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Lord Byron, and his musical friends, Messrs. Braham and Nathan.t

After what we have said we must be considered as looking for very exalted qualities in an imitator of Hebrew poetry, and a composer of music fit to become its vehicle. Genuine Hebrew poetry was cradled and educated in the family of Religion, and in its true genius and character it carries the credentials of its high origin and cast. The writer ought, in a manner, to come out of the schools of the prophets. He should know his Bible, believe his Bible, and love his Bible, to write with true feeling upon the subjects of the Bible. Hitherto Lord Byron's Muse has had much more connection with the Koran than with the sacred register of all truth. With her pellisse in disorder, her zone unbuckled, her cheek suffused, the Muse of Lord Byron steps forth from the polluted precincts of the seraglio, from her couch of roses and glittering kiosk, into the courts of the Lord's house. From such an inspirer of the lay we should not have required a "Melody in our heaviness," nor have asked for "one of the songs of Sion;" nor should we have desired such minstrels as she has made use of " to take the psalm," to "bring hither the tabret, the merry harp, and the lute.'

Upon the whole, we do not think that Lord Byron makes a better figure with his Jewish minstrelsy, than Lord George Gordon with his rabbinical beard; and if he persists in this perversion of his genius, we shall really be tempted to think him as little in his right senses, as the nobleman to whom we have alluded. It was as natural for the Jewish high priest to be made a member, as we are told he was, of the Legion of Honour, as for the author of the Childe Harold, the Giaour, and Corsair, to take up the Levitical function. Lord Byron is not very likely to accept advice from the British Review; we have never been in extremes towards him as to praise or censure, and have never had to atone by flattery for past offences. But if he would take our advice, he would tell his minstrels to hang their “harps upon the trees," and would refuse to write any more Hebrew melodies. But if Hebrew melodies he still will write, would that he would say to us,

Quanam re instructus comparebo coram Jehova?" We should be happy, in the words of Balaam, to tell him to "walk humbly with his God," or, in other words, by his previous study of the Holy Scriptures, to draw largely from the well of everlasting life a purer water than the fountains of Helicon could afford him to learn from that blessed hook, not how to write on Jewish topics, but how

"To shame the doctrine of the Sadducees."

Let him read it not in order to become a poet, bat in order to become a humble believer in what it inculcates, and then the true scriptural elevation of mind will follow, without which not even the genius of Lord Byron (which we love to commend, and which we have always thought much too good to be dissipated on Turkish love tales and fantastic freebooters) will rise to the level of sacred poetry. But above all, if Lord Byron is to become a writer of sacred poetry, he must immediately begin by estranging his Muse from bad company. He must have nothing to do with those Moabitish melodies, fitted only for the high_places and groves of Baal, and which the virgin daughter of Zion cannot hear without pollution: and his Lordship will remember that by doing so he will but be consistent and parallel with himself in an early stage of his poetical career, when he declared in a work of greater excellence in its kind than any thing of the same descrip→ tion since the Dunciad and Macflecno, that

"Grieved to condemn, the Muse must still be just,
Nor spare melodious advocates of lust."

If we could be assured that this would be the cygnea cantio of this modern Moses, we would say nothing in particular of these productions, contented with generally condemning, as we have done, the prematurity of the effort. But as we suppose the -specimen which has been given is to be followed by others, we consider it as due to the sacredness of scripture subjects, as well as to the laws and principles of good poetry in general, to say that the "Hebrew Melodies" are performances of a very trum pery description, such as “ many men, many women, and some children," we doubt not, are capable of producing.

Virgil's Venus was known by her walk-" vera incessu patuit Dea:" but who the lady is in the first of Lord Byron's melodies that "walks in beauty," we are totally at a loss to conjecture, We will hand her over to the reader, that he may try what he can make of her.

"She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
"One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!"

So much for this walking beauty, whom, as she seems to affect solitude, we should be much disposed to suffer to walk alone, as we take her to be a very dull companion. She is altogether a very non-descript kind of personage, whether we regard her as "walking like night," or as having "all that's best of dark and bright in her eyes and aspect;" but what the particularities of this lady have to do with Hebrew circumstances or characteristics, either of time, place, or action, we cannot divine, unless indeed the "cloudless climes and starry skies" are supposed to give to the poem its specific and appropriate character. We hope these lines are not made to conclude each stanza for the sake of the miserable jingle of its cacophonous alliteration.

The next melody, in which the power of king David's lyre is celebrated (though certainly made up of better materials than the one last mentioned, which only tells us of a beauty that walks and is perfectly harmless) has neither the simplicity nor the warm extravagance of the oriental poetry. It is a mere string of trite images in a very modern, birth-day, laureate sort of dress.

The philosophic air of the third melody is but little allied to Hebrew manners or sentiments, nor can any reason having the semblance of propriety be suggested for putting it where it is. The only doubt in the poem is, whether our earthly friendships will survive and be continued in Heaven. The line, therefore, which supposes us to "cling to being's severing link," is unsuitable to the prevailing idea. His Lordship forgot he was not at that moment in the character of an universal sceptic, but a partial doubter on a point about which the orthodox may be permitted to hesitate, and to admit his ignorance. The stanza is as follows:

"It must be so: 'tis not for self

That we so tremble on the brink;
And striving to o'erleap the gulph,
Yet cling to being's severing link.
Oh! in that future let us think

To hold each heart the heart that shares,
With them the immortal waters drink,

And soul in soul grow deathless theirs!" (P. 7, 8.)

The Melody which next succeeds has more merit than any one of the number, and has certainly a connexion with Hebrew events and places. One cannot but remark, however, that the

foremost rank in the memory of Judah's sons appears to be filled not by their temple, the place whereof world know it no more, but by the lost delight which was imparted by Judah's fair inhabitants and stately maids. It may be served, that the stately maids are wanderers as their lovers are, but that to their temple, and the glory of the temple, which they could not carry with them, the privileges, the locality, and the grandeur of the Jewish nation were inseparably united.

The two succeeding Melodies represent the sorrows of the Jews at seeing their beloved Judah under the domination of the infidel oppressor. They are something like the love-letters which a man composes for his friend, who happens to be no scholar, very fine, but very stiff, very unappropriate, and very unnatural. We have some special exceptions to both these last specimens which we cannot stop to dilate upon; and if we had time, we should revolt at the task. It is to the last stanza of each of them, and particu larly to the last line of the fifth, that we principally object..

The stanzas on the sacrifice of Jephtha's Daughter are the unhappiest of the whole of these performances. The sentiments are out-done in deteriority by the metre, which is a sort of jumping anapast, that would have suited the circumstances of the unhappy maid much better when she came out with timbrels and dances to meet her father, than when she was invoking the performance of his vow. The verses are as follow:

"Since our Country, our God-Oh, my Sire!
Demand that thy Daughter expire;

Since thy triumph was bought by thy vow
Strike the bosom that's bared for thee now!

"And the voice of my mourning is o'er,
And the mountains behold me no more:
If the hand that I love lay me low,
There cannot be pain in the blow!

"And of this, oh, my Father! be sure-
That the blood of thy child is as pure
As the blessing I beg ere it flow,

And the last thought that soothes me below.

"Though the virgins of Salem lament,
Be the judge and the hero unbent!
I have won the great battle for thee,
And my Father and Country are free!

"When this blood of thy giving hath gush'd,
When the voice that thou lovest is hush'd,
Let my memory still be thy pride,

And forget not I smiled as I died!" (P. 13, 14.)

The rest of the melodies hold no correspondence with the title. Why they were added nobody can see any reason, except that a book was to be made, music was prepared, and a few rhyming lines, with a few poetical figures and combinations, under the sanc tion of Lord Byron's name, would be sure of a sale. And so it has turned out: for every musical miss deems it necessary to be furnished with Lord Byron's Hebrew Melodies, and to find in them some beauties which escape the research of the vulgar.

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One genuine Hebrew poem of the amatory kind is consecrated by its place in the holy volume. That poem, in the judgment of the wisest men and best Hebrew scholars, involves an esoteric and recondite sense, a sublime and mystic allegory, veiled under its ostensible design, delineating the bridal union subsisting between Jehovah and his pure and uncorrupted church. The Song of Songs is an oriental poem, and, as has been observed with peculiar judgment and propriety by a very learned and elegant translator* of those sacred Idyls (for such he has shown them to be), "we must not measure the taste or feelings of oriental writers by the standard of our own colder climate, or more modern times. The language of Solomon, Jayadéva, or even Isaiah himself, to the more frigid critics of Europe, may frequently appear too warm and voluptuous for the purposes of the most ardent devotion; but it would never convey any improper idea to the people to whom it was immediately addressed."

Among the oriental nations these ardent strains were too much a language of course to produce any improper excitement in the minds of Asiatics, and we cannot reasonably be either surprised or offended at the application of those figures and images which had taken so habitual a hold of the fancy, to the decoration and display of their religious feelings. But it does not follow that such a practice is a fit subject for imitation, or that a Briton could find an apology, in the fervour of his devotion, for indulging in the amatory, though pure and spiritual, enthusiasm of the Sufis or the Yogis. Still less have we any right to compose mere elegiacal songs, or sonnets, in celebration of love and beauty, and then de nominate them. Hebrew Melodies. Once more, however, we declare the pleasure it gave us to find, that though they have the title of Melodies, and are set to music, the compositions of Lord Byron have nothing in them calculated to deprave the minds of the young with images of gross and corrupt indulgence. We own the word Melodies somewhat alarmed us; but still it is due to the character of Lord Byron to declare, that we sincerely believe his Lordship's mind to be raised far above any deliberate

* See the Song of Songs, translated from the original Hebrew by John Mason Good. Loudon, 1803.

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