"carnal companie," he reveled in profanity, and, to hear his ribald jests, made maidens blush. So far, indeed, would his nature bear contrast, that, he would have been equally at home when, wasted by the heat of an Asiatic sun and withering Siroc, be might repose in coolness beneath the broken arch and temple, conjuring up grim shadows of old armies past away, contrasting the proud glory of learned and heroic Greece with the shame of the cowardly vassals whose careless song is e'en now beguiling his ear with its lightness; when he might wander with

groves of the Cingalese, embodying all thought in beautiful, redolent materiality, scenting even an immortal Paradise in the ravishing sweetness of a perfumed atmosphere; as when, standing alone at midnight, in the deep darkness of a polar season, when the moon rides high, and the stars shine unclouded, when the dry icicles crackle in the breeze, and sparkle as they fall shivered into tiny diamonds, the solemn spirit of metaphysical contemplation thrills a low symphony of feeling and of awe that the melting rays of a southern sun could never reach.

in his time. There are poets, too, who, with hard and honest hand, could lead us more at ease through the peasant's humble door, and open to us freely there the gushing fount of simple love, and sincere and innocent and homely pleasure, and the sweet joys of peaceful rest. Such could Burns, and such could Florian. There are poets who, with measured tread, could lead us a more majestic walk upon classic terraces, and withdraw us further from the commonalities of life. Such is Homer, and Virgil, and Tasso, and Pope. There are poets of wiser and more practical philosophy, who could feel and ap-out a care or elevating thought amid the cinnamon preciate the poetry of wisdom; like Schiller: and there are poets, too, like Ariosto, who could glide and curvet about his pen, performing strange feats of ideal legerdemain in a perfect gymnasium of poetry, from whom Byron, like almost all others, must turn away in helpless laughter. There is never a time when a mind at all appreciative of poetry, and unburthened of immediately oppressing cares, cannot seize upon some one of these styles, according to its passing humor, and enjoy it with infinite satisfaction, until its too unvaried strain becomes wearisome. How admired and popular, then, would be a poet, whose happy tone could blend these seemingly heterogeneous qualities in its material, and afford spicy food savory to every whim and phase of appetite! Such, in a great measure, is Horace, and hence, in a measure, his untiring popularity through all ages. Such was Shakspeare, who, though he did not possess the ultraism of Byron, was a thousand times more philosophical; and who, could he have exchanged conditions, accidental circumstances with Lord Byron, inherited his name and title, worn his garb of romance and his air of eccentricity among modern women who would but flatter it to a disease, had shone a luminous sun of poetry, whilst Byron but passed as a flashy meteor. Finally, such, too, was Byron, with this distinctive mark, that in him the melange is more perceptible, continuous, never ceases; and hence, in a great measure, his popularity to the end of time. He was always thoughtful, observant, meditative, verbose, and often wrote great poems under the inspiration of the moment. He was equally at home in grave and gay, in lively and severe, in tender and morose, in. grand, in trifling, in voluptuous. He stood equally at home in his listless boat upon the stilly lake naveled among the hills, soothed by the softer influences afloat on Nature's bosom; and on the heaving deck amid torn ocean's roar, loving the unearthly terrors. He stood equally at home amid the bowers of a sunny and sea-girt isle, his soul melting for the moment, into ecstasies of voluptuous love; and amid bare mountain pates and wintry pyramids of snow, amid rugged rocks, and clefts, and crags, that rend the mighty thunder as it speeds; communing, with blanched face and swelling mind, with the angry spirits of Storm and Solitude. He was equally at home when, dejected and melancholy, he "poured through the mellow horn his plaintive soul," and sighed and mourned in loneliness, making maidens weep; and when, fired by the poisoned cup and

So great was Byron's versatility; and, yielding ever to the influence of the moment, so did he throw off at times the characteristic poetry of all climes, all people, and all moods: and, if there is no one kind in which he has not been surpassed; through his versatility and boldness his fame has not dimmed in the contrast. The characteristic of southern poetry is a materializing even of the spiritual; that of northern poetry, a spiritualizing, an etherealizing even of the material. Even the northern and southern tongues, though all springing from the same root, are modified and characterized by the tone and natural feeling which climate and association have diversified. In southern tongues, sounds seem such as those that the soul of music and of feeling might give vent to, as through the lips it passes to liberty away; in northern tongues sounds seem such as the soul of thought and feeling might mutter when their confined power is aroused to action within us. How different and characteristic are Lord Byron's descrip tions where, in one, describing the voluptuous Dudu, he says with true southern softness:

"She was not violently lively, but

Stole on your senses like a May-day breaking." Ekeing out the materialized comparison with redundant melody; and when, with stern northern contemplation he realizes that

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes By the deep sea, and music in its roar. I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal." Is there not something still pent up here, still a cud for feeling, still something that the very sounds confine within us unmigratory; something, in the utterance of which we feel no relief of the burthen of feeling? Does it not seem that the southern laborer goes forth into the bright fields, and labors in imita

"Sotto due negri, e sottilissimi archi
Son due negri occhi, anzi due chiari soli,
Pietosi a riguardar, a mover parchi."

And then,

tion of Nature's external beauties, singing his feeling | minds which are utterly earthly and are not Satanic; away to the air; whilst the northern man bears his but this is owing solely to their supineness and material to his home, and there revolves and fashions incapacity. A mind essentially active, grasping, his productions from the depth and cunning of his comprehensive; its vast faculties born of Heaven, dreamy mind? How warmed by the brightness and yet thwarted and diverted to passion and sensuality; harmony of the external world must not Ariosto have succumbing, not only without resistance, but with been when, in the seventh canto of the "Orlando," infinite relish to the passing whim; courting voluphe portrays the exceeding beauty of Alcina, com- tuousness, and reveling in it; conceiving stupendous bining all that was most beautiful for eyes to and holy thoughts, yet wantonly blasting them, to look upon! joy in their sad and terrible destruction; understanding the most hidden depths of human weakness, and human tenderness, and human feeling, yet exploring but to profane; gifted with the finest appreciation of beauty and pleasure, yet gorging to satiety, intoxication, disgust-then turning in selfishness, hatred and malice from all that is good; such a mind, I say, is earthly, nay more, in its unbridled license it is devilish. Had Satan freed from fire, and sent on earth a fiend, a fiend damned for hatred, selfishness and wanton malice, to be the chief among English poets, this poet would have written in Byronic style, and with Byronic humor; with more ability, perhaps, but not with greater fidelity to his court; nor would the infernal glare of his fierce and voluptuous sentiment be more apparent. Byron touched no beauty that he did not wither; no virtue, no holy feeling that he did not mock. Why was it? It was by reason of the deep-seated malice of his thought. Womanly

"Sotto quel sta, quasi fra due vallette,
La bocca sparsa di natio cinabro;
Quivi due filze son di perle elette,

Che chiude ed apre un bello e dolce labro:
Quindi escon le cortesi parolette

Da render molle ogni corrozzo e scabro:
Quivi si forma quel soave riso,

Ch' apre a sua porta in terra il paradiso."

A perfect Paradise of material delights must have been Tasso's garden of Armida, in the XV. Canto of the Jerusalem. Yet in these things does Byron so often approach to the rivalry of Tasso and Ariosto, both in his appreciation of sensual beauty, and in his grace of diction, that this alone, in many minds, would have stamped him as a great poet. Nevertheless, when other natures step in to judgment, they behold him at times glorying in the midst of an Al-beauty in his hands was a plaything, womanly weak, pine storm, exulting in the lightning, muttering, tone for tone, the loud crash of thunder; rejoicing and abroad upon the night like a fierce passion let loose, breathing life and soul and the voice of loud defiance, into the solid mountains.

"O night,

And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along
From peak to peak the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers from her misty shroud
Back to the joyous Alps who call on her aloud!

And this is in the night: most glorious night!
Thou wert not made for slumber!-let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and fair delight-
A portion of the tempest and of thee.
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again 't is black-and now the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth."
Heavens! what a terrible fascination in the fellow!
Here is shown not only the weird psychology of the
north, but another great illustration of Lord Byron's
humor; for what but a spirit racy of the lower re-
gions, could invoke that loud and awful warring of
the elements, that darting to and fro from crag to
crag, of deadly thunderbolt, as a fair, congenial de-
light; and long to claim kindred with, and become a
part of the destroying emissary?

How, then, shall we characterize Lord Byron's poetry, and make plain the mystery of its singularity? How shall we assert that its charm is simple, and prove its simplicity, evolving it from the intricacies of Romance? Be it remembered that I said Lord Byron was totally, utterly earthly: yet I say his poetry is Satanic. This is no paradox. There are

ness a delight, woman's fall a glory, and woman's virtue a scorn. He could gaze on the stars, and the mountains, and the ocean, but he could not see and feel the poetry of their creation and government, as the stupendous works of God's hand, and as types and illustrations of scientific, and universal, and eternal law. He drew down the very stars from Heaven to minister to mere sentiment of man's or woman's humor. He could draw the most pleasing picture for gratified sensibilities to pour upon, rejoicing; and with fell joy he would dash it o'er, gloating in the destruction of all moral beauty. Among the darker, deadlier passions of revenge and hatred he was perfectly at ease: any passion, whatsoever, was to his mind savory food; and there exists no passion of lightest or heaviest grade, that Byron has not felt. His mental existence was in a sphere of passion; in it did he live; by it was he ruled; and

by the odor of passion is his poetry characterized. Let me then term it a poetry of passion, wild sentiment, and moral riot; earthly, diabolical, as you will -it is all the same. Let me call it original, bold, audacious. Let me call it a mingling of northern superstitious etherealism, and southern brilliancy and materialism. Let me call it wandering, astray, without principle or guide; without aim, or any motive but the fitful blasts of his own caprice and passion. Let me call it self-esteem and praise, scorn of the moral judgment of the world, scorn of true humanity, and glory in one's own contempt and wickedness; and I have characterized Lord Byron's poetry, and unraveled the mystery of its charm.

Concerning Byron's character as a man, little need be said to prove its double littleness. From every

man, no matter how low his capacity, something | romance, character, all are truthfully told in that one good, something useful is expected; and he who stanza. 'Tis useless to dwell upon it.

That he had his inspirations of religious truth, which are common to all men, one may read abun

Poor Byron seemed to grow sober and reflective, as
the last Canto waned away. He could see the Al-
mighty's form glassed in the tempest, calm or con-
vulsed; in its never-ending oscillation, the image of
Eternity; in its incomprehensibility, "the throne of
the Invisible." The first time (how melancholy to
him must have been the feeling!) that he ever longed
to be associated with exalted womanly virtue, was,
when in the CXVII. stanza-he breaks forth:
"Ye elements!-in whose ennobling stir
I feel myself exalted-can ye not
Accord me such a
being?""

meets not this natural, this rational expectation, merits the stigma of littleness of character. To some men are given high conceptions, deep penetra-dantly in his works, especially in "Childe Harold." tion, exalted feelings and impulses, and energy of mind: yet, if they meet not the rational expectation of greater good, greater utility than is the average offspring of lowlier men, they merit the stigma of littleness of character; and if they produce no good at all, they are doubly little. If not only this, but they positively pervert those gifts to the detriment of others, they are trebly little. Nay, more--a man's littleness, if he pervert his gifts, does not increase in direct ratio with his relative capacities; but I feel that I am justified in applying here the mathematical law of gravitation, and in saying that his littlenessmeasured on God's measure of mankind-increases as the square of his distance above the average capacity of his race. How much, then, must the greatest admirers of Lord Byron; those who seem struck with awe before the mountain of his stupendous power, despise, in their inmost heart, his utter, utter littleness! Truly may we comprise him in the Latin poet's pithy words-"Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus."

No man is great who has not the strength of mind to work utility from vast resources, and is able, besides, to appreciate the necessity of working that utility, in spite of whim, humor, flattery, success or misfortune: yet not one sentiment, of benefit to mankind or individual, amongst those now ministering upon this earth of trial, of suffering, and of temptation, can claim paternity in Lord Byron. As his poetry is a poetry of passion unregulated by principle, so was the life of his feelings and his intellect, a life of unbridled license. Let no one put forth, in extenuation, that he often meant well; and that his venom, when he spat it, was the secretion of unhappiness and misfortune; for we have no proof, no reason to believe that he ever meant well, but his own assertionwhich is singular when contrasted with his life and his writings; and as to his sufferings, he courted, nursed suffering as the theme of all his writings. How strangely does the assertion of his moral intent,

in his farewell to the "Childe," contrast with the confession of the truth which a moment of intoxication beguiled from him in the II. Canto of Don Juan! In the one we read

"Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain,

If such there were-with you, the moral of this strain."
In the other, where his true character speaks-

"As for the ladies I have nought to say

A wanderer from the British world of fashion,
Where I, like other dogs, have had my day,
Like other men, too, may have had iny passion-
But that, like other things, has passed away,

And all her fools whom I could lay the lash on,
Foes, friends, men, women, now are nought to me
But dreams of what has been, no more to be."
Shall we say that he lies, or that he only writes the
first crazy thing that comes uppermost in his brain?
I prefer the latter-or both; for they equally prove
that he had no positive intent of good. His history,

And how unmistakably does he not confess himself a stranger to it, as he continues

"Do I err

In deeming such inhabit many a spot?
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot."
Frequently the circumstance of association seemed
to be the channel through which the rejected grace

of faith was poured upon his soul. As he enters

the portals of the church of churches, the mausoleum of the prince of the apostles, his gifted light shines forth

"But thou, of temples old or altars new, Standest alone-with nothing like to theeWorthiest of God, the holy and the true." This last line seems to belie the opinion that Byron never saw any thing in religion but the poetry of it: it sounds like an involuntary revelation of interior conviction. Again

"the mind

Has grown colossal, and can only find A fit abode wherein appear enshrined Thy hopes of immortality: and thou Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined, See thy God face to face, as thou dost now His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow." Yet, poor, weak, fickle, terrified man! How often does he turn from the afflatus of Revelation, to build again his temple of doubt and despair, upon the mere caprice of his humor! Fickle, most fickle ground. It well nigh makes one weep to hear his melancholy breathing:

"Son of the morning, rise! approach you here! Come, but molest not yon defenseless urn: Look on this spot-a nation's sepulchre! Abode of gods whose shrines no longer burn. Even gods must yield-religions take their turn: 'T was Jove's, 't is Mahomet's-and other creeds Will rise with other years, till man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds; Poor child of doubt and death, whose hope is built on reeds."

"Poor child of doubt and death" we will then term thee, Byron; we will grieve over thy sorrows and thy wrongs, pitying thee: we will melt over thy gushing tenderness which, ever and anon, pleads with so soft a feeling, so sweet a melody, that every warm heart feels drawn toward thee in sympathy: we will mourn with thy desponding; and over thy wavering and despair we will drop a tear; and so pass thee on to the mysterious judgments of thy God, where thou art gone!

:

I cannot dismiss this subject without a word in affinity is God's own beauty: through the poetic harregard to the influence of Lord Byron's writings on mony and relationship that reigns throughout the the minds of readers. To the reader whose princi-universe, can we arrive at the knowledge of God; ples and faith are fixed, defined, there are few dangers; for there is scarcely any attempt in all Byron's works, at either philosophy or sophistry: but to one whose tone of sentiment and feeling is to be moulded, or can, to any extent, be moulded, there is most pernicious danger, ruin. There is an irresistible charm and brilliancy that enchant; for, all veneration Byron cast aside, and he touches, handles the most sublime with an audacious boldness that dazzles him who does not tremble. This infatuating allurement seems to me to consist principally in the contrastive. The poetry of harmony and law had little affinity with Byron's wayward fancy; and there is more of that eclat in the contrasts of nature physical and metaphysical, which astonishes, which raises emotions in us with infinitely less labor to ourselves, than through the process of analysis or progressive contemplation. As a jeu de mot sparkles and delights by the approximation, through mere fancy, of things essentially opposite-and the more diametrically opposite, the greater the pleasurable surpriseso is it in poetry: the poetry of harmony raises and refines by softening, expanding the mind, whilst the poetry of contrast but dazzles without leaving an impress; it runs together colors before unassociated, that play and flash, like fire-works, around each other with the centripetal force of fancied homogeneousness, and the centrifugal power of real dissimilitude, astonishing with novelty; or, through the same power of fancy, heap together heterogeneous ideas in fantastic association, that surprise us by their fictitious harmony. One poetry is that of truth, the other that of fancy. The poetry of truth and real

through that do we see him in his works, and through that do we gradually rise to the homage of veneration whilst the poetry of only fancy prompts us to create our own beauty, despising the guidance of veneration; to overlook the divine intellect in its works, and to accustom ourselves to the neglect of religion and principle, in our contemplations. Whoever has read Byron cannot but remember how often he has been dazzled by the boldness of the poet's flights of contrast; and upon reflection, will confess that he has seen in them, most apparently, the giddy raving of utter moral recklessness. He will confess that he perceives the intellectual epicure delivered, in self-abandonment, a prey to his fevered imagination; his accursed appetite ever on edge, at the scent of strife, and blood, and tumult, and black passion, and pride, and soft voluptuousness. He will confess that when the poor, sated mortal yearned for rest, it was not the rest of peace; but retirement in a far-off nook, apart from the society of men, wherein he could pass his hours in greater unreserve, to chew the cud of gorged passion, or hide his childish tears of self-earned melancholy. Let no one then pour his sentiment into the mould of Lord Byron's recklessness; for that would be destruction; and in this, it seems to me, lies the only danger. Yet there is a pervading, seductive beauty that might thrill an angel's bosom, in a moment of forgetfulness; and there are few conceptions, no matter from what inspired source they may spring, which, in their decided earthly limitation, the powers of darkness could not with malignant meaning consistently en

core.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOARDING-HOUSE.

BY CORNELIA CAROLLA.