
Moore finilhes his lines with the moft confummate accu¬ 
racy ; the rhymes are never imperfeCf; and the melody is 
moft rich. 
The writings of Lord Byron, from the extraordinary 
influence they have had on our literature and on fome of 
our moft important opinions, demand a much fuller con- 
fideration than has been afforded to his predeceffors. 
Extraordinary talents are the only meed univerfally ac¬ 
corded to this author: for, while fome would grant him 
a pure and even refined fenfe of religion, the poffeffion of 
the beft feeling of the heart, and a truly noble and eleva¬ 
ted foul ; the greater part of his countrymen have con- 
fidered him to be nearly an atheift, an envious mifanthrope, 
and the poffeffor of mean, fenfual, and pitiful, feelings. 
We enter into this queftion neither to pleafe the one or 
the other of thefe parties; neither to indulge calumny 
nor panegyric. But the life of man is the property of 
his kind ; and we are entitled to fift his actions narrowly, 
whofe example and writings are likely to make the moft 
forcible impreffions ; and, if there be a flaw in either, to 
point it out. If, therefore, we find more to blame than 
praife in the poet in queftion, let us not be accufed of 
fcandal; for we take upon us this unpleafant inveftigation, 
folely with the view of eliciting good from evil, and of 
dilplaying temperately thole errors which perhaps would 
never have been fo fturdily maintained, had they not been 
fo furioufiy encountered. 
/ 
T R Y. 790 
The firft queftion we fhall examine, regards what are 
called infidel opinions; in a word, whether Byron was an 
atheift. We mull agitate this queftion, even though it 
feems truly invidious to allow fo dreadful an accufation 
to be made againft one who no longer lives to rebut it. 
But this matter is too important to allow delicacy to 
interfere with truth. Thofe (and they are many) who do 
not fift opinions to the foundation, take it for granted, 
that, if a man of Lord Byron’s unbounded talents, derided 
religion, ergo he did it upon ftrong grounds, and that 
to be fceptical is therefore to approach in fome degree the 
“ mafter fpirit” of the age. To confute thefe weak imi¬ 
tators by the afl'ertion that he did not hold irreligious 
doctrines, would to us be highly fatisfa&ory. But we 
fearch in vain in all he has written, and in all he is re¬ 
ported to have faid, for any conclufive evidence in favour 
of this negative. He was not certainly (nor indeed do we 
think there are any) fo abfurd as to difpute the exiftence 
of fome mighty undefined, but o’er-ruling, Power which 
directs the univerfe: but his very firft important work, 
“ Childe Harold,” contains a marked doubt as to the im¬ 
mortality of the foul; and through every paffage, where 
opportunity offers, in his fubfequent works, does life en¬ 
deavour to fhow the folly of the attributes we commonly 
give to the Deity, viz. juftice and benevolence. We con¬ 
ceive that, if thefe attributes be taken away, the common 
notion of God is gone. We puffi this no farther. Byron 
had probably fome refined and peculiar notions of his 
Maker. What thefe were, it is to be regretted he never 
told ; fince, to overturn one feries of religious opinions 
without propofing any other in their ftead, appears to us, 
in the worft fenfe of the word, mifanthropical. It is a 
fatisfadlory and beautiful thing to find that Byron could 
not help feeling the Deity in his laft moments, though 
his reafon failed in eftablilhing in his mind a uniform and 
confident belief. Speaking of the praife of folitude he 
fays; 
If from fociety we learn to live, 
’Tis folitude Ihould teach us howto die. 
It hath no flatterers ; vanity can give 
No aid; alone, man with his God muft ftrive. 
And there are many other pafiages which difplay a fimi- 
larly good feeling; but thefe contain no arguments for 
the right caufe; and we cannot truft their earneftnefs, 
fince we know the importunity of a friend was the caufe 
of the infertion of that moft beautiful ftanza in the ad 
canto of Childe Harold, beginning, “ Yet if, as holieft 
men have deemed, there be,” the place of which was in 
the original MS. occupied by fome lines of plain atheifti- 
cal afl'ertion. 
An attempt has been made to deny much of the bad 
tendency of Byron’s works by the afl'ertion, that he com¬ 
monly /peaks in the perfon of another, and is therefore 
no more liable to be blamed for fuch opinions than 
Milton is for the blafphemy Satan utters in Paradife Loft. 
But the cafes are not in point. Though Milton’s Satan 
often utters exprelfions which have an infidel tendency, 
and are difficult of anfwer, yet it does not appear tffat 
the author was ever confcious of this, and he always 
bellows the greateft labour on that which is good, and 
endeavours to exalt the Deity above all. Byron, on the 
other hand, introduces all the arguments he knows into 
the mouth of his bad fpirit; counterafts them by the 
filbert replies; backs his opinions at all points; and, 
where accufed of impiety, laughs at, but does not reply 
to, his accufers. The argument drawn from Milton is 
applied with greater vigour to Southey ; but with no 
more effect. It is no excufe for the bad tendency of 
Byron’s writings to fay, that they have the fame. If the 
latter was fo blind as not to know that his “ Vifion of 
Judgment” was blafphemy, the former had certainly 
lenle enough to perceive it. The great error of Byron 
was very loon obferved ; and thofe who have mueh zeal 
and but little judgment, took upon them to abufe and 
infult 
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