a benevolent
imagination can impart.

We have hitherto confined ourselves to an examination of the influence
of the principles and temper of this work upon its literary pretensions;
but his Lordship will forgive us if we now put off the mere critic for a
moment, and address him in that graver character which we assume to
ourselves in the title of our work. In truth, we are deeply affected by
the spectacle his poem presents to us. As the minor poems at the
conclusion of the work breathe the same spirit, suggest the same doubts,
and employ the same language with the "Childe Harold" we are compelled
to recognise the author in the hero whom he has painted. In fact, the
disclaimer, already noticed in the Preface, seems merely like one of
those veils worn to draw attention to the face rather than to baffle it:
and in the work before us we are forced to recognise a character, which,
since Rousseau gave his Confessions to the public, has scarcely ever, we
think, darkened the horizon of letters. The reader of the "Confessions"
is dismayed to find a man frankly avowing the most disgraceful vices;
abandoning them, not upon principle, but merely because they have ceased
to gratify; prepared to return to them if they promise to reward him
better; without natural affection, neither loving, nor beloved by any;
without peace, without hope, "without God in the world." When we search
into the mysterious cause of this autobiographical phenomenon, we at
once discover that Rousseau's immeasurable vanity betrayed him into a
belief, that even his vices would vanish in the blaze of his
excellencies; and that the world would worship him, as idolaters do
their mishapen gods, in spite of their ugliness. The confessions of
Lord Byron, we regret to say, bear something of an analogy to those of
the philosopher of Geneva. Are they, then, to be traced to the _same
source_? He plainly is far from indifferent to the opinion of
by-standers: can he, then, conceive that this peep into the window of
his breast must not revolt every virtuous eye? Can he boldly proclaim
his violations of decency and of sobriety; his common contempt for all
modifications of religion; his monstrous belief in the universal rest or
annihilation of man in a future state; and forget that he is one of
those who

"Play such tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep;"

as offend against all moral taste; as attempt to shake the very pillars
of domestic happiness a