The Fête of St. Cloud, though not unamusing, would not suit our pages. French subjects, as all Editors and Kings can testify, are lively and dangerous. They are very irregular, or very poor. The fragment of C. F. F. W. is double proof sentiment indeed ;—and we much wish he could let our readers have a taste of it. It is truly "some of the right sort" for those who dram in Leadenhall-street. R. should recollect, that the Odes of Anacreon have been translated and paraphrased from the very days of that jolly old Greek Bibber to the present moment weekly, daily, hourly! Mr. Moore has done them into remarkably elegant Irish. And several recent clergymen and others have prosed over the grape in tedious and orderly raptures. The specimens sent us by R. are extremely spirited and proper. But he who would give Anacreon throughout, will, as Horace Walpole said happily of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, " be but in flower for an ode or two." We must decline "the Jacobites."-The tale is neither carefully written nor cunningly conceived. Perhaps the writer might be more fortunate in some other subject. H. A. who writes that he is ignorant "whether the LONDON Magazine makes any allowance for Poetry," is informed that it makes great allowances for it on several occasions. If the specimens sent by H. A. are in his best and most inspired manner, we are sorry to say that we can make no allowance for them-and they must therefore be put back on his hands. We understand him to say, that the goods are sent us upon sale or return. The lines on the "Logos," are not of sufficient interest to warrant their being dressed in print. The specimen of a History of the Old Actors is also not very promising. We shall have great pleasure in receiving from our Correspondent S. his promised Remarks on the Pythagorean Philosophy. Several other contributors will be pleased to translate our silence in the way most pleasant to themselves. REPLY TO BLACKWOOD. THE last Number of Blackwood's Magazine contains the following paragraphs respecting a cancelled leaf of the LONDON. "In the London Magazine for February, 1823, it may perhaps be remembered by some. few people, there was a review of Peveril of the Peak, marked by an insulting spirit. The Author of Waverley was compared to Cobbett, &c. All this is perhaps fair enough, and not more absurd than what is given us by the idiots of the New Monthly, who find evidences of a conspiracy against the liberties of the country in the Scotch Novels; but we distinctly recollect feeling a slight sensation of disgust on reading it. We did not at the time know, what has since come to our knowledge, that it had contained a passage of consummate blackguardism. Between the first and second paragraphs as they now stand, another was originally printed, and, good reader, here it is.— [Observe that the Vermin had attributed the Scotch Novels already by name to Sir Walter Scott-an assertion which he repeats immediately after.] "There were two things that we used to admire of old in this author, and that we have had occasion to admire anew in the present instance, the extreme life of mind or naturalness displayed in the descriptions, and the magnanimity and freedom from bigotry and prejudice shewn in the drawing of the characters. This last quality is the more remarkable, as the reputed author is accused of being a thorough-paced partisan in his own person,-intolerant, mercenary, mean; a professed toad-eater, a sturdy hack, a pitiful retailer or suborner of infamous slanders, a literary Jack Ketch, who would greedily sacrifice any one of another way of thinking as a victim to prejudice and power, and yet would do it by other hands, rather than appear in it himself. Can this be all true of the author of Waverley; and does he deal out such fine and heaped justice to all sects and parties in times past? Perhaps (if so) one of these extremes accounts for the other; and, as he knows all qualities with a learned spirit,' probably he may be aware of this practical defect in himself, and be determined to shew to posterity, that when his As a novel-writer, he own interest was not concerned, he was as free from that nauseous aud pettifogging bigotry, as a mere matter of speculation, as any man could be. gives the devil his due, and he gives no more to a saint. He treats human nature scurvily, yet handsomely; that is, much as it deserves; and, if it is the same person who is the author of the Scotch Novels, and who has a secret moving hand in certain Scotch Newspapers and Magazines, we may fairly characterize him as 'The wisest, meanest of mankind.' "Among other characters in the work before us, is that of Ned Christian, a coldblooded hypocrite, pander, and intriguer; yet a man of prodigious talent,-of great versatility, of unalterable self-possession and good-humour, and with a power to personate agreeably, and to the life, any character he pleased. Might not such a man have written the Scotch Novels?' ८ [Sic in the first copies of the London Magazine for February 1823, p. 205-206. In the copies, as now published, it does not appear, and the space it occupied in the page is supplied by a piece of balaam, being an anecdote of Dr. Franklin.] "Well, reader, what do you think of that? Here is a wretch directly calling one of the greatest and best men of the country, a toad-eater, a hack, a suborner, a slanderer, a Jack Ketch,-a man intolerant, mercenary, and mean, and, by implication, a coldblooded hypocrite, a pander, and an intriguer. Is it expected that we should say a word in answer? No, we leave you to decide on the cons rad Lion of the head and heart of him who wrote it, without adding a word. “This man is, if we may trust the chatter of booksellers' shops, Mr. TAYLOR, senior partner of the house of Taylor and Hessey, 90, Fleet Street, and 13, Waterloo Place. We take a pleasure in hanging him upon a gibbet as a fit object for the slow-moving finger of scorn, with the appropriate label of, "This is Mr. Taylor, who wrote the review of Peveril of the Peak for his Fleet Street Miscellany." After it was printed, terror seized the cowardly spirit of the proprietor, and after having disposed of two or three hundred of them, they were called in with the most breathless rapidity. Some, however, were out of their reach, and from one of them is printed the above. What a combination of filth there is in the whole transaction! The paltry motive, the direct falsehood, the low and ridiculous envy, the mean venom of the composition, well harmonize with the poor and snivelling poltroonery of its suppression. It says as plainly as a fact can speak, We would be assassins if we durst. Our cowardice, and not our will, prevents." READER! In this charge there are three distinct assertions. They are three DIS TINCT FALSEHOODS. 1. That our publisher, Mr. Taylor, wrote the Review alluded to.-He did NOT. 2. That two or three hundred copies of that Review were disposed of.— THERE WERE NOT FIFTY. 3. That the passage complained of in that Review was suppressed through terror.-IT WAS NOT. The passage was not a libel in law; nothing therefore COULD be feared from its publication. The Review in question was written by a celebrated Critic-was received too late for examination-and was cleared of the passage objected to, as soon as possible, from a motive of good feeling towards the Author of the Novel. This is our answer. It is anonymous, because the charge was so. If the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine is desirous of a personal disavowal, let him step forward in his real character to repeat his slander, and Mr. Taylor will repel it to his face. The following article on the personal character of Lord Byron, will be read, I think, with peculiar interest, as your readers will immediately perceive that it is written by one who has had unusual opportunities of observing the extraordinary habits, feelings, and opinions of the inspired and noble Poet. I am quite sure that, after a perusal of the following paper, the reader will be able to see Lord Byron, mind and all, "in his habit as he lived: "-Much that has hitherto been accounted inexplicable in his Lordship's life and writings is now interpreted, and the poet and the man are here depicted in their true colours. I can pledge myself to the strict correctness of its details. LORD BYRON's address was the most affable and courteous perhaps ever seen; his manners, when in a good humour, and desirous of being well with his guest, were winning -fascinating in the extreme, and though bland, still spirited, and with an air of frankness and generosity-qualities in which he was certainly not deficient. He was open to a fault-a characteristic probably the result of his fearlessness and independence of the world; but so open was he that his friends were obliged to live upon their guard with him. He was the worst person in the world to confide a secret to; and if any charge against any body was mentioned to him, it was probably the first communication he made to the person in question. He hated scandal and tittle-tattle-loved the manly straightforward course: he would harbour no doubts, and never Ост. 1824. I am, dear Sir, &c. live with another with suspicions in his bosom-out came the accusation, and he called upon the individual to stand clear, or be ashamed of himself. He detested a lie-nothing enraged him so much as a lie: he was by temperament and education excessively irritable, and a lie completely unchained him-his indignation knew no bounds. He had considerable tact in detecting untruth, he would smell it out almost instinctively; he avoided the timid driveler, and generally chose his companions among the lovers and practisers of sincerity and candour. A man tells the false and conceals the true, because he is afraid that the declaration of the thing, as it is, will hurt him. Lord Byron was above all fear of this sort; he flinched from telling no one what he thought to his face; from his infancy he had been afraid of no one: falsehood is not the vice of the Ꮓ powerful; the Greek slave lies, the Turkish tyrant is remarkable for his adherence to truth. Lord Byron was irritable (as I have said), irritable in the extreme; and this is another fault of those who have been accustomed to the unmurmuring obedience of obsequious attendants. If he had lived at home, and held undisputed sway over hired servants, led captains, servile apothecaries, and willing county magistrates, probably he might have passed through life with an unruffled temper, or at least his escapades of temper would never have been heard of; but he spent his time in adventure and travel, amongst friends, rivals, and foreigners; and, doubtless, he had often reason to find that his early life had unfitted him for dealing with men on an equal footing, or for submitting to untoward accidents with patience. His vanity was excessive-unless it may with greater propriety be called by a softer name-a milder term, and perhaps a juster, would be his love of fame. He was exorbitantly desirous of being the sole object of interest: whether in the circle in which he was living, or in the wider sphere of the world, he could bear no rival; he could not tolerate the person who attracted attention from himself; he instantly became animated with a bitter jealousy, and hated, for the time, every greater or more celebrated man than himself: he carried his jealousy up even to Buonaparte; and it was the secret of his contempt of Wellington. It was dangerous for his friends to rise in the world if they valued his friendship more than their own fame -he hated them. It cannot be said that he was vain of any talent, accomplishment, or other quality in particular; it was neither more nor less than a morbid and voracious appetite for fame, admiration, public applause: proportionably he dreaded the public censure; and though from irritation and spite, and sometimes through design, he acted in some respects as if he despised the opinion of the world, no man was ever more alive to it. The English newspapers talked freely of him; and he thought the English public did the same; and for this reason he feared, or hated, or fancied that he hated England: in fact, as far as this one cause went, he did hate England, but the balance of love in its favour was immense; all his views were directed to England; he never rode a mile, wrote a line, or held a conversation, in which England and the English public were not the goal to which he was looking, whatever scorn he might have on his tongue. Before he went to Greece, he imagined that he had grown very unpopular, and even infamous, in England; when he left Murray, engaged in the Liberal, which was un-. successful, published with the Hunts, he fancied, and doubtless was told so, by some of his aristocratic friends, that he had become low, that the better English thought him out of fashion and voted him vulgar; and that for the licentiousness of Don Juan, or for vices either practised or suspected, the public had morally outlawed him. This was one of the determining causes which led him to Greece, that he might retrieve himself. He thought that his name coupled with the Greek cause would sound well at home. When he arrived at Cephalonia, and found that he was in good odour with the authorities,-that the regiment stationed there, and other English residents in the island, received him with the highest consideration, he was gratified to a most extravagant pitch; he talked of it to the last with a perseverance and in a manner which showed how anxious his fears had been that he was lost with the English people. They who have not resided abroad are very little aware how difficult it is to keep up with the state of public opinion at home. Letters and newspapers, which are rarely seen even by the richer traveller on account of the immense expense of their transmission, scarcely do any thing more than tantalize the spirit, or administer food to the imagination. We gather the state of public opinion by ten thousand little circumstances which cannot, or only a few of which can, be communicated through any other channel of information. While on the spot, absence of calumny, or the fact of not hearing any thing disagreeable, is a proof of its non-ex |