For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death,
What censure, what danger, what wo would I brave!
Their lives did not end when they yielded their breath,
Their glory illumines the gloom of their grave.

6.

Yet why should I mingle in Fashion's full herd?
Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules?
Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd?

Why search for delight in the friendship of fools?

7.

I have tasted the sweets and the bitters of love;
In friendship I early was taught to believe;
My passion the matrons of prudence reprove;

I have found that a friend may profess, yet deceive.
8.

To me what is wealth? it may pass in an hour,
If tyrants prevail, or if Fortune should frown.
To me what is title ?-the phantom of power;
To me what is fashion ?-I seek but renown.
9.

Deceit is a stranger as yet to my soul,

sons of Lochlin slept; their dreams were of blood They lift the spear in thought, and Fingal flies. Not so the host of Morven. To watch was the post of Oria Calmar stood by his side. Their spears were in their hands. Fingal called his chiefs; they stood around. The king was in the midst. Gray were his locks, but strong was the arm of the king. Age withered not his powers. "Sons of Morven," said the hero, “ to-mor row we meet the foe: but where is Cuthullin, the shield of Erin? He rests in the halls of Tura; he knows not of our coming. Who will speed through Lochlin to the hero, and call the chief to arms? The path is by the swords of foes, but many are my heroes. They are thunderbolts of war. Speak, ye chiefs! Who will

arise?"

"Son of Trenmor! mine be the deed," said darkhaired Orla," and mine alone. What is death to me? I love the sleep of the mighty, but little is the danger. The sons of Loch in dream. I will seek car-borne Cuthullin. If I fall, raise the song of bards; and lay me by the stream of Lubar."-" And shalt thou fall alone?" said fair-haired Calmar. "Wilt thou leave thy friend afar? Chief of Oithona! not feeble is my arm in fight. Could I see thee die, and not lift the spear? No, Oria! ours has been the chase of the roebuck, and the feast of shells; ours be the path of danger: ours has been the cave of Oithona; ours be the narrow dwelling on the banks of Lubar.” “ Calmar," said the chief of Oithena, "why should thy yellow locks be darkened in the dust of Erin? Let me fall alone. My father dwells in his hall of air: he will rejoice in his boy; but the blue-eyed Mora spreads the feast for her son in Morven. She listens to the steps of the hunter on the heath, and thinks it is the tread of Calmar. Let him not say, Calmar has fallen by the steel of Lochlin: he died with gloomy Orla, the chief of the dark brow.' Why should tears dim the azure eye of Mora? Why should her voice curse Orla, the destroyer of Calmar? Live, Calmar. Live to raise my stone of moss; live to revenge me in the blood of Lochlin. Join the song of bards above my THE DEATH OF CALMAR AND ORLA.* grave. Sweet will be the song of death to Orla from the AN IMITATION OF MACPHERSON'S OSSIAN. voice of Calmar. My ghost shall smile on the notes DEAR are the days of youth! Age dwells on their of praise." "Orla," said the son of Mora, “could I remembrance through the mist of time. In the twi-raise the song of death to my friend? Could I give his light, he recalls the sunny hours of morn. He lifts his fame to the winds? No, my heart would speak in sighs. spear with trembling hand. "Not thus feebly did I Faint and broken are the sounds of sorrow, Orla! our raise the steel before my fathers!" Past is the race souls shall hear the song together. One cloud shall be of heroes! but their fame rises on the harp; their souls our son high. The bards will mingle the names of ride on the wings of the wind! they hear the sound Oria and Calmar." through the sighs of the storm, and rejoice in their hall of clouds! Such is Calmar. The gray stone marks his narrow house. He looks down from eddy ing tempests; he rolls his form in the whirlwind, and hovers on the blast of the mountain.

I still am unpractised to varnish the truth Then why should I live in a hateful control? Why waste upon folly the days of my youth?

In Morven dwelt the chief; a beam of war to Fingal. His steps in the field were marked in blood! Lochlin's sons had fled before his angry spear; but mild was the eye of Calmar; soft was the flow of his yellow locks: they streamed like the meteor of the night. No maid was the sigh of his soul: his thoughts were given to friendship, to dark-haired Orla, destroyer of heroes! Equal were their swords in battle; but fierce was the pride of Orla: gentle alone to Calmar. Together they dwelt in the cave of Oithona.

From Lochlin, Swaran bounded o'er the blue waves. Erin's sons fell beneath his might. Fingal roused his chiefs to combat. Their ships cover the ocean! Their hosts throng on the green hills. They come to the aid of Erin.

Night rose in clouds. Darkness veils the armies. But the blazing oaks gleam through the valley. The

• First published in Hours of Idleness.

It may be necessary to observe, that the story, though considerably varied in the catastrophe, is taken from "Nisus and Euryalus," of which episode a translation is already given in the present volume.

They quit the circle of the chiefs. Their steps are to the host of Lochlin. The dying blaze of oak dim twinkles through the night. The northern star points the path to Tura. Swaran, the king, rests on his lonely hill. Here the troops are mixed: they frown in sleep. Their shields beneath their heads. Their swords gleam at distance in heaps. The fires are faint; their embers faii in smoke. All is hushed; but the gale sighs on the rocks above. Lightly wheel the heroes through the slumbering band. Half the journey is past, when Mathon, resting on his shield, ineets the eye of Orla. It rolls in flame, and glistens through the shade. His spear is raised on high. "Why dost thou bend thy brow, chief of Oithona?" said fair-haired Calmar. "We are in the midst of foes. Is this a time for delay?" "It in a time for vengeance," said Orla of the gloomy brow.

Mathon of Lochlin sleeps: seest thou his spear? Its point is dim with the gore of my father. The blood of Mathon shall reek on mine; but shall I slay him sleeping, son of Mora? No! he shall feel his wound: my fame shall not soar on the blood of slumber. Rise! Mathon! rise! the son of Connal calls; thy life is his; rise to combat." Mathon starts from sleep; but did he rise alone? No: the gathering chiefs bound on the plain. Fly! Calmar! fly!" said dark-haired Orla. "Mathon is mine. I shall die in joy. But Lochlin crowds

6.

And woman! lovely wornan, thou,
My hope, my comforter, my all!
How cold must be my bosom now,
When e'en thy smiles begin to pall
Without a sigh would I resign

This busy scene of splendid wo,
To make that calm contentment mine,
Which virtue knows, or seems to know.
7.

Fain would I fly the haunts of men-
I seek to shun, not hate mankind;
My breast requires the sullen glen,

Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind.
Oh! that to me the wings were given
Which bear the turtle to her nest!
Then would I cleave the vault of heaven,
To flee away, and be at rest.*

LINES†

Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod.
With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod;
With those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore,
Like me, the happy scenes they knew before
Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,
Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still,
Thou drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs I lay,
And frequent mused the twilight hours away;
Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline,
But, ah! without the thoughts which then were mine.
How do thy branches, moaning to the blast,
Invite the bosom to recall the past,

And seem to whisper as they gently swell,
"Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!”'
When fate shall chill, at length, this fever'd breast,
And calm its cares and passions into rest,
Oft have I thought 't would sooth my dying hour,
If aught may sooth when life resigns her power,
To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell,
Would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell,
With this fond dream methinks 't were sweet to die-
And here it linger'd, here my heart might lie;
Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose,

WRITTEN BENEATH AN ELM IN THE CHURCHYARD OF Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose,

HARROW ON THE HILL, SEPTEMBER 2, 1807.

SPOT of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh,
Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky;

Psalm lv. ver. 6." And I said, Oh! that I had wings like a dove; for then would I fly away, and be at rest." This verse also constitutes a part of the most beautiful anthem in our language.

↑ First published in the second edition of the Hours of Idleness.

For ever stretch'd beneath this mantling shade,
Press'd by the turf where once my childhood play'd;
Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I loved,
Mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps moved;
Blest by the tongues that charm'd my youthful ear,
Mourn'd by the few my soul acknowledged here;
Deplored by those, in early days allied,
And unremember'd by the world beside.

CRITIQUE.

EXTRACTED FROM THE Edinburgh REVIEW, No. 22, FOR JANUARY, 1808.

Hours of Idleness; a Series of Poems, original and translated. By George Gordon, Lord Byron, a Minor. 8vo. pp. 200.-Newark, 1807.

posed by a young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen!"-But, alas! we all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far from hearing, with any degree of surprise, that very poor verses were written by a youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclusive, we really believe this to be the most common of all occurrences; that it happens in the life of nine men in ten who are educated in England; and that the tenth man writes better verse than Lord Byron.

His other plea of privilege our author rather brings forward in order to waive it. He certainly, however, docs allude frequently to his family and ancestorssometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration only that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review, beside our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account.

THE poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor men are said to permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with BO few deviations in either direction from that exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get above or below the level, than if they were so much stagnant water. As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly forward in pleading minority. We have it in the titlepage, and on the very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of his style. Much stress is laid apon it in the preface; and the poems are connected with this general statement of his case, by particular dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. Now, the law upon the point of minority we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court a certain quantity of poetry, and if judgment With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure were given against him, it is highly probable that an him, that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even exception would be taken were he to deliver for poetry when accompanied by the presence of a certain numthe contents of this volume. To this he might plead ber of feet,-nay, although (which does not always ainority; but, as he now makes voluntary tender of the happen) those feet should scan regularly, and have article, he hath no right to sue, on that ground, for the been all counted accurately upon the fingers, is not price in good current praise, should the goods be un- the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to marketable. This is our view of the law on the point, believe, that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat and, we dare to say, so will it be ruled. Perhaps, how-of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem, and that n over, in reality, all that he tells us about his youth is poem in the present day, to be read, must contain as ather with a view to increase our wonder than to least one thought, either in a little degree different from soften our censures. He possibly means to say, "See the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. how a minor can write! This poem was actually com- We put it to his candour, whether there is any thing

o deserving the name of poetry in verses like the fol-
towing, written in 1806; and whether, if a youth of
eighteen could say any thing so uninteresting to his an-
cestors, a youth of nineteen should publish it:

"Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing
From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu!
Abroad or at home, your remembrance imparting
New courage, he 'll think upon glory and you.
"Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation,
'Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret :
Far distant he goes, with the same emulation;
The fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget.
That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish;
He vows that he ae'er will disgrace your renown;
Like you will he live, or like you will he perish;

When decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own."

Now we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor's volume.

Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see at his writing-master's) are odious.-Gray's Ode on Eton College should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas "On a distant View of the Village and School of Harrow."

"Where fancy yet Joys to retrace the resemblance

Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied;
How welcome to me your ne'er-fading remembrance,
Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied."

In like manner, the exquisite lines of Mr. Rogers, On a Tear," might have warned the noble author off those premises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the following:

"Mild Charity's glow,

To us mortals below,

Shown the soul from harbarity clear;
Compassion will melt

Where this virtue is felt,

And ita dew is diffused in a Tear.

"The man doom'd to sail
With the blast of the gale,
Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o'er the wave,
Which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a Tear."

And so of instances in which former poets had failed. Thus, we do not think Lord Byron was made for translating, during his nonage, "Adrian's Address to his Soul," when Pope succeeded so indifferently in the

attempt. If our readers, however, are of another
opinion, they may look at it.

"Ah! gentle, fleeting, wavering sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay!

To what unknown region borne ;
Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight?
No more with wonted humour gay,
But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn."

whose dark ghost gleams on the red stream of tempests? His voice rolls on the thunder; t is Orla, the brown chief of Orthona. He was," &c. After detaining this "brown chief” some time, the bards conclude by giving him their advice to raise his fair locks? then to "spread them on the arch of the rainbow and "to smile through the tears of the storm.” Of this kind of thing there are no less than nine pages; and we can so far venture an opinion in their favour, that they look very like Macpherson, and we are posi tive they are pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome.

It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should use it as not abusing it ;" and particularly one who piques himself (though indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) of being " an infant bard,”—(" The artless Helicon I boast is youth")-should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ances try. Besides a poem above cited, on the family seat self-same subject, introduced with an apology, "he of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the certainly had no intention of inserting it," but really "the particular request of some friends," &c. &c. ft concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and Youngest of a noble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on Lachin y Gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, and might have learnt that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle.

As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalize his employments at school and at college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, called Granta, we have the following magnificent stanzes

"There, in apartments small and damp,
The candidate for college prizes
Sita poring by the midnight lamp,
Goes late to bed, yet early rises.

"Who reads false quantities in Sele,

Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle,
Deprived of many a wholesome meal,
In barbarous Latin doom'd to wingle

"Renouncing every pleasing page,

From authors of historic use,
Preferring to the letter'd sage

The square of the hypothenuse.

"Still harmless are these occupations,

That hurt none but the hapless studant,
Compared with other recreations,

Which bring together the imprudent.”

We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the col lege psalmody as is contained in the following Attic

stanzas:

"Our choir would scarcely be excused
Even as a band of raw beginners;
All mercy now must be refused

To such a set of croaking sinners.

"If David, when his toils were ended,

Had heard these blockheads sing before him,
To us his psalms had ne'er descended:

In furious mood he would have tore 'em!"

However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are great favourites with Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from Anacreon to Ossian; But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems and, viewing them as school exercises, they may pass. of this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we Only, why print them after they have had their day find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall and served their turn? And why call the thing in p. ever have from him. He is, at best, he says, but an in79* a translation, where two words (Jeλw Meyer) of the truder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in original are expanded into four lines, and the other a garret, like thorough-bred poets; and "though he thing in p. 81, where proovUKTials Tod' woats is render- once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of ed by means of six hobbling verses? As to his Ossianic Scotland," he has not of late enjoved this advantage. poesy, we are not very good judges, being, in truth, so Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; moderately skilled in that species of composition, that and, whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improba we should, in all probability, be criticising some bit of ble, from his situation and pursuits hereafter," that the genuine Macpherson itself, were we to express our he should again condescend to become an author. opinion of Lord Byron's rhapsodies. If, then, the fol- Therefore, let us take what we get, and be thankful. wing beginning of a "Song of Bards" is by his lord-What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are ship, we venture to object to it, as far as we can comprehend it. "What form rises on the roar of clouds,

well off to have got so much from a man of this .ord's station, who does not live in a garret, but "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver nor look the gift horse in the mouth.