first to her parents of all her husband's sins. It would have been most painful-how painful we may not even be able to conjecture. But since duty demanded a disclosure, that disclosure ought, in spite of all repugnance, to have been complete to a single syllable. How weak and worse than weak-at such a juncture-ou which hung her whole fate-to ask legal advice on an imperfect document ! Give the delicacy of a virtuous woman its due; but at such a crisis, when the question was, whether her conscience was to be free from the oath of oaths, delicacy should have died, and nature was privileged to show unashamed-if such there were-the records of uttermost pollution.

Shepherd. And what think ye, sir, that a' this pollution could hae been that sae electrified Dr. Lushington ?*

North. Bad-bad-bad, James. Nameless, it is horrible,-named, it might leave Byron's memory yet within the range of pity and forgiveness-and where they are, their sister affections will not be farthough, like weeping seraphs, standing aloof, and veiling their wings.

Shepherd. She should indeed hae been silent-till the grave had

closed on her sorrows as on his sins.

North. Even now she should speak-or some one else for hersay her father or her mother (are they alive?) and a few words will suffice. Worse the condition of the dead man's name cannot be-far, far better it might-I believe it would be-were all the truth, somehow or other, declared-and declared it must be, not for Byron's sake only, but for the sake of humanity itself—and then a mitigated sentence-or eternal silence.

Shepherd. And what think ye o' the twa Tummasses?

North. I love and admire them both-their character as well as their genius. I care not a straw for either. They are great poets—I am no poet at all

Shepherd. That's a lee-you see. and better than a' their poetry.

"

Your prose is as gude ony day,

North. Stuff. They are, to use Mr. Campbell's expressions about Mr. Moore, men of popularity and importance." I possess but little of either though the old man is willing to do his best, and sometimes

Shepherd. Hits the richt nail on the head wi' a sledge-hammer, like auld Vulcan Burniwind fashionin' swurds, spears, and helmits, for

Achilles.

North. Mr. Moore's biographical book I admired-and I said so to my little world-in two somewhat lengthy articles, which many ap

* Dr. Lushington, an eminent lawyer, now (1854) Judge of the Consistory and the Admiralty Courts of England, was consulted by Lady Byron, and, or her ea parte statement, declared it impossible for her to live with her husband agai What he shewing was is a secret, and therefore gues for nothing, as well as the opinion upon it.-M.

BYRON, MOORE, AND CAMPBELL.

37

proved, and some, I am sorry to know, condemned. Obstinacy is no part of my character, and should it be shown that my estimate of Byron, up to the fatal marriage, was, as one whom I greatly esteem thinks, antichristian,-forthcoming shall be my palinode. The petty, and paltry, and poisonous reptiles who crawl slimily over his bones, I kick not into their holes and crannies, out of respect to my shoes. Shepherd. Sharp-pinted!

North. Mr. Moore thought better of Lord Byron than many-perhaps than most men do-but he had opportunities of judging which few men had-and I see no more reason for doubting his sincerity than his talents. These are unquestionable; and though I dissent entirely from some opinions advanced in his book, I will not suffer any outcry raised against it, either by people of power or weakness, to shake my belief in the general excellence of its spirit.

Shepherd. Nor me. It's an interesting and impressive quarto.

North. Mr. Moore spoke what he believed to be the truth. If he has drawn too favourable a character of Byron, time will correct it; but he has no reason to be ashamed of the portrait. The original sat to him often, and in many lights.* But a man's soul is not like his face and may wear a veil of hypocrisy, so transparent as to be invisible to the unsuspecting eyes of friendship. Who will blame Mr. Moore bitterly, if he were indeed deceived?

Shepherd. No me, for ane. I like Muir.

North. And he likes you, James, and admires you too, as all other men do whose liking and admiration are worth the Shepherd's regard. It is most unfair-unjust-unreasonable and absurd-to test the truth of what he has said by Lady Byron's letter. That letter astounded the whole world-opened their eyes, but to dazzle and blind them; and even they who abuse his biographer, are as wise now about Byron as they were before-as much in the dark about facts for which they go groping about with malign leer, like satyrs in a wood.

Shepherd. But Mr. Campbell's no o' that class.

North. No, indeed. But Mr. Campbell-one of the best of poets and of men-does not well to be so angry with his brother bard. He acknowledges frankly-and frankness is one of his delightful qualitiesthat before he saw Lady Byron's Remarks, he did not know that she was so perfectly blameless as he now knows she is-and, pray, how could Mr. Moore know it either? Nobody did or could know it-nor, had all the ingenuity alive been taxed to conjecture an explanation of "My dear Duck," could it have hit on the right one-a belief in Lady Byron's mind of her husband's insanity! Mr. Moore believed (erroneously we now know,) with all the rest of the world, that Lady Byron

* Moore threw in som of the shadows, too: read his account of Byron's amours at Venice.-M.

had been induced by her parents to change her sentiments and resolutions, and therefore he used-and at the time was warranted in using, the terms, "deserted husband."

Shepherd. Completely sae.

North. As to applying for information to Lady Byron on such a subject, that was utterly impossible; nor do I see how, or even why— under the circumstances he should have applied to Mrs. Leigh.* Thinking that some slight blame might possibly attach-or say, at ouce, did attach, to Lady Byron-and more to her parents-he said so-but he said so gently, and tenderly, and feelingly-so I thinkwith respect to Lady Byron herself; though it would have been better -even had the case not stood as we now know it stands-had he not printed any coarse expression of Byron's about the old people.

Shepherd. You're a queer-lookin' auld man-and your manners, though polished up to the finest and glossiest pitch o' the gran' auld school--noo nearly obsolete-sometimes rather quaint and comical,— but for soun' common sense, discretion, and wisdom, I kenna your equal; you can untie a Gordian knot wi' ony man; the kittler a question is, the mair successful do you grapple wi't; and it's a sublime sicht—no without a tinge o' the fearsome-to see you sittin' on Stridin-Edge like a man on horseback on the turnpike road, and without usin' your hanns, but haudin the crutch aloft, descendin' alang that ridge, wi' precipices and abysses on every side o' you, in which, were you to lose your seat, you wad be dashed in pieces sma' like a potter's sherd,--from the cloud-and-mist region whare nae flower blooms, and nae bee bums, though a rainbow a' the while overarches you, doon safely to the greensward round the shingly margin o' Red-Tarn, and there sittin' a' by yoursell on a stane, like an eemage or a heron.

North. I do not think, that, under the circumstances, Mr. Campbell himself, had he written Byron's Life, could have spoken-with the sentiments he tells us he then held-in a better, more manly, and more gentlemanly spirit, in so far as regards Lady Byron, than Mr. Moore did; and I am sorry that he has been deterred from swimming through Mr. Moore's work, by the fear of "wading"-for the waters are clear and deep, nor is there any mud either at the bottom or round the margin.

Shepherd. Oh! but I like thae bit rural touches-in which you naturally excel, haen had the benefit-an incalculable ane-a sacred

* Augusta Byron, step-sister to the poet, became the wife of Colonel Leigh, and died a few years ago. Byron was much attached to her, and some of his most beautiful lyrics (including The Castled Crag of Drachenfels," in Childe Harold) were addressed to her. The Hon. Mrs. Leigh, wno was older than Byron, bore no personal resemblance to him, being tall and thin in person, and angular in features. But I have seldom heard a more desirable voice,-which, like Cordel a's,

"Was ever soft,

Gentle, and low-an excellent thing in woman."

Her grand-daughter, Miss Trevanion, who resides at Ramsgate, in England, has written some very good poetry.-M.

blessing o' leevin' in the kintra in boyhood and youth--and sae in auld age, glimpses o' the saft green o' natur' visit the een o' your imagination amidst the stour and reek o' the stane-city, and tinge your town-talk wi' the colouring o' the braes.

North. I am proud o' your praise, my dear James, prouder of your friendship, proudest of your fame.

Shepherd, (squeezing MR. NORTH's hand.) Does Mr. Cammel say that he kens the cause o' the separation?

North. I really cannot make out whether he says so or not, but I hope he does; for towards the close of his letter he acknowledges, I think, that we may still love and admire Byron, provided we look at all things in a true light. If so, then the conduct which was the cause cannot have been so black as the imagination left to itself, in the present mystery, will sometimes suggest.

Shepherd. That's consolatory.

North. Mr. Campbell and Mr. Moore-after so slight a quarrel-if quarrel it be will be easily reconciled.* The poets of "Gertrude of Wyoming," and of "Paradise and the Peri," must be brothers. If Mr. Campbell has on this matter shown any failings-" they lean to virtue's side;" let ducks and geese nibble at each other in their quackery, but let amity be between the swans of Thames, whether they soar far off in flight through the ether, or glide down the pellucid waters, beautifully and majestically breasting the surges created by their own course, and bathing their white plumage in liquid diamonds.

Shepherd. Floorey and pearly!

North. I see a set of idle apprentices flinging stones at them both— but they all fall short with an idle splash, and the two royal birds sail away off amicably together to a fairy isle in the centre of the lake— where for the present I leave them,—and do you, my dear James, put across the toddy.

* The reconciliation soon took place, for, in the following year, Moore became one of the contributors to Campbells Metropolitan Magazine. In some lines, on receiving a present of Crabbe's inkstand from his sons, written in May, 1832, Moore gracefully alludes to the quarrel, by refer ring to a day on which Rogers, Crabbe, and himself, were sole guests of Campbell, some years before;

"All were guests of one, whose hand
Hath shed a new and deathless ray
Around the lyre of this great land.

In whose sea-odes-as in those shells
Where Ocean's voice of mystery
Seems still to sound-immortal dwells
Old Albion's Spirit of the Sea.

Such was our host; and though, since then
Slight clouds have risen 'twixt him and me

Who would not grasp such hand again,
Stretched forth again in amity?

Who can, in this short life, afford

To let such mists a noment stay,
When thus one frank, atoning word-
Like sunshine melts them all away."

Shepherd. The toddy! You've been sip-sippin' awa' at it for the last hour, out o' the verra jug-and never observed that you had broken the shank o' your glass. Noo and then I took a taste, too, just to show you the absurdity of your conduct by reflection. But you was sae absorbed in your ain sentiments, that you would nae hae noticed it, gin for the Dolphin I had substituted the Tower o' Babel! Na! if you hae na been quaffin the pure speerit!

North. Twill do me no harm-but good. 'Tis M'Neill and Donovan's best, 6 Howard Street, Norfolk Street, Strand, London. They charm the Cockneys with the cretur pure from Islay,--and this is a presentation specimen full of long and strong life.

(TICKLER and the ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER advance from the Niche.)

Shepherd. What 'n a face! As lang's an ell wand. You've gotten yoursell drubbed again at the brodd, I jalouse, Mr. Tickler. A thousand guineas!

Tickler. Fortune forsook Napoleon-and I need not wonder at the fickleness of the jade. Our friend is a Phillidor.

Shepherd. I never heard afore that chess was a chance-ggemm. Tickler. Neither was the game played at Waterloo-yet Fortune backed Wellington, and Bonaparte fled.

Shepherd. But was ye near makin' a drawn battle o't?

Tickler. Hem-hem.

Opium-Eater. Like Marmont at Salamanca, by excess of science, Southside outmanœuvred himself—and thence fall and flight. He is a great General.

Tickler. There is but one greater.

Shepherd. So said Scipio of Hannibal.

Tickler. And Hannibal of Scipio.

North. And Zanga of Alonzo—

"Great let me call him, for he conquer'd me."

Shepherd. Let's hae, before we sit doon to soop, a ggemn pyramid.

Opium-Eater. Sir?

Shepherd. You maun be the awpex.

Opium-Eater. And the Shepherd the base. But I am in the dark.

Pray?

Shepherd. Wull you promise to do as you're bidden, and to ax nae questions?

Opium-Eater. I swear, by Styx.

Shepherd. Weel done, Jupiter. Up wi' ye, then, on my back. Jump ontil that chair-then ontil the table-and then ontil my shouthers.