of the final syllable, even when accompanied by a certain number
of feet; nay, although (which does not always happen) those feet should
scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately upon the fingers--
is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe, that a
certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to
constitute a poem; and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must
contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from
the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his
candour, whether there is anything so deserving the name of poetry in
verses like the following, written in 1806, and whether, if a youth of
eighteen could say anything so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth
of nineteen should publish it.

Shades of heroes farewell! your descendant, departing
From the seat of his ancestors, bids you, adieu! etc., etc.

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." ...

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; and, viewing them as school exercises, they may
pass. Only why print them after they have had their day and served their
turn?...

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 not seem
to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem on the family
seat of the Byrons, we have another on the self same subject, introduced
with an apology, "he certainly had no intention of inserting it"; but
really, "the particular request of some friends," etc., etc. It
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 a _pibroch_ is not a bagpipe, any more than a
duet means a fiddle....

But whatever judgment may be passed on the poe