AN EARNEST EFFORT TO PERPETUATE AND TO EXTEND THE FAME OF A POET AND A NOBLEMAN, LATELY ONE OF THE BRIGHTEST ORNAMENTS OF ENGLAND AND OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, IS INSCRIBED WITH MOST SINCERE FEELINGS OF RESPECT FOR HER VIRTUES AND SYMPATHY FOR THE IRREPARABLE LOSS SHE HAS SUSTAINED. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF LORD BYRON. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. THE premature and lamented death of Lord Byron has deprived England of the brightest genius that has adorned the age in which we live. That he was entitled to the first place among living poets will hardly now be denied by any one. Those persons who, from the most honest feelings, regretted the levity and censured the immorality of some of his latter productions, were never backward in acknowledging the pre-eminence of talents which they wished to have seen otherwise directed: it was only by the malignant and the envious that his powers were decried; and even their venom, now that the grave has closed upon Lord Byron, will be spared, because it is equally insignificant and impotent. To say that he had faults, and that they were many and great, is only to say that he was humán: they were the faults of his age, of his education, of unfortunate circumstances-perhaps of a constitutional eccentricity. They were not so enormous but that a small portion of Christian charity may enable us to excuse them: their consequences fell on his own head; and we cannot but believe that the sufferings of his proud and wounded spirit would, if they could be appreciated, be allowed, even by his most severe censurers, to have expiated his offences. But while those failings by which his character was marked, and which are the lot of humanity, are remembered, let it not be forgotten that he possessed rare and supreme powers, which, if they did not raise him above his species, made him one of its chief ornaments.) As a poet, he stands among the most eminent that England has ever B produced. Few, indeed, (and, among those who live, we may say, fearless of contradiction, none,) have possessed at the same time an energy and intellectual grasp like his, together with his facility and gracefulThere is no style of poetry that he has not essayed; there is noue in which he has failed; there are some which he has left better than he found them, and which will, perhaps, owe their perfection to the genial influence of his example. ness. As a British nobleman, his reputation is unsullied: he supported his rank with as much dignity as modesty. He was a gentleman of strict honour; a firm and warm-hearted friend; a fervent lover of real liberty; and a patron of true merit and sound learning. These are his claims to the respect of his cotemporaries-these are his titles to the admiration of posterity. That they may be fully understood, and that the honours which his memory deserves may be rendered to it universally, the following concise account of his life and writings has been undertaken. It is a debt which the country owes to itself and to him, that the merits of such a man should be known to the whole community. In the work which follows an attempt has been made to combine with a history of the principal events of Lord Byron's life so full and impartial an account of his works as may convey an accurate idea of their merits. It was expected that the Memoirs written by the noble deceased, and given by him to the author of Lalla Rookh,' would have been published. Had that hope not been frustrated, this work would probably never have seen the light. From a motive of delicacy towards the feelings of living persons, which, though it may be mistaken, is so amiable and disinterested that it deserves the highest praise, those Memoirs have lately been destroyed, and are lost to the world for ever. This posthumous record of the deceased nobleman had been deposited in the keeping of Mr. Thomas Moore, and designed as a legacy for his benefit. This gentleman, with the consent and at the desire of Lord Byron, had long ago sold the manuscript to Mr. Murray, for the sum of two thousand pounds. Since the death of Lord Byron, it occurred to some of the relatives of his lordship, that, although the noble author himself had given full authority for a disclosure of the document, some of his family might be wounded or shocked by it. Mr. Moore, therefore, appointed a time for meeting a near connexion of the noble lord (we believe his sister, Mrs. Legh); and, after a deliberate perusal of the work, finding that this lady apprehended from it much pain to the minds of many persons still living, though no |