of reality. There is something allegorically beautiful in having the Magnus Apollo rush, on the wings of the wind, to the succour of the land of song and bravery! We of the provinces (the Byronites) are gratified beyond expression at our liege Lord's having thus nobly justified our enthusiasm, and fulfilled our wishes. How I do pity those who do not at this moment feel towards the heroic poet as we do; those poor slaves of party feeling and private pique:-" Men of palsied imaginations and indurated hearts, who take upon them to report of the course which He holds whom they are "utterly unable to accompany,---confounded if he turn quick upon the "wing; dismayed if he soar steadily into "the region." Judges, whose "censure is auspicious, and whose praise is ominous!" (I quote from Wordsworth.) I am told that his reception in Greece was gratifying and affecting beyond description. Does not Buonaparte's prophetic description of him who could and would succeed in its deliverance, rush upon your memory? Yet he goes unattended by troops, unaccompanied by squadrons. "Astra, castra,---numen, lumen." "This, this is solitude.---This is to be alone! What glorious, unprecedented singularity!" Sometimes, however, an undefinable terror, as to the issue of his undertaking, seizes upon me with the force of a presentiment; but I will cast off the gloomy and superstitious suggestion. Yes, he goes in the might of genius, the immensity of benevolence, on a mission of "good will towards men;" and aid from Heaven will probably support him in the great enterprise. He was born to be the tutelary genius of Greece,---he was amongst the first to disseminate there the blessed records of Him, whose word, I bless God, has gradually brought conviction to his soul. I was delighted with a note to a pleasing poem of Wiffen's, (whose translations you so much admire,) in which he enumerates various acts of his beneficence, and which may serve to give a just idea of the Christian spirit that animated him. I enclose a copy of that note, and also of a letter by the same author, which pleased me extremely---Show them to our friends, and to such poetical adherents of Lord Byron's, as you may meet :---a countless host in your part of the world. I did see the article you allude to, and am gratified by the honest provincial indignation that those metropolitan calumnies have excited. The errors and prejudices with respect to Lord Byron I should deplore, if I were not consoled by perceiving that, "there are select spirits, for whom “it is ordained that their fame shall be in the world, an existence like that "of virtue, which owes its being to the struggles it makes, and its vigour "to the enemies whom it approaches;---a vivacious power, ever doomed "to meet with opposition, and still triumphing over it; and, from the nature "of its dominion, incapable of being brought to the sad conclusion of "Alexander, when he wept, that there were no more worlds for him to conquer." I some time since, saw a letter from one of the Irishwomen mentioned in a note by Lord Byron, in which he is admirably panegyrised. It is pleasant to learn that he excels eminently in conversation, and scatters his bright thoughts around him, with the lavish carelessness of that Sultan in the Arabian tales, who cast diamonds, rubies, &c., amongst hissubjects with such princely profusion. How I delight in this universality of powers---this spirit of transmigration with which he penetrates into every thing,---appearing alternately as the poet, the wit, le chevalier preaux, the satirist, and the philantropist. --This, this, is genius! Adieu, though on this subject I never fear your finding me tedious.--"To him, there can be no farewell!" Any tidings you may get with respect to him, public or private, I know you will immediately communicate, as the interest, he now excites, is intense and universal.---Speed, Byron, Speed! A. G. LETTERS OF AMY GREY... VI. March 3rd, 1824. Indeed! pleased with my letters! never had a lady of the ink-bottle so rich and rare a reward!-No more apologies, I pray you, my dear cousin, for having shown them to him, as I happen to have honesty enough to acknowledge the very lively pleasure I take in his approbation. But what cannot good-will and cleverness effect? Does not -'s admiration of my scribblings remind you of the genius of philosophy extracting use and beauty from the bubbles thrown into the air by an idle child. This is as it should be! but since he has gone so far as to ask me to produce myself in print, I must change my tone, and ask in reply, (Irish style) why he considers me as an enemy? i. e, why does he wish me to write a book? for he cannot suppose that there would be a second Newton on the subject-No-but we should have a Sir Richard Phillips, without doubt, disputing, aye, and perhaps confuting his very ingenious theory as to the light and colours displayed in my airy nothings.---Besides where is the woman that does not write well now a days, that is to say, good fluent English, and French; au grand galop.---If you or he know of such a personage, point her out to me, she will be such a treat as a rarity. My little Rose indeed has some charm in that way---she can not write couramment yet. Her album would be "white and unwritten still," but that I sometimes sully its whiteness. I am making a sort of poetical experiment upon her, and think it promises good success,---at all events she is not "blasée sur tout," like so many of the over-informed young ladies of our day,---and there is a charming self-ignorance, and ignorance of evil about her, an innocent glee, and youthful freshness, and an unfastidious tolerance of the faults and follies of those about her which are well worth, `on an average, all, that purple women can acquire, or communicate. She has been much conversed with, I allow, and her long tête à téte, or rather cœur à cœur with her old friend Amy Grey, has not, I trust, been without good consequences. Yes, I got the parcel safe---my best thanks are your's, for the books and music. To those readers who deprecate every departure of Lord Byron's from the gusto grande, how welcome must have been his appearance in "the Deformed transformed."---There, the majestic sweep of his genius has a free vent, and the mighty torrent is likely, I hope, to pour on, in full force and grandeur.---It had occured to me that a sublime Faust would be a production worthy of the master-spirit, and "lo! it hath taken its stand in creation!" There would be bad taste in criticising that, or "Heaven and Earth" (which is, indeed, like the poetry on high,---(the stars) "a mystery and a beauty!") or any of the super-human performances so far beyond the powers of a lady's crow-quill; I leave them to those fine spirits who alone are entitled to take note of them; and even they must pluck their pens from the wing of a fallen angel when they commence the task ;---I have heard some comments on the above named work s which almost chafed me, but the sensible good humour of my friends of Edinburgh recurred to me,---“ Why get cross on this, or any other subject?" is a question that I sometimes put to myself with good effect.--Bye the bye, what a neatly turned compliment the "judges of punch, porter, and poetry,"---Tim Tickler, &c., pay to the Edinburgh Review by keening over its decline, for, if it be fallen off, judge of its first works! In the same way, I delight in hearing the Pirate' spoken of as a poor novel---" the Lord of the Isles" as an inferior poem,---and to return to ny liege Lord with unalterable allegiance,---to have the Hebrew Melodies condemned as indifferent lyrics, and the Island' as a falling-off in narrative. Such censure is, indeed, praise of the highest order; and how true is it that our enemies may be our best friends. 6 To return to my fair girls; our lovely Rose is still with me, blooming in unrivalled beauty and sweetness.---The details with respect to our beloved Clara's marriage you will find in the enclosed letter from Mrs. Yes, the troubled waters of a stormy world now roll between her and me, but I feel that she will yet return-"the dove of peace and promise to mine ark!"- Emma that beauteous "half-clay, nearly-spirit," has been at Castle for some weeks.---As no one interests me so much, I made an exertion, un-homed myself, and together with my father (whom she loves, and listens to enthusiastically,) spent a fortnight with her. Her health, I grieve to say,---yet why shed selfish tears at the approaching release of her heaven-born spirit,---is again rapidly declining, her apparent restoration, having been the temporary effect of her mental exertions, aided by power from on high. Angel's pitied her----God himself looked on his suffering child with compassionate tenderness, and sent her celestial succours.---Yes, oh yes! He forgives, pities, and relieves the pangs of an innocent and inexperienced heart. Borne away on the troubled waters of enthusiasm, if the youthful soul exclaim--"Lord, carest thou not that I perish?" He rebuketh the winds and waves, and saith unto thein---" peace, be still!"-----a holy calm succeeds, and Heaven is reflected.---Gaze on a gentle mourner, in life's early morning, and you will clearly perceive that she is still under the gracious care of a protecting power. The chastened sensibility of her melting eye---the soft serenity of her placid smile---the modest stillness of her meek manner, and the mild music of her soothing voice---all, all proclaim that she is fovoured of Heaven, and that innocence is gradually strengthening into virtue. Soon is gentle resignation succeeded by fervent exertion, passive patience by active charity; and in the worship of virtue, and oblivion of 'self, she finds relief, remedy, and reward for youthful anguish piously endured. That the flood of adversity has passed over her soul is evident only from the renovated beauty and encreased fertility of that mind which the uninterupted sunshine of prosperity might have withered into decay,---and she,-over whose perished hopes and blighted wishes friendship had mourned in tender gloom, brightly emerging from the clouds which had obscured life's morning,-pursues her heaven-ward course, irresistably reminding allaround her, of the beauty, purity, and holiness of those realms of light and life, to which she points the way. A. G. LETTERS OF AMY GREY.-VII. February 18th, 1821. With my usual "magnificence de papier," and poverty in all other materials for correspondence, I once more address you my dearest and nearest, wherever you be. Indeed I begin to fear that the foul fiend, Ennui, has taken possession of you. How can I otherwise account for your considering the arrival of one of my packets as "an event."---It is true however, that the remembrance of the gracious and graceful manner in which you receive the veriest trifles, may serve to dissipate my alarm as to your being under the influence of that fatal Familiar. I will change the subject however, for gratitude is with me an ineloquent feeling. I am not at all surprised to find that our very clever and pleasing friend -is going to marry, the mediocre little girl you mention. Some time since, before he had gone so far as to think of her matrimonially, I asked him, if he thought her pretty. He replied that he did, and that he was in the act of making verses on her beauty. I said I did not wonder at his selection of her, she afforded so wide a field for imagination! and thus it is frequently with imaginative people.---Love transmits his own bright tints and radiant hues to the objects of his admiration, ---is charmed with the result, and forgets from whence it emanates;---as if a spirit of the sun were to admire the glowing colours and harmonised beauties of the rainbow, and leave the regions of light and life, to go in quest of the airy nothing. Back to home.---My dear girls have all left me, except "my little one" ---what an exception!---She is "the very life of my soul," to borrow the poetical expression I heard a beggarwomen use to her child the other day; for poor Ireland is not a land of prose, to do it justice. My heart's darling would not leave me, and has made an early spring here by her sunny cheerfulness and rosy freshness. Nature seems to revive under her airy step, as if she were Flora in person, moving in all the fragrance of morning, the radiance of innocence, the spell of beauty, and the light of love.---But I am speaking quite à la Phillips! By the way; what has become of "THE Irish Barrister?" I have not heard of him of late. Why is it that he (Mr. Phillips) is thus designated and distinguished, when we can boast of a Canning, a Plunket, and a Bushe. I have nothing new to say, (who has?) but that we yesterday got some new books, and new prints---a beautiful one of the deplored Princess Charlotte, which must be like her, as it has the air of a blessed spirit intent on bestowing peace, happiness, and freedom.---Rose was charmed with it, and exclaimed, Oh! she looks as if she was saying---" who shall I make happy?" Several times during the course of the day, I observed that her eyes were suffused with tears, looking, indeed, "like violets dropping dew," and she asked me various questions with respect to the Princess, Mr. Fox, and others of the mighty dead. In the evening she brought me her Album, the first she has had, for I was not anxious to advance her rapidly in the black art, by which the whiteness of so many have been stained. She requested of me to write on the first page verses on the Princess Charlotte that she could get by heart: I declined this task of love; feeling myself quite unequal to it. Well' she suddenly exclaimed, say that you cannot, in verse'---on this hint I wrote the following lines; I'll strew no flow'rs upon the awful tomb I'll shed no tears upon that holy ground, Where Heaven weeps its softest dews around, That the sad cypress, with eternal shade, I'll breathe no sigh to mingle with that air, And see-through azure vistas he descends--- In whisper'd balm to tell to him who weeps, Why Britain suffers, ---and why Charlotte sleeps. Oh! could men read the secrets of the sky, And learn the import of that mystic why, Would they not think upon that burning tongue, On whose blest accents "Truth, Peace, Freedom hung?" And since the glorious patron of mankind, To death, and dust, and silence is consign'd,-- Should they not study with rapt awe the page, A. G. |