་ but many errors of taste and judgment. The vulnerable points were fiercely assailed, the merits overlooked, in a witty critique in the Edinburgh Review (understood to be written by Lord Brougham), and the young poet replied by his vigorous satire, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, which disarmed, if it did not discomfit, his opponent. While his name was thus rising in renown, Byron left England for a course of foreign travel, and in two years visited the classic shores of the Mediterranean, and resided some time in Greece and Turkey. In the spring of 1812 appeared the two first cantos of Childe Harold, the fruit of his foreign wanderings, and his splendidly enriched and matured poetical taste. I awoke one morning,' he said, and found myself famous.' A rapid succession of eastern tales followed-the Giaour and the Bride of Abydos in 1813; the Corsair and Lara in 1814. In the Childe, he had shown his mastery over the complicated Spenserian stanza: in these he adopted the heroic couplet, and the lighter verse of Scott, with equal freedom and success. No poet had ever more command of the stores of the English language. At this auspicious and exultant period, Byron was the idol of the gay circles of London. He indulged in all their pleasures and excesses-studying by fits and starts at midnight, to maintain the splendour of his reputation. Satiety and disgust succeeded to this round of heartless pleasures, and in a better mood, though without any fixed attachment, he proposed and was accepted in marriage by a northern heiress, Miss Milbanke, daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, a baronet in the county of Durham. The union cast a shade on his hitherto bright career. A twelvemonth's extravagance, embarrassments, and misunderstandings, dissolved the union, and the lady retired to the country seat of her parents from the discord and perplexity of her own home. She refused, like the wife of Milton, to return, and the world of England seemed to applaud her resolution. One child (now the Countess of Lovelace) was the fruit of this unhappy marriage. Before the separation took place, Byron's muse, which had been fulled or deadened by the comparative calm of domestic life, was stimulated to activity by his deepening misfortunes, and he produced the Siege of Corinth and Parisina. Miserable, reckless, yet conscious of his own newly-awakened strength, Byron left England and the successive cantos of Don Juan' betrayed the downward course of the poet's habits. The wit and knowledge of that wonderful poem-its passion, variety, and originality-were now debased with inferior matter; and the world saw with rejoicing the poet break away from his Circean enchantments, and enter upon a new and nobler field of exertion. He had sympathised deeply with the Italian Carbonari in their efforts for freedom, but a still more interesting country and people claimed his support. His youthful travels and poetical enthusiasm still endeared the 'blue Olympus' to his recollection, and in the summer of 1823 he set sail for Greece, to aid in the struggle for its independence. His arrangements were made with judgment, as well as generosity. Byron knew mankind well, and his plans for the recovery and regeneration of Greece evinced a spirit of patriotic freedom and warm sympathy with the oppressed, happily tempered with practical wisdom and discretion. He arrived, after some danger and delay, at Missolonghi, in Western Greece, on the 4th of January 1824. All was discord and confusion -a military mob and contending chiefs-turbulence, rapacity, and fraud. In three months he had done much, by his influence and money, to compose differences, repress cruelty, and introduce order. His fluctuating and uncertain health, however, gave way under so severe a discipline. On the 9th of April he was overtaken by a heavy shower whilst taking his daily ride, and an attack of fever and rheumatism followed. Prompt and copious bleeding might have subdued the inflammation, but to this remedy Byron was strongly opposed. It was at length resorted to after seven days of increasing fever, but the disease was then too powerful for remedy. The patient sank into a state of lethargy, and, though conscious of approaching death, could only mutter some indistinct expressions about his wife, his sister, and child. He lay insensible for twenty-four hours, and, opening his eyes for a moment, shut them for ever, and expired on the evening of the 19th of April 1824. The people of Greece publicly mourned for the irreparable loss they had sustained, and the sentiment of grief was soon conveyed to the poet's native country, where his name was still a talisman, and his early death was felt by all as a personal calamity. The body of Byron was brought to England, and after lying in state in London, was interred in the family vault in the village church of Hucknall, near Newstead. Once more upon the waters, yet once more!— Byron has been sometimes compared with Burns. and visiting France and Brussels, pursued his course Death and genius have levelled mere external disalong the Rhine to Geneva. Here, in six months, tinctions, and the peer and peasant stand on the he had composed the third canto of Childe Harold,' same elevation, to meet the gaze and scrutiny of and the Prisoner of Chillon. His mental energy posterity. Both wrote directly from strong personal gathered force from the loneliness of his situation, feelings and impulses; both were the slaves of irreand his disgust with his native country. The scenery gular, uncontrolled passion, and the prey of disap of Switzerland and Italy next breathed its inspi- pointed hopes and constitutional melancholy; and ration: Manfred and the Lament of Tasso were both died, after a life of extraordinary intellectual produced in 1817. In the following year, whilst activity and excitement, at the same early age. We residing chiefly at Venice, and making one memor- allow for the errors of Burns's position, and Byron's able visit to Rome, he completed Childe Harold,' demands a not less tender and candid construction. and threw off his light humorous poem of Beppo, Neglected in his youth-thwarted in his first love the first fruits of the more easy and genial manners-left without control or domestic influence when of the continent on his excitable temperament. his passions were strongestAt Venice, and afterwards at Ravenna, Byron reLord of himself, that heritage of wosided till 1821, writing various works-Mazeppa, the first five cantos of Don Juan, and his dramas intoxicated with early success and the incense of of Marino Faliero, Sardanapalus, the Two Foscari, almost universal admiration, his irregularities must Werner, Cain, the Deformed Transformed, &c. The be regarded more with pity than reprehension. year 1822 he passed chiefly at Pisa, continuing Don After his unhappy marriage, the picture is clouded Juan,' which ultimately extended to fifteen cantos. with darker shadows. The wild license of his conWe have not touched on his private history or in-tinental life it would be impossible to justify. His dulgences. His genius had begun to pale its fire: his dramas were stiff, declamatory, and undramatic; excesses became habitual, and impaired both his genius and his strength. He struggled on with |