good deal of nature intermingled. There is a fine description of St
Mary's loch, in that prefixed to the second canto; and a very pleasing
representation of the author's early tastes and prejudices, in that
prefixed to the third. The last, which is about Christmas, is the worst;
though the first, containing a threnody on Nelson, Pitt, and Fox,
exhibits a more remarkable failure. We are unwilling to quarrel with a
poet on the score of politics; but the manner in which he has chosen to
praise the last of these great men, is more likely, we conceive, to give
offence to his admirers, than the most direct censure. The only deed for
which he is praised, is for having broken off the negotiation for peace;
and for this act of firmness, it is added, Heaven rewarded him with a
share in the honoured grave of Pitt! It is then said, that his errors
should be forgotten, and that he _died_ a Briton--a pretty plain
insinuation, that, in the author's opinion, he did not live one; and
just such an encomium as he himself pronounces over the grave of his
villain hero Marmion. There was no need, surely, to pay compliments to
ministers or princesses, either in the introduction or in the body of a
romance of the 16th century. Yet we have a laboured lamentation over the
Duke of Brunswick, in one of the epistles; and in the heart of the poem,
a triumphant allusion to the siege of Copenhagen--the last exploit,
certainly, of British valour, on which we should have expected a
chivalrous poet to found his patriotic gratulations. We have no
business, however, on this occasion, with the political creed of the
author; and we notice these allusions to objects of temporary interest,
chiefly as instances of bad taste, and additional proofs that the author
does not always recollect, that a poet should address himself to more
than one generation.--_The Edinburgh Review_.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

_Hours of Idleness: A Series of Poems, Original and Translated_. By
GEORGE GORDON, Lord Byron, a Minor. 8vo. pp. 200. Newark. 1807.

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 so 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