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property. I understand, from some of the other guests, that she has the reputation of being the most scandalous old woman in the world; and that she is particularly hated, by all the young and pretty girls here, for the lies she invents, and the illnatured things she says of them.

Another lady of scarcely less importance, and, if less, only inferior to Lady Die-hard, is Mrs. Hornblower. She is excessively fat; still more vulgar than fat; and, with a voice like a link-boy's, she is always carrying on a conversation during dinner with some one at the other end of the table. Her obstreperous coarseness is beautifully contrasted with Lady Die-hard's superfine quality airs; and, although they are both sufficiently disagreeable, I could sometimes hug the fat old dame Hornblower for the delightful impudence with which she contradicts the countess as often as opportunity offers. Another of our guests is a Miss Grace Hornet, who, I am told, is a bluestocking of no small pretensions. I had the good (or ill) fortune to sit next her at dinner, and she was kind enough to let me into the characters of some of my neighbours. She is a lean pale-faced light-haired person, of what one may venture to call a critical age; for it is just that at which people, who are not so ceremonious as I, would say she had attained the honourable title of an Old Maid.' I could not say so for the world, as well because the natural forbearance of my temper would not allow me, as because, if I did, and she knew it, she would put me into the novel which, as upon half an hour's acquaintance she told me, she is writing. Next to her in consequence is Mrs. Fuzmuffin, a fat West India widow, with three daughters, of complexions and features so various, that no one would suppose they were related. I heard some one say they were sisters; and, doubting the fact, I asked Miss Hornet, who first simpered, then put on a serious look, attempted a blush, and said, with her eyes cast down- I am told so.' I saw something was wrong, and that Miss Hornet intended to telegraph some kind of scandal by her grimaces. I would not indulge her by asking an explanation; and, as I had some curiosity to have this sin

gular fact accounted for, I asked Lady Die-hard whether Mrs. Fuzmuffin had been married more than once.

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Oh, dear, no, not that I ever heard,' replied her ladyship. • But why do you ask?'

Because,' I said, her daughters are of such different appearances, that I should have thought they were by different marriages."

"Oh, for shame,' said the countess, trying another version of Miss Hornet's signal. She was never married but once. I have heard, but I cannot tell you how true the story is, that she was the wife of a sailor, who died in the West Indies, and left her wholly unprovided for. She had the good fortune to captivate the fancy of Mr. Fuzmuffin, an eminent planter, then advanced in years. My cousin Sullivan, who was captain of the Firedrake sloop of war, used to talk often of Mrs. Fuzmuffin, who had treated him with great hospitality at Jamaica, where he took the fever while his ship was repairing. You would have been ready to die with laughing at hearing him describe the wretched old man she was married to; and I assure you that the second girl, Seraphina, is the very picture of him.'

I looked as she spoke at the young lady, and the likeness was indeed strong enough to make me think I saw Roger Sullivan's broad goodhumoured stupid face, blue eyes, and curling flaxen hair, before me. She is indeed very like Captain Sullivan,' I said..

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The likeness may be accidental,' said my Lady Die-hard, and Heaven forbid that we should say any thing to affect the good woman's reputation; but you are a discreet person, and will not talk of this again;' (you see how I obey her ladyship's caution;)

and, since we are upon the subject,' she continued, I may tell you that the youngest girl, who is almost a mulatto, is not yet seventeen years old; while I know very well that the old planter, Fitzmuffin, has been dead more than eighteen years. They have, however, all of them great fortunes; and the old mamma brings them here to get them off. She has the impudence to think that I will assist her, but she is mistaken.'

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Think of poor Roger Sullivan, dear Lady Die-hard,' I said; can you look at the broad Atlantic of that unmeaning flat face, and not think of the poor captain's? Wasn't he your flesh and blood? and isn't Miss Seraphina'

Hush!' said her ladyship, the vulgar old mother approaches us. My dear Mrs. Fuzmuffin,' she said immediately, and without blushing, although I was still within hearing, how charmingly your three girls look! Do you know I heard Sir Bumble Puppy to-day say they were the handsomest girls in Leamington? And then he compared them to the cast of Canova's Graces, which stands in the lounging-room; but he said that they surpassed the invention of the sculptor, because, while they possessed as much beauty, they displayed it in all possible variety."

Mrs. Fuzmuffin did not understand one syllable of what her kind friend had been saying to her, but she replied at a venture, I can't say, my lady, that ever I saw these Miss Comeovers as you mentioned; but my girls needn't be afraid of showing their faces along with any in Lea mington.'

I did not wait to hear the conclusion of the discourse between these two ladies, because my disgust at the duplicity of the countess, and a strong inclination to laugh at the other lady's mistake, made me think it would be safest to decamp without loss of time.

The lady, upon whom O'Brady has resolved to confer the distinction of being his wife, is here also. She, too, is a widow, but very much unlike all the persons I have been describing to you: she is about six-and-twenty years of age, extremely handsome, of an agreeable disposition, as far as I can judge, and of very polished manners. O'Brady is unremittingly attentive to her; and, although she receives all his assiduities, yet I suspect she will not be persuaded to admit any warmer sentiment for him than that esteem which his open manly character is sure to inspire. He is unquestionably very much attached to her; I don't say in love, for at his years (he being as you know, four-and-thirty, though he would call any man out who ven

tured to say so), and after the hard service he has seen in the army, he is not capable of any romantic feeling. Still he can love quite well and warmly enough to make any reasonable woman happy. There is an air of sadness, which, in spite of all her efforts, and the natural complacency of her temper, at times is apparent in Mrs. Wilton's fine countenance, and which makes me think some incurable sorrow is preying upon her heart. When I told O'Brady this, he laughed at me, and said,

Don't I remember,' said he, in his rattling way, the first time I was in love myself? By my soul, I uttered more sighs in an hour than you could get out of any two pair of bellows in all Kerry. The dear creature's grief is only for fear I wouldn't make her Mrs. O'Brady; but I'll soon comfort her, and convince her how much she is mistaken. It's nothing at all, I tell you, but love; and off he ran, singing.

C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour. Among the male inhabitants of our ark we have some oddities not a jot behind the female part of the guests in singularity. Sir Bumble Puppy is one of the greatest coxcombs for his age that you ever beheld. He is now nearly sixty, dresses in a most youthful style, and wears nearly as many different colours as there are separate articles in his habiliments. I really expect to see him appear some morning with stockings of different colours, like Touchstone in the play. Miss Grace Hornet is very fond of promenading it with the baronet; and, as there are few ladies besides who will accept of his escort, he is glad to avail himself of her protection. She is affected and pedantic to an insufferable degree, and delights in classical illusions. She came the other evening, leaning on Sir Bumble Puppy's arm, to the end of the room at which O'Brady and I were standing, to summon us, in the name of Lady Die-hard, to a quadrille. "I come,' she lisped out, twisting her lean neck into all kinds of ugly forms at the same time, by command of the queen goddess, to call you to her throne. I am Iris, the messenger of Juno.'

'I am sure you are, and nobody

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else,' said O'Brady, because you are never seen without your many-coloured beau.'

Excessively good, upon my honour,' drawled out Sir Bumble Puppy: very brilliant indeed, Captain O'Brady; and he repeated the pun as well as he could, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly, to all the people who would listen to him, ending every version with Isn't it uncommonly good now?' and making himself ridiculous with a most astonishing pertinacity.

The Reverend Mr. Flint is a tall languishing sentimental parson, who talks with the young ladies, and makes himself interesting upon all possible occasions. He says Grace at dinner, and is so long about it that the soup gets chilled before he has finished. O'Brady, who is a graceless

person, says that, owing to the parson and Miss Hornet, there are two languid and more disagreeable Graces at this table than at any he ever met before. Nothing but his function has saved him from O'Brady's resentment. He dared to cast his clerical eyes at Mrs. Wilton with an expression of admiration, which is high treason against the captain's dignity; and he caught him, besides, talking to her about a society for distributing baby-linen. He swears that the parson is attempting to cant himself into her good graces; and, for my own part, I can't help suspecting that he is a great hypocrite.

Such are some of the guests here, and I expect they will produce me some amusement. If they do, you may rely on my communicating it to you; and that I am always yours, &c.

CLINTON'S LIFE AND WRITINGS OF LORD BYRON.*

AMONG the many volumes which have been published, since the lamented death of Lord Byron, relating to him, we have seen none which, in all respects, satisfies us so well as this. It supplies a deficiency which has been felt to a great extent, and at the same time pays a just tribute to the illustrious memory of the greatest poet of our times. The life of such a poet as Lord Byron would be comparatively uninteresting, but for the immediate reference and connexion which it must necessarily have to his works. Devoted as the greater part of his existence was to the composition of poems, which must last as long as the English language is spoken, a critical notice of those poems, and a history of the times at which they were written, and of the circumstances which, in some instances, influenced their production, seems as essential a part of 'the life' of Lord Byron as the detail of the events which befell him; and which differ in few respects-excepting its catastrophe, perhaps, in none-from those which fall to the ordinary lot of mankind. In the life of a general, a description of the battles in which he signalized himself is an important and necessary part of it. Who could understand the life

of a painter or a sculptor, or an architect, unless the productions upon which their several reputations are established should be described in words, or represented by engravings? Not less expedient is it that the life of poet should be accompanied by analytical descriptions, criticisms, and extracts, of such a nature as may enable the reader to form an estimate of the justness of the opinions which are expressed concerning the poet.

In the volume before us this end seems to have been very successfully attained. It presents a regular and well-written account of the principal incidents of Lord Byron's life, up to the period of his making his first appearance in the literary world. His juvenile poems, now become doubly interesting, are given at some length. The criticism which they provoked, and the revenge which the poet took upon his assailants, are also described with sufficient minuteness. From this period his lordship's life and his literary productions are inseparably connected; and they are treated of in this natural junction, which it would be impossible to loosen without injury to both. The extracts are numerous and copious: necessarily restricted within certain bounds, in order that they may not infringe upon

* Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Byron. By George Clinton. Robins, 1825. VOL. I.-No. 7.

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the property of others, they are still extensive enough to enable the general reader to form a correct estimate of their merit, and to convey a just idea of the subjects to which they relate, as well as of the interest which they create. The voluminous nature of Lord Byron's poems renders it obvious that they are not within the reach of every class of readers; but this volume, which, for its size, is singularly cheap, will enable all persons to acquire such an acquaintance as almost every man ought to possess with the works of this poet.

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It has been deeply and bitterly regretted, by many sincere admirers of Lord Byron, that his Don Juan' is not a proper book to be put into the hands of all persons, and that the mind of youth may be inflamed and depraved, and that the modesty of that sex, of which modesty is the chief ornament, may be wounded, by anindiscriminate perusal of the whole of that poem. This is the more lamentable, because Don Juan' contains, mixed up with much of that which has deserved these severe reprehensions, some of the most exquisitely pure and passionate poetry that our whole literature can produce. In the volume of which we speak this difficulty has been obviated, and the poem is described so as to make it perfectly intelligible, while none of the extracts are at all objectionable.

It is difficult to select extracts from a work like these Memoirs, because every part of them is equally interesting. The following, however, shows, in an original point of view, a personage who has been much talked of Lord Byron's servant, Fletcher :

'Lord Byron was attended during the whole of his stay in Venice by his servant Fletcher, who seems to have been as faithful and as foolish a servant as ever man had. This man had been a shoemaker in the neighbourhood of Newstead, and was so much attached to his master that he even found courage enough to accompany him on his travels in the East;-no unequivocal proof of affection in a man who hated foreign parts, and loved a wife whom he left at home. Lord Byron's letters to his mother were full of jokes about Fletcher, who seems to have given him at least as much trouble as he occa

sioned him amusement. He says that in Turkey the valet used always to be sighing after the delights he had left in England, among which were included beef, porter, tea, and his wife Sally. His fears (for valour was no part of Fletcher's characwhen it was necessary for the travellers to ter) were troublesome enough sometimes, "assume the virtue of courage if they had it not." When the letters from Lord Byron to his mother shall be published-and why they are withheld no man can guess, for there is not a word in them to hurt the feelings of any human being-it will be seen that the faithful servant cuts a prominent and always a funny figure. In one of them, if we remember rightly, Lord Byron says something to this effect: roasted, and baked, and grilled, and eaten by all sorts of creeping things, begins to philosophize; is grown a refined as well as a resigned character; and promises at his return to be an ornament to his own parish, and a very prominent person in the future family pedigree of the Fletchers, who I take to be Goths by their accomplishments, Greeks by their acuteness, and ancient Saxons by their appetite. He, Fletcher, begs leave to send half a dozen sighs to Sally, his spouse, and wonders (though I do not) that his illwritten and worse spelt letters have never come to hand. As for that matter, there is no great loss in either of our letters, saving and except that I wish you to know that we are well, and warm enough at this present writing. God knows you must not expect long letters at present, for they are written with the sweat of my brow, I assure you."

"Fletcher, after having been toasted,

'Lord Byron used to say that Fletcher vexed him past endurance upon one occahe was near shooting him. It was when sion, when he was so much provoked that Lord Byron was visiting the Pantheon; and, while his soul was burning with indignation at the havoc which had been committed there, Fletcher came up to him with a look of ineffable stupidity, and said, pointing to one of the massy fragments of the ruin, "Law! if we had this marvel in England, what nice mantel-pieces we could make out of it, my lord." It will be admitted this was enough to move the choler of a less irritable person than Lord Byron. Poor Fletcher, however, escaped shooting.

'Lord Byron was at all times of his life plagued by female correspondents, some of whose letters breathed the passion with which his lordship's poetry had inspired them in no equivocal language. His lordship did not treat their favours as they deserved, for, if he did not choose to

reply to the epistles, he should have consigned them to the flames. He had no secrets himself, and was the worst man in the world to keep those of other people: the letters were tossed about, and fell into Fletcher's hands, who, when he had a love-letter to compose on his own account, availed himself of the passionate expressions of his master's fair correspondents. One of his favourite figures extracted from one of these letters, and that which he used when he wanted to make an irresistible impression upon the object of his passion, was to say, that he was "a blasted laurel struck by a metre."

The assiduity with which he imitated his master's whimsical extravagances, and which, odd as they were in poor Lord Byron, became in Fletcher's travestimento a thousand times more funny, procured him the nick-name of Leporello, by which title Lord Byron usually designated him.

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Notwithstanding these and some other oddities, Fletcher was a very affectionate and faithful servant to a master who deserved a good servant, and who knew his good qualities too well not to look at his whimsicalities in the right point of view.'

Nothing can be more interesting than the contemplation of the manner in which such a poet as Sir Walter Scott speaks of Lord Byron: the praise he bestows upon him is true to the letter. The justice and eloquence with which it is expressed are as honourable to the writer's judgment, as the kind and touching tone of manly sorrow which pervades it is to his heart:

'As various in composition as Shakspeare himself (this will be admitted by all who are acquainted with his "Don Juan"), he has embraced every topic of human life, and sounded every string on the divine harp, from the slightest to its most powerful and heart-astounding tones. There is scarce a passion or a situation which has escaped his pen; and he might be drawn, like Garrick, between the weep ing and the laughing Muse, although his most powerful efforts have certainly been dedicated to Melpomene. His genius seemed as prolific as various. The most prodigal use did not exhaust his powers, nay, seemed rather to increase their vi gour. Neither "Childe Harold," nor any of the most beautiful of Byron's earlier tales, contain more exquisite morsels of poetry than are to be found scattered through the cantos of "Don Juan," amidst verses which the author appears to have thrown off with an effort as spontaneous as that of a tree resigning its leaves to the wind. But that noble tree

will never more bear fruit or blossom! It has been cut down in its strength, and the past is all that remains to us of Byron. We can scarce reconcile ourselves to the idea-scarce think that the voice is silent for ever, which, bursting so often on our ear, was often heard with rapturous admiration, sometimes with regret, but always with the deepest interest:

"All that's bright must fade,

The brightest still the fleetest." 'With a strong feeling of awful sorrow we take leave of the subject. Death creeps upon our most serious as well as upon our most idle employments; and it is a reflection solemn and gratifying that he found our Byron in no moment of levity, but contributing his fortune, and hazarding his life, in behalf of a people only endeared to him by their past glories, and as fellow-creatures suffering under the yoke of a heathen oppressor. To have fallen in a crusade for freedom and humanity, as in olden times it would have been an atonement for the blackest crimes, may in the present be allowed to expiate greater follies than even exaggerated calumny has propagated against Byron.'

The author of the volume ends

with the following passage, in which we heartily concur :

The death of Lord Byron has, however, reconciled all opinions. Envy is dead, and that spirit of criticism which induced some persons to cavil at what they had neither hearts to feel nor heads to understand is at rest for ever. The bitterness of the grief which Lord Byron's decease occasioned has also lost much of its force, and it is now regarded only as a loss deep and irreparable, but one which

must be endured. In the mean time his

fame has soared to the highest point, and, in all the range of English poetry, there are few who claim a more brilliant place. In the memory of all who knew him he who breathed the same air with him shall will live while they exist; and, when all have gone to join him in the world which he now inhabits, his works will hold the same station as they now occupy in the minds of all men while the literature of England shall continue. This shall be really to live, and in this fame is the real triumph over the grave.

He is not dead, he does but sleepHe hath awakened from the dream of

life:

'Tis we, who, lost in stormy visions, keep

With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife

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