nor peace; but in a state of amphibious existence between both. Jeffreys and Gifford are looked up to by their respective adherents to give the word for battle. Lord Byron, one of Gifford's retainers, some time since published a volume of juvenile poems dedicated to lord Carlisle, of whom Peter Pindar thus speaks in his address to the Reviewers:

"Furious I've answered lo my lord Carlisle!

Has strove to gain a seat in Fame's old temple;
The world applaud, your worships will not smile,
What you disapprove is cursed simple."

This volume of juvenile poems from the pen of lord Byron, drew down the indignation of the Edinburgh Review. His lordship being in parliamentary phraseology "sorely touched and grieved" did not feel inclined to wait from his master Gifford the watch word of battle any longer. He therefore lets off his recriminating vengeance in a small octavo volume consisting of eighty-six pages. The gauntlet of defiance is thrown down to Jeffreys, and a contest solicited with an instrument more fatal than a pen. What, on the return of his lordship from his travels, will be the issue of a challenge so unequivocally invited; whether the Caledonian critic will deem himself in honour bound to accept it, or not, is a question with which we have no right to intermeddle. A strain of extreme bitterness pervades the poem that sufficiently evinces that patriotism though made the ostensible, was not the only motive. Reflections on private lives of writers (such for instance, as that Jeffreys was born in a garret) and totally unconnected with the reputation of men as authors, are lavished with a bounteous hand. It savours of common place to remark, but it is nevertheless true, that it is not an act of criminality to be born, and the place where, and the time when, is surely no choice of the infant. If wishes in the present age, were not the most idle of all idle things, we could with much sincerity wish, that writers of unquestionable genius would, with a magnanimity becoming it, disdain this species of warfare. It consecrates that vulgar malignity so often exemplified in our daily prints; and "visits literally the sins of the parents upon the children to the third and fourth generation." The author himself in his postscript, seems reluctantly to yield to this opinion?

and conveys a sort of apology under the guise of a justification. "I have added facts says he already well known, and of Jeffreys mind I have stated my free opinions, NOR HAS HE THENCE SUFFERED ANY INJURY; what scavenger was ever soiled by being pelted with mud?" True; but if Jeffreys is this scavenger his opponent represents him, does it become one of the proud nobility of England when thus assailed, to retort with the same weapons, and to pollute his coronet in the contest? His lordship not only persists in this mode of attack with regard to Jeffreys, his more immediate opponent; but also as respects other writers, whose fame once floated, apparently staunch and well built, but is now laid up in ordinary; or condemned as unseaworthy. Poor little Bobby Bloomfield, for instance, is condemned, not so much for being a poet, as a shoe-maker, a very honest and reputable occupation; nor have we ever heard any complaints on the part of his customers on that score. Here the bard has brought himself into an awkard dilemma; Gifford whom he professes to reverence on this side of idolatry, was once guilty of the self same offence he so severely reprehends; for he was once in good sooth a shoemaker, until the united voice of the nine muses commanded him to throw aside his last. As Gifford acquires no honour, so neither does Bloomfield incur disgrace, by the occupation he followed. As to Capel Lofft, whom the poet stigmatises in a note as the "Mæcenas of shoemakers," this sally was surely unnecessary. The bare mention of the name excites laughter, and has been so familiar to contempt that the time occupied in any attempt to make him more an object of ridicule is completely thrown away. In short, had the pen of Byron meddled only with the Haleys, the Southeys, and the Coleridges of the day, however needless it might have been, the commonwealth of letters would have received no detriment. Some have censured the bard's attack upon Walter Scott; but they have forgot, or neglected to notice, that this attack has been confined merely TO THE SUBJECT ON WHICH THE BARD WRITES, AND THE DEFECTIVENESS OF HIS PLANS. With regard to the latter of these charges, the warmest admirers of the Scottish bard, we believe, have admitted, that here, he was blameably deficient The supernatural machinery does not as

sist the main design of the poet in his Lay of the Last Minstrel,
except in a very awkard and ungracious manner.
The interpo-
sition of this machinery seems more calculated to retard than to
accelerate the nuptials of Henry and Margaret, nor is that event
of sufficient dignity in itself to require the exercise of such
agency; besides, it throws an air of incredibility on a tale in it-
self very probable. With regard to the charge, that the subject
is improper for the muse, we beg leave to enter a protest
against this opinion. Although Scotland was then infested with
hordes of marauders; yet their manners were altogether pecu-
liar, and calculated to excite wonder and astonishment. They
had manners whose novelty entitled them to preservation, in a
form not so offensive as historical, and highly susceptible of po-
etic embellishment. Scott therefore arrayed these marauders
in the habiliments of knighthood, and gave them a character of
chivalry. And was it ever urged as a sober objection, that poetry
transcended fact-in other words, that these men celebrated by
Scott as so many knights, were actually marauders? If history
was honest and impartial we much fear that the most valorous
knights of antiquity, would not deserve a better name than
Scott's heroes. While the poet censures Scott with much as-
perity in one part of his book, he does ample justice to his ge-
nius in another.

"But thou with powers that mock the aid of praise
Shoud'st leave to humbler bards ignoble lays;
Thy country's voice, the voice of all the Nine,
Demand a hallow'd harp, that harp is thine.
Scotland, still proudly claim thy native bard,
And be thy praise his first, his best reward!
Yet not with thee alone thy name shall live,
But own the vast renown a world can give;
Be known perchance, when Albion is no more;
And tell the tale of what she was before;

To future times her faded fame recall,

And save her glory though his country fall.”

But we must not think that the censure so prodigally distributed within the compass of these leaves, is done by any ordinary hand. In the youthful countenance of the poet we discover the large temporal vein of genius. His sarcasms are ter

rible, they are uttered in a strain of indignant defiance, and with
the spirit of a man conscious of his own powers; a spirit that
kindles at a frown, and grows more formidable when opposed.
The predominant character of his satire consists in that species
of retort that turns a man's own words to his disadvantage. Of
Scott's Marmion he exclaims in the words of the author;

"For this we spurn Apollo's favourite son,
And bid a long good-night to Marmion.”

After imploring Southey to write no more, he cries.

"But if in spite of all the world can say,
Thou still wilt verse-ward plod thy weary way;
The babe unborn, thy dread intent may rue,

'God help thee' Southey, and thy readers too."

Of Wordsworth and his "Ideot Boy" our author remarks

"Thus when he tells his tale of Betty Foy,

The ideot mother of an ideot boy;

So close on each pathetic part he dwells,

And each adventure so sublimely tells;

That all who view the Ideot' in his glory,

Conclude the bard the hero of the story."

The sighing and simpering Coleridge is thus brought in contact with his subject:

"Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass
The bard who soars to eulogize an ass:
How well the subject suits his noble mind,
·A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind."

Of Haley's triumphs of temper:

Triumphant thus see "temper's triumph's shrine,
At least I'm sure they triumph'd over mine.”

Of Bowles:

"And art thou not the prince, harmonious Bowles?
Thou first great oracle of tender souls!
Whene'er thy muse most lamentably tells,
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells?

1

Ah how much sweeter were thy muses hap,

If to thy bells, thou would'st but add a cap."

Of Scott's Lay of the last Minstrel:

"And Lays of Minstrels, may they be the last.”

Enough we presume, has been said to show the bards dexterity of retort; but this, though the principal feature of his wit, is not the only one. The fable of Sysiphus is thus handsomely hit off, when he speaks of Maurice's poem on the "Beauties of Richmond hill:"

"As Sysiphus against the infernal steep

Rolls the huge rock whose motions ne'er may sleep,

So up thy hill ambrosial Richmond, heaves

Dull Maurice, all his granite weight of leaves!

Smooth solid monuments of mental pain

The petrifactions of a plodding brain!

That e'er they reach the top fall lumbering back again."

Amos Cottle is thus charactered:

"Boeotian Cottle, rich Bristowa's boast,

Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast.

Fresh fish from Helicon; who'll buy-who'll buy?

The precious bargain's cheap!-in faith-not I."

The bard occasionally forsakes this levity and speaks in a strain of bold, honest, and manly indignation worthy a disciple of Juvenal. The fate of poor Montgomery, whose fame was fairly hunted down by the Caledonian critics is thus expressed: "With broken lyre, and cheek serenely pale,

Lo sad Alceus wanders down the vale!

Though fair they rose, and might have bloom'd at last

His hopes have wither'd by the northern blast.

Nipp'd in the bud, by Caledonian gales,
His blossoms wither as the blast prevails.

Yet say why should the bard at once resign
His claims to favour from the tuneful nine?

4

Forever startled by the mangled howl

Of northern wolves, that still in darkness prowl;

A coward brood, which mangle as they prey
By hellish instinct all who cross their way:
Aged or young, the living or the dead,
No mercy find; these harpies must be fed."