that he completed his education at a New Monthly Magazine, and, upon finishing school at Camberwell, upon | some disagreement with Mr. Colwhich Tom has some twenty good burn, editor of a magazine of his jokes in his Literary Reminiscences. own, bearing his own name. From Camberwell he went to Dun- Hood was a little below the dee, and soon after he was appren- middle size, with a grave face, ticed to his uncle, Mr. Robert which habitually wore an air of Sands, to learn the art and mystery melancholy. He was mistaken of engraving. Here he soon found more than once in Germany, he out the drift of his own genius; he tells us, for a regimental chaplain. left the burin for the pen, composed His mouth, he informs us, was a a few light pieces of poetry, got into little wry, as if it had always laughed notice, and, after Scott's death in on the wrong side. But Hood's 1821, became a sort of sub-editor of was no willow-pattern face. He the London Magazine. It was at was silent in mixed company; a this time that he acquired the friend- kind of Puritan in look, till an opship of Lamb, Hazlitt, Cary, Allan portunity for a joke appeared, Cunningham, Clare, and others, so which he rose at like a troutdelightfully pictured by Mr. Hood not, however, to be caught, but himself in his two short Li- to catch others; his countenance terary Reminiscences. A volume brightened up with the rising wit; of Odes and Addresses to Great you saw a play around his mouth; People gave him a rank and a re- his eyes sparkled, and all the genius putation in literature for something of the man stood full in the face done in a better kind of Colman before you. vein. It was some time, however, before the real author was known; and Coleridge, after two perusals, wrote and taxed Lamb with the authorship of the work. This was high praise, and, as the young lady said of Dr. Johnson, from one who could not lie, and could not be mistaken.

CHARACTERISTICS OF BYRON'S

WRITINGS.

Never had any writer so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, and despair. That Marah was never dry. No art could sweeten, no draughts could exhaust its perennial waters of bitterA Plea for the Midsummer Fairies ness. Never was there such variety was followed by a volume of Whims in monotony as that of Byron. From and Oddities, inscribed to Sir Wal- maniac laughter to piercing lamenter Scott; then came the Comic tation, there was not a single note of Annual, with its six or seven years human anguish of which he was not of clever and lively existence; then master. He always described himTylney Hall, a story in three vo- self as a man of the same kind with lumes, with one super-excellent cha- his favourite creations, as a man racter in it, called Unlucky Joe; whose heart had been withered, then Up the Rhine, the result of a whose capacity for happiness was residence on the banks of that hur-gone and could not be restored, but rying river; then Hood's Own, a whose invincible spirit dared the volume of cullings from his comic worst that could befall him here or lucubrations, with what he calls a hereafter. new infusion of blood for general How much of this morbid feelcirculation. Here he gave us his ing sprang from an original disease two short Literary Reminiscences of the mind, how much from real already alluded to. On Hook's misfortune, how much from the death, Hood became editor of the nervousness of dissipation, how

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259

gentlemen have so many real causes of sadness, that they are rarely inclined "to be as sad as night only for wantonness." Indeed, they want the power almost as much as the inclination.

much was fanciful, how much was merely affected, it is impossible for us, and would probably have been impossible for the most intimate friends of Lord Byron, to decide. Whether there ever existed, or can ever exist, a person answering to Among that large class of young the description which he gave of persons whose reading is almost himself may be doubted; but that entirely confined to works of imahe was not such a person is beyond gination, the popularity of Lord all doubt. It is ridiculous to ima- Byron was unbounded. They gine that a man whose mind was bought pictures of him: they treareally imbued with scorn of his sured up the smallest relics of him ; fellow-creatures, would have pub- they learned his poems by heart, and lished three or four books every did their best to write like him, and year in order to tell them so; or to look like him.. Many of them that a man who could say with practised at the glass in the hope of truth that he neither sought sym-catching the curl of the upper lip, pathy nor needed it, would have and the scowl of the brow, which apadmitted all Europe to hear his pear in some of his portraits. A few farewell to his wife, and his bless-discarded their neckcloths in imitaings on his child. In the second canto of Childe Harold, he tells us that he is insensible to fame and obloquy :

"Ill may such contest now the spirit

move,

Which heeds not keen reproof nor partial praise."

Yet we know, on the best evidence, that, a day or two before he published these lines, he was greatly, indeed childishly, elated by the compliments paid to his maiden speech in the House of Lords.

What our grandchildren may think of the character of Lord Byron, as exhibited in his poetry, we will not pretend to guess. It is certain, that the interest which he excited during his life is without a parallel in literary history. The feelings with which young readers of poetry regarded him can be conceived only by those who have exTo people who are perienced it. unacquainted with real calamity, "nothing is so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy." This faint image of sorrow has in all ages been considered by young gentlemen as an agreeable excitement. Old gentlemen and middle-aged

tion of their great leader. For some years the Minerva press sent forth no novel without a mysterious, unhappy, Lara-like peer. The number of hopeful undergraduates and medical students who became things of dark imaginings, on whom the freshness of the heart ceased to fall like dew, whose passions had consumed themselves to dust, and to whom the relief of tears was denied, passes all calculation.

This was not the worst. There was created in the minds of many of these enthusiasts a pernicious and absurd association between intellectual power and moral depravity.

This affectation has passed away; and a few more years will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical potency which once belonged to the name of Byron.-(Macaulay.)

CHARACTERS IN WRITING.

The characters of writing have followed the genius of the barbarous ages; they are well or ill formed, in proportion as the sciences have flourished more or less. Antiquaries remark, that the medals struck during the consulship

DEODATI AND DUMOULIN.

Deodati, professor at Geneva, was one day asked what he thought of the preaching of Dumoulin; to which he answered sneeringly, "Clear waters are never deep. Shortly afterwards, Deodati himself delivered a sermon, and Dumoulin was asked his opinion. Dumoulin, who had learned the remark of the critic, parodied the expression, and answered, “Deep waters are never clear."

of Fabius Pictor, about 250 years order to give them circulation; before Augustus, have the letters thus associating his own talents better formed than those of an with those of the Abbé. His inolder date. Those of the time of dignation, however, abated, when Augustus, and of the following he found that Boileau's satire, far age, show characters of perfect from being injurious to him, had beauty. Those of Diocletian, and completely brought him into faMaximian are worse formed than shion. those of the Antonines; and again, those of the Justins and Justinians degenerate into a Gothic taste. But it is not to medals only that these remarks are applicable; we see the same inferiority of written characters generally following in the train of barbarism and ignorance. During the first race of our kings, we find no writing which is not a mixture of Roman and other characters. Under the empire of Charlemagne and of Louis le Débonnaire, the characters returned almost to the same point of perfection which characterized them in the time of Augustus, but in the following age there was a relapse to the former barbarism; so that for four or five centuries we find only the Gothic characters in manuscripts; for it is not worth while making an exception for some short periods, which were somewhat more polished, and when there was less inelegance in the formation of the letters. (Melange, d'Histoire et de Litterature.)

HOW TO CIRCULATE A SATIRE.

Mignot, the famous pastry-cook, having learned that he had been ill-treated by Despreaux, in his third satire, brought an action against him; but finding that he was merely laughed at, he determined to be more effectually revenged. As he was celebrated for the excellence of his biscuits, and all Paris used to send for them to his shop, he caused to be printed, at his own expense, a great many copies of the Abbé Cotin's satire against Despreaux, and wrapped them round the biscuits he sold, in

ERASMUS' "COLLOQUIES."

Simon Colinet, a bookseller in Paris, in printing the Colloquies of Erasmus, threw off an impression of 80,000 copies. This number appears surprising; but we must recollect, that books were then more rare than they are now, and were consequently sought after with more avidity. The bookseller, also, had the address to circulate a report, that the Colloquies had been prohibited, in order to increase the demand-a device which was successful.

DON CARLOS.

Don Carlos, son of Philip II. of Spain, had composed a book on the subject of his father's travels, with the title, The Great and Wondrous Travels of King Philip. As these travels consisted merely_of excursions from Madrid to the Escurial, and from the Escurial to Madrid, Philip caused Don Carlos to be tried by the Inquisition. The cause of this unfortunate prince's death is not exactly known. Some say that his father put him to

INTELLECTUAL GLADIATORSHIP.

66

structed machines, which are put in motion by the impression of external substances that strike against them, and communicate to them a portion of their motion. Having put this machine on board a vessel, the captain had the curiosity to open the chest in which it was packed, and, surprised at the appearance of the automaton, which moved like an animated being, he got frightened, and threw it into the sea, thinking it was the devil.

DEDICATIONS.

very learned Hebraists. The ex-souls, and are merely well-conaminer, turning to M. Simon, asked him if he had any taste for this beautiful language? M. Simon observed, that he was acquainted with its elements, and had always had a peculiar pleasure in the study of the Scriptures in the original. "How delighted I am to hear it!" said the examiner;" and how seldom do we meet with minds so well-directed as yours! Tell me, however, what is the Hebrew name for Genesis?" Beresith,” replied M. Simon. The field being thus opened, the combat began; both parties became animated; they declaimed, they argued, they cited polyglots, and rabbis ancient and modern. The examiner, confounded at such a display of erudition, made but a feeble resistance. M. Simon pressed him, pushed him on all sides, and gave him no quarter. The examiner stumbled at last, and was fairly beaten down, and trampled under foot by his tremendous antagonist. The bishop, who laughed from his very heart, was delighted to witness and prolong the battle; but seeing that dinner was getting cold, and taking pity, too, on the discomfited examiner, he gave his benediction to M. Simon, assuring him that, next day, he and his brethren should be admitted to holy orders without farther examination. The prelate went to dinner, the examiner to dry the perspiration produced by the debate, and M. Simon to his lodging, along with his companions, laughing in his sleeve at the result of the examination. — (Melange, d'Histoire et de Litterature.)

DESCARTES.

Descartes, when in Holland, had, with a great deal of industry, constructed an automaton girl, (which gave rise to the report that he had a daughter named Franchine), in order to prove demonstratively that brutes have no

Authors are frequently but very ill repaid by those to whom they dedicate their books. The only reward which Theodore Gaza received from Sixtus IV. for his dedication of the Treatise of Aristotle on the Nature of Animals, was the price of the binding of his book, which the Pope generously repaid to him. Tasso was not more successful with his dedications. Ariosto, in presenting his poems to the Cardinal d'Este, was saluted with a sarcasm, which will be remembered as long as his works. The historian Dupliex, a very fertile author, presenting one of his books to the Duke of d'Epernin, that nobleman, turning abruptly towards the Pope's nuncio, who was present, remarked, "This is one of your breeding authors; he is delivered of a book every month."

BIBLIOMANIA.

The bibliomania has been on the increase among men of letters for a century past: and some wishing to form vast libraries, have searched not only the whole of Europe, but also the East, to discover ancient books and rare manuscripts; which has been the source of many impostures and ridiculous mistakes. Towards the close of last century, some cheats or ignorant persons sent over from India to Paris a number of Arabian manuscripts,