ODE TO NAPOLEON. 213 could not add to the author's reputation; for it is made up of trite comparisons and ordinary thoughts, clothed in language which is sometimes ungrammatical, and never elegant. The verses are, in general, so doggrel, and the allusions so ludicrous, as almost to raise a question whether the noble author did not intend this ode as a burlesque, for the purpose of ridiculing some of his brother poets. If this was not the case, Lord Byron degraded himself when he penned the following lines, in which he compares Napoleon to Milo the Crotonian, wedged fast in the cleft of the tree, rent asunder by his own hands: "He who of old would rend the oak, Dream'd not of the rebound; Chained by the trunk he vainly broke Alone-how look'd he round?" Simple and childish as this appears, it is outdone in absurdity by the allusion to Nebuchadnezzar ; "Unless, like he of Babylon, All sense is with thy sceptre gone; Life will not long confine That spirit pour'd so widely forth, 214 ODE TO NAPOLEON. It seems hardly possible to carry the "art of sinking" below all this; and yet there is another verse which, for Sternholdian sense and beauty, may compete with any thing in the records of church-yard poetry : "Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust Is vile as vulgar clay; Thy scales, Mortality, are just To all that pass away!" CHAPTER X. Marriage of Lord Byron. - Character of the Hebrew Melodies.-Observations on Devotional Poetry.-Publication of the Siege of Corinth and Parisina.-Criticisms on those Poems. WHEN Lord Byron professed his intention of hanging up his harp for some years, he perhaps thought that marriage afforded as legitimate an excuse for withdrawing from the service of the Muses, as it formerly did from that of the tented field. Let this be as it may, the union which he contemplated, when he made that declaration, took place on the 2nd of January, 1815, at Seham, in Durham, with the only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbank Noel, baronet, of that place. But the vows of poets are like those of lovers; and our noble author, could not resist the importunity of friends, or the solicitation of genius, to favour the 216 HEBREW MELODIES. world with more of his performances. Shortly after this change of his condition, he produced what he called "Hebrew Melodies:" being a series of songs adapted to some of the most favourite airs that are still sung in the religious worship of the Jews; the music of which has been preserved by memory and tradition alone, without the assistance of written characters, probably ever since the dispersion of the tribes. But though the age and original of these airs must be left to conjecture; modern skill has grafted upon them a wildness and pathos that have rendered the choral service of the synagogue enchanting to the lovers of harmony. Impressed with a natural partiality for what may properly be called their national minstrelsy, two eminent performers, Mr. Braham and Mr. Nathan, the one a singer of the first rank and the other a composer of eminence, applied to Lord Byron, through his friend Mr. Kinnaird, to favour them with some poetry suited to the popular music of their religious society. His lordship readily assented, and the melodies appeared, first with the music, and afterwards without; though the application of the term to the words alone is an incongruity which ought to have been avoided. Besides the technical objection that the appellation of melodies belongs only to the music, there is another of more serious import against the title, when the contents of the work are examined. To every religious mind the term Hebrew Melodies conveys an idea of sacred poetry, and nothing else. It brings both to the eye and the ear, the Royal Prophet and the other holy men of ancient days, whose inspirations have descended to us as the songs of Zion for private edification and public worship. In the work of Lord Byron, on the contrary, there is nothing of a devotional character at all; and scarcely any piece that can be properly called moral, taking the word in the sense of hortatory instruction. The first piece contains a personification of Night, without a single thought of religious character in it; in another Love is described by a profusion of metaphors; and in a third, Melancholy is pictured in a similar way; beautifully, it is true, but not as it might and ought to have been with a turn of pious sentiment, tending to raise the soul above the darkness and sorrow of this sublunary state, to the cloudless skies of a happier region. Dr. Johnson, was of opinion that poetry and |