Dersonages who decry Pope. One of them, a Mr. John mean that they are coarse, but "shabby-genteel," as i Ketch, has written some lines against him, of which is termed. A man may be coarse and yet not vulgar it were better to be the subject than the author. Mr. and the reverse. Burns is often coarse, but never vulgar. Hunt redeems himself by occasional beauties; but the Chatterton is never vulgar, nor Wordsworth, nor the rest of these poor creatures seem so far gone that I higher of the Lake school, though they treat of low life would not "march through Coventry with them, that's in all its branches. It is in their finery that the new flat!" were I in Mr. Hunt's place. To be sure, he has under school are most vulgar, and they may be known "led his ragamuffins where they will be well pep-by this at once; as what we called at Harrow" a Sunday pered" but a system-maker must receive all sorts of blood" might be easily distinguished from a gentleman, proselytes. When they have really seen life when although his clothes might be the better cut, and his they have felt it-when they have travelled beyond the boots the best blackened, of the two ;-probably because far distant boundaries of the wilds of Middlesex-he made the one, or cleaned the other, with his own when they have overpassed the Alps of Highgate, and hands. traced to its sources the Nile of the New River-then, and not till then, can it properly be permitted to them to despise Pope; who had, if not in Wales, been near it, when he described so beautifully the "artificial" works of the Benefactor of Nature and mankind, the "Man of Ross," whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the inn, I have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and admiration of the poet, without whom even his own still existing good works could hardly have preserve' his honest renown. In the present case, I speak of writing not of persons. Of the latter, I know nothing; of the former, I judge as it is found. Of my friend Hunt, I have already said, that he is any thing but vulgar in his manners; and of his disciples, therefore, I will not judge of their manners from their verses. They may be honourable and genlemanly men, for what I know; but the latter quality is studiously excluded from their publications. They remind me of Mr. Smith and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead Assembly, in "Evelina." In these I would also observe to my friend Hunt, that I shall be things (in private life, at least,) I pretend to some small very glad to see him at Ravenna, not only for my sin- experience; because, in the course of my youth, I have cere pleasure in his company, and the advantage which seen a little of all sorts of society, from the Christian a thousand miles or so of travel might produce to a prince and the Mussulman sultan and pacha, and the "natural" poet, but also to point out one or two little higher ranks of their countries, down to the London things in " Rimini," which he probably would not have boxer, the "flash and the swell," the Spanish muleteer, placed in his opening to that poem, if he had ever seen the wandering Turkish dervise, the Scotch highlander, Ravenna -unless, indeed, it made "part of his and the Albanian robber-to say nothing of the curious system!!" I must also crave his indulgence for having varieties of Italian social life. Far be it from me to spoken of his disciples-by no means an agreeable or presume that there ever was, or can be such a thing as self-sought subject. If they had said nothing of Pope, an aristocracy of poets; but there is a nobility of they might have remained "alone with their glory" for thought, and of style, open to all stations, and derived aught I should have said or thought about them or partly from talent, and partly from education,—which their nonsense. But if they interfere with the "little is to be found in Shakspeare, and Pope, and Burns, no Nightingalo" of Twickenham, they may find others less than in Dante and Alfieri, but which is nowhere to who will bear it-I won't. Neither time, nor dis- be perceived in the mock birds and bards of Mr. Hunt's tance, nor grief, nor age, can ever diminish my vene- little chorus. If I were asked to define what this genration for him, who is the great moral poet of all tlemanliness is, I should say that it is only to be defined times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages by examples of those who have it, and those who have of existence. The delight of my boyhood, the study it not. In life, I should say that most military men have of my manhood, perhaps (if allowed to me to attain it, and few naval;-that several men of rank have it, and it) he may be the consolation of my age. His poetry few lawyers-that it is more frequent among authors is the Book of Life. Without canting, and yet without than divines (when they are not pedants); that fencingneglecting religion, he has assembled all that a good and great man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in consummate beauty. Sir William Temple observes, "that of all the members of mankind that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a great poet, there may be a thousand born capable of making as great generals and ministers of state as any in story." Here is a statesman's opinion of poetry: it is honourable to him and to the art. Such a 66 poet of a thousand years" was Pope. A thousand years will roll away before such another can be hoped for in our literature. But it can want them-he himself is a literature. masters have more of it than dancing-masters, and singers than players; and that (if it be not an Irishism to say so) it is far more generally diffused among women than among men. In poetry, as well as writing in general, it will never make entirely a poet or a poem ; but neither poet nor poem will ever be good for any thing without it. It is the salt of society, and the seasoning of composition. Vulgarity is far worse than downright blackguardism; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong sense at times; while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all things, "signifying nothing." It does not depend upon low themes, or even low language, for Fielding revels in both;-but is he ever One word upon his so brutally abused translation of vulgar? No. You see the man of education, the gen. Homer. "Dr. Clarke, whose critical exactnes is well tleman, and the scholar, sporting with his subject,-its known, has not been able to point out above three or master, not its slave, Your vulgar writer is always four mistakes in the sense through the whole Iliad. The real faults of the translation are of a different kind." So says Warton, himself a scholar. It appears by this, then, that he avoided the chief fault of a translator. As to its other faults, they consist in his having made a beautiful English poem of a sublime Greek one. It will always hold. Cowper and all the rest of the blank pretenders may do their best and their worst: they will never wrench Pope from the hands of a single reader of sense and feeling. The grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets is their vulgarity. By this I do not most vulgar, the higher, his subject; as the man who showed the menagerie at Pidcock's was wont to say,"This, gentlemen, is the eagle of the sun, from Archangel in, Russia; the otterer it is, the igherer he flies.* But to the proofs. It is a thing to be felt more than explained. Let any man take up a volume of Mr. Hunt's subordinate writers, read (if possible) a couple of pages, and pronounce for himself, if they contain not the kind of writing which may be likened to "shabby-genteel" in actual life. When he has done this, let ha take up Pope -and when he has laid him down, take up the cockney again-if he can. NOTE. Note referring to some remarks of Mr. Bowles, relative to Pope's lines upon Lady Mary W. Montague.] I think that I could show, if necessary, that Lady Mary W. Montague was also greatly to blame in that quarrel, not for having rejected, but for having encouraged him: but I would rather decline the task-though she should have remembered her own line, "He comes too near, that comes to be denied." I admire her so much-her beauty, her talents-that I should do this reluctantly. I, besides, am so attached to the very name of Mary, that as Johnson once said, "If you called a dog Herrey, I should love him ;" so, if you were to call a female of the same species" Mary," I should love it better than others (biped or quadruped) of the same sex with a different appellation. She was an extraordinary woman; she could translate Epictetus, and yet write a song worthy of Aristippus. The lines, "And when the long hours of the public are past, And we meet with champaigne and a chicken, at last, May every fond pleasure thatmoment endear! There, Mr. Bowles!-what say you to such a supper with such a woman? and her own description too? is not her "champaigne and chicken" worth a forest or two? Is it not poetry? It appears to me that this stanza contains the "pure" of the whole philosophy of Epicurus :-I mean the practical philosophy of his school, not the precepts of the master; for I have been too long at the university not to know that the philosopher was himself a moderate man. But, after all, would not some of us have been as great fools as Pope? For my part, I wonder that, with his quick feelings, her coquetry, and his disappointment, he did no more,-instead of writing some lines, which are to be condemned if false, and regretted if true THE AMIABLE AND INGENIOUS AUTHOR OF "THE CALAMITIES" AND "QUARRELS OF AUTHORS;" THIS ADDITIONAL QUARREL AND CALAMITY IS INSCRIBED BY ONE OF THE NUMBER. Ravenna, March 15, 1820. to disavow these things published in my name, and yet THE life of a writer" has been said, by Pope, I not mine, go out of my way to deny an anonymous As far as work; which might appear an act of supererogation. believe, to be "a warfare upon earth." my own experience has gone, I have nothing to say With regard to Don Juan, I neither deny nor admit it against the proposition; and, like the rest, having once to be mine-every body may form their own opinion. plunged into this state of hostility, must, however reluc-but, if there be any who now, or in the progress of that tantly carry it on. An article has appeared in a peri- poem, if it is to be continued, feel, or should feel themRemarks on Don Juan," which selves so aggrieved as to require a more explicit answer, odical work, entitled has been so full of this spirit, on the part of the writer, privately and personally, they shall have it. as to require some observations on mine. I I have never shrunk from the responsibility of what have written, and have more than once incurred obloquy by neglecting to disavow what was attributed to my pen without foundation. author. In the first place, I am not aware by what right the writer assumes this work, which is anonymous, to be my production. He will answer, that there is internal evidence; that is to say, that there are passages which The greater part, however, of the "Remarks on Don appear to be written in my name, or in my manner. But Juan" contain but little on the work itself, which remight not this have been done on purpose by another?ceives an extraordinary portion of praise as a composi He will say, why not then deny it? To this I could tion. With the exception of some quotations, and a answer, that of all the things attributed to me within the few incidental remarks, the rest of the article is neither last five years,-Pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Deaths more nor less than a personal attack upon the imputed It is not the first in the same publication: for upon Pale Horses, Odes to the Land of the Gaul, Adieus to England. Songs to Madame La Valette, Odes to St. I recollect to have read, some time ago, similar remarks Helena, Vampires, and what not, of which, God upon "Beppo" (said to have been written by a cele knows, I never composed nor read a syllable beyond brated northern preacher); in which the conclusion their titles in advertisements,-I never thought it worth drawn was, that "Childe Harold, Byron, and the Count while to disavow any, except one which came linked with an account of my "residence in the isle of Mitylene," where I never resided, and appeared to be carrying the amusement of those persons, who think my name can be of any use to them, a little too far. I should hardly, therefore, if I did not take the trouble in Beppo, were one and the same person;" thereby making me turn out to be, as Mrs. Malaprop says, "like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once." That article was signed "Presbyter Anglicanus;" which, I presume, being interpreted, means Scotch Presbyterian. I must here observe,-and it is at once ludicrous and vexation gratification, neither now nor heretofore, neither in England nor out of it; and it wants but a word from me, if I thought that word decent or necessary, to call forth the most willing witnesses, and at once witnesses and proofs, in England itself, to show that there are those who have derived not the mere temporary relief of a wretched boon, but the means which led them to im mediate happiness and ultimate independence, by my want of that very "selfishness," as grossly as falsely now imputed to my conduct. to be compelled so frequently to repeat the same thing, I neither make, nor have ever made, pretensions 11 -that my case, as an author, is peculiarly hard, in sanctity of demeanour, nor regularity of conduct; but being everlastingly taken, or mistaken for my own pro- my means have been expended principally on my own tagonist. It is unjust and particular. I never heard that my friend Moore was set down for a fire-worshipper on account of his Guebre; that Scott was identified with Roderick Dhu, or with Balfour of Burley; or that, notwithstanding all the magicians in Thalaba, any body has ever taken Mr. Southey for a conjuror; whereas I have had some difficulty in extricating me even from Manfred, who, as Mr. Southey slily observes in one of his articles in the Quarterly, "met the devil on the Jungfrau, and bullied him:" and I answer Mr. Southey, who has apparently, in his poetical life, not been so Had I been a selfish man-had I been a grasping successful against the great enemy, that, in this, Man-man-had I been, in the worldly sense of the word even fred exactly followed the sacred precept," Resist the a prudent man,-I should not be where I now am; I devil, and he will flee from you."-I shall have no more should not have taken the step which was the first that to say on the subject of this person-not the devil, but led to the events which have sunk and swoln a gulf behis most humble servant Mr. Southey-before I con- tween me and mine; but in this respect the truth will clude; but, for the present, I must return to the article one day be made known in the mean time, as Duranin the Edinburgh Magazine. dearte says, in the Cave of Montesinos, "Patience, and shuffle the cards." In the course of this article, amidst some extraordinary observations, there occur the following words:-" It I bitterly feel the ostentation of this statement, the appears, in short, as if this miserable man, having ex-first of the kind I have ever made: I feel the degradahausted every species of sensual gratification,-having tion of being compelled to make it; but I also feel its drained the cup of sin even to its bitterest dregs, were truth, and I trust to feel it on my death-bed, should it be resolved to show us that he is no longer a human being my lot to die there. I am not less sensible of the egoeven in his frailties,-but a cool, unconcerned fiend, tism of all this; but, alas! who have made me thus laughing with a detestable glee over the whole of the egotistical in my own defence, if not they, who, by perbetter and worse elements of which human life is com-versely persisting in referring fiction to truth, and tracing posed." In another place there appears, "the lurking poetry to life, and regarding characters of imagination place of his selfish and polluted exile."-"By my troth, as creatures of existence, have made me personally these be bitter words!"-With regard to the first sen-responsible for almost every poetical delineation which tence, I shall content myself with observing, that it fancy and a particular bias of thought, may have tended appears to have been composed for Sardanapalus, Tibeto produce? rius, the Regent Duke of Orleans, or Louis XV.; and The writer continues:-" Those who are acquainted, that I have copied it with as much indifference as I as who is not? with the main incidents of the private would a passage from Suetonius, or from any of the life of Lord B.," &c. Assuredly, whoever may be acprivate niemoirs of the regency, conceiving it to be quainted with these "main incidents," the writer of the amply refuted by the terms in which it is expressed, and" Remarks on Don Juan" is not, or he would use a very to be utterly inapplicable to any private individual. On different language. That which I believe he alludes to the words, "lurking-place," and "selfish and polluted as a "main incident," happened to be a very subordiexile," I have something more to say.-How far thenate one, and the natural and almost inevitable conse. capital city of a government, which survived the vicis-quence of events and circumstances long prior to the situdes of thirteen hundred years, and might still have period at which it occurred. It is the last drop which existed but for the treachery of Buonaparte, and the makes the cup run over, and mine was already full.iniquity of his imitators,—a city which was the empo- But, to return to this man's charge: he accuses Lord rium of Europe when London and Edinburgh were dens B. of "an elaborate satire on the character and manof barbarians,-may be termed a "lurking-place," Iners of his wife." From what parts of Don Juan the leave to those who have seen or heard of Venice to de- writer has inferred this he himself best knows. As far cide. How far my exile may have been "polluted," it as I recollect of the female characters in that producis not for me to say, because the word is a wide one, tion, there is but one who is depicted in ridiculous coand, with some of its branches, may chance to over- lours, or that could be interpreted as a satire upon any shadow the actions of most men; but that it has been body. But here my poetical sins are again visited upon "selfish" I deny. If, to the extent of my means and me, supposing that the poem be mine. If I depict a my power, and my information of their calamities, to corsair, a misanthrope, a libertine, a chief of insurgents. have assisted many miserable beings, reduced by the or an infidel, he is set down to the author; and if, in a decay of the place of their birth, and their consequent poem by no means ascertained to be my production, there loss of substance-if to have never rejected an applica- appears a disagreeable, casuistical, and by no means tion which appeared founded on truth-if to have ex-respectable female pedant, it is set down for my wife. pended in this manner sums far out of proportion to Is there any resemblance? If there be, it is in those iny fortune, there and elsewhere, be selfish, then have I been selfish. To have done such things I do not deem much; but it is hard indeed to be compelled to recapitulate them in my own defence, by such accusations as that before me, like a panel before a jury calling testimonies to his character, or a soldier recording his services to obtain his discharge. If the person who has made the charge of "selfishness" wishes to inform himself further on the subject, he may acquire, not what he would wish to find, but what will silence and shame him, by applying to the Consul-General of our nation, resident in the place, who will be in the case either to confirm or deny what I have asserted. who make it. I can see none. In my writings I have rarely described any character under a fictitious name : those of whom I have spoken have had their own—in many cases a stronger satire in itself than any which could be appended to it. But of real circumstances I have availed myself plentifully, both in the serious and the ludicrous-they are to poetry what landscapes are to the painter; but my figures are not portraits. It may even have happened, that I have seized on some events that have occurred under my own observation, or in my own family, as I would paint a view from my grounds, did it harmonise with my picture; but I never would introduce the likenesses of its living members, uniess their features could be made as favourable to themselves by the waves of the Adriatic, like the stag at bay, who as to the effect; which, in the above instance, would be betakes him to the waters. extremely difficult. My learned brother proceeds to observe, that "it is in vain for Lord B. to attempt in any way to justify his own behaviour in that affair; and now that he has so openly and audaciously invited enquiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason why he should not be plainly told so by the voice of his countrymen. How far the "openness" of an anonymous poem, and the "audacity" of an imaginary character, which the writer supposes to be meant for Lady B., may be deemed to merit this formidable denunciation from their "most sweet voices," I neither know nor care; but when he tells me that I cannot "in any way justify my own behaviour in that affair," I acquiesce, because no man can "justify" himself until he knows of what he is accused; and I have never had-and, God knows, my whole desire has ever been to obtain it-any specific charge, in a tangible shape, submitted to me by the adversary, nor by others, unless the atrocities of public rumour and the mysterious silence of the lady's legal advisers may be deemed such. But is not the writer content with what has been already said and done? Has not "the general voice of his countrymen" long ago pronounced upon the subject-sentence without trial, and condemnation without a charge? Have I not been exiled by ostracism, except that the shells which proscribed me were anonymous? Is the writer ignorant of the public opinion and the public conduct upon that occasion? If he is, I am not: the public will forget both, long before I shall cease to remember either. : If I may judge by the statements of the few friends who gathered round me, the outery of the period to which I allude was beyond all precedent, all parallel, even in those cases where political motives have shar pened slander and doubled enmity. I was advised not to go to the theatres, lest I should be hissed, nor to my duty in parliament, lest I should be insulted by the way; even on the day of my departure, my most intimate friend told me afterwards, that he was under apprehen sions of violence from the people who might be assembled at the door of the carriage. However, I was not deterred by these counsels from seeing Kean in his best characters, nor from voting according to my principles; and with regard to the third and last apprehensions of my friends, I could not share in them, not being made acquainted with their extent, till some time after I had crossed the Channel. Even if I had been so, I am not of a nature to be much affected by men's anger, though I may feel hurt by their aversion. Against all individual outrage, I could protect or redress myself; and against that of a crowd, I should probably have been enabled to defend myself, with the assistance of others. as has been done on similar occasions. I con I retired from the country, perceiving that I was the object of general obloquy; I did not indeed imagine, like Jean Jacques Rousseau, that all mankind was in a conspiracy against me, though I had perhaps as good grounds for such a chimera as ever he had: but I perceived that had to a great extent become personally obnoxious in England, perhaps through my own fault, but the fact The man who is exiled by a faction has the consola-was indisputable; the public in general would hardly tion of thinking that he is a martyr; he is upheld by have been so much excited against a more popular chahope and the dignity of his cause, real or imaginary racter, without at least an accusation or a charge of he who withdraws from the pressure of debt may indulge some kind actually expressed or substantiated, for I can in the thought that time and prudence will retrieve his hardly conceive that the common and every-day occurcircunstances: he who is condemned by the law, has a rence of a separation between man and wife could in term to his banishment, or a dream of its abbreviation; itself produce so great a ferment. I shall say nothing or, it may be, the knowledge or the belief of some in- of the usual complaints of "being prejudged,' justice of the law, or of its administration in his own demned unheard," "unfairness," "partiality," and so particular; but he who is outlawed by general opinion, forth, the usual changes rung by parties who have had, without the intervention of hostile politics, illegal judg- or are to have, a trial; but I was a little surprised to ment, or embarrassed circumstances, whether he be in- find myself condemned without being favoured with the nocent or guilty, must undergo all the bitterness of exile, act of accusation, and to perceive in the absence of without hope, without pride, without alleviation. This this portentous charge or charges, whatever it or they case was mine. Upon what grounds the public founded were to be, that every possible or impossible crime was their opinion, I am not aware; but it was general, and rumoured to supply its place, and taken for granted. it was decisive. Of me or of mine they knew little, This could only occur in the case of a person very much except that I had written what is called poetry, was a disliked, and I knew no remedy, having already used nobleman, had married, became a father, and was in- to their extent whatever little powers I might possess volved in differences with my wife and her relatives, no of pleasing in society. I had no party in fashion, one knew why, because the persons complaining refused though I was afterwards told that there was one-but it to state their grievances. The fashionable world was was not of my formation, nor did I then know of its divided into parties, mine consisting of a very small existence-none in literature; and in politics I had voted minority: the reasonable world was naturally on the with the Whigs, with precisely that importance which stronger side, which happened to be the lady's, as was a Whig vote possesses in these Tory days, and with most proper and polite. The press was active and such personal acquaintance with the leaders in both scurrilous; and such was the rage of the day, that the houses as the society in which I lived sanctioned, but unfortunate publication of two copies of verses, rather without claim or expectation of any thing like friendcomplimentary than otherwise to the subjects of both, ship from any one, except a few young men of my own was tortured into a species of crime, or constructive age and standing, and a few others more advanced in petty treason. I was accused of every monstrous vice life, which last it had been my fortune to serve in cirby public rumour and private rancour: my name, which cumstances of difficulty. This was, in fact, to stand ad been a knightly or a nobie one since my fathers alone: and I recollect, some time after, Madame de helped to conquer the kingdom for William the Norman, Staël said to me in Switzerland, "You should not have was tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered, and warred with the world-it will not do-it is too strong muttered, and murmured, was true, I was unfit for Eng- always for any individual: I myself once tried it in land; if false, England was unfit for me. I withdrew: early life, but it will not do." I perfectly acquiesce in but this was not enough. In other countries, in Swit- the truth of this remark; but the world had done me the zerland, in the shadow of the Alps, and by the blue honour to begin the war; and, assuredly, if peace is depth of the lakes, I was pursued and breathed upon by only to be obtained by courting and paying tribute to t the same blight. I crossed the mountains, but it was I am not qualified to obtain its countenance. I thought, the same; so I went a little farther, and settled myself in the words of Campbell, "Then wed thee to an exiled lot, And if the world hath loved thee not, I recollect, however, that, having been much hurt by Romilly's conduct, (he, having a general retainer for me, had acted as adviser to the adversary, alleging, on being reminded of his retainer, that he had forgotten it, as his clerk had so many,) I observed that some of those who were now eagerly laying the axe to my rooftree, might see their own shaken, and feel a portion of what they had inflicted.-His fell, and crushed him. I have heard of, and believe, that there are human beings so constituted as to be insensible to injuries; but I believe that the best mode to avoid taking vengeance is to get out of the way of temptation. I hope that I may never have the opportunity, for I am not quite sure that I could resist it, having derived from my mother something of the "perfervidum ingenium Scotorum." I have not sought, and shall not seek it, and perhaps it may never come in my path. I do not in this allude to the party who might be right or wrong but to many who made her cause the pretext of their own bitterness. She, indeed, must have long avenged me in her own feelings; for whatever her reasons may have been (and she never adduced them to me at least), she probably neither contemplated nor conceived to what she became the means of conducting the father of her child, and the husband of her choice. So much for "the general voice of his countrymen :" I will now speak of some in particular. England; but I shall return with the same feelings with merely to show that the sentiment which I have descri- having vented my "spleen against the lofty-minded body, and in circunstances, I took up my residence at In the beginning of the year 1817, an article appeared in the Quarterly Review, written, I believe, by Walter Scott*, doing great honour to him, and no disgrace to me, though both poetically and personally more than sufficiently favourable to the work and the author of whom it treated. It was written at a time when a selfish man would not, and a timid one dared not, have said a word in favour of either; it was written by one to whom temporary public opinion had elevated me to the rank of a rival a proud distinction, and unmerited; but which has not prevented me from feeling as a friend, nor him from more than corresponding to that sentiment. The article in question was written upon the Third Canto of Childe Harold; and after many observations, which it would as ill become me to repeat as to forget, concluded with "a hope that I might yet return to England." How this expression was received in England itself I am not acquainted, but it gave great offence at Rome to the respectable ten or twenty thousand words of the Edinburgh Magazine, made, I understand, One of these lofty-minded and virtuous men,” in the English travellers then and there assembled. I did not about this time, or soon after, a tour in Switzerland, visit Rome till some time after, so that I had no oppor- On his return to England, he circulated-and for any tunity of knowing the fact; but I was informed, long thing I know, invented-a report, that the gentleman to afterwards, that the greatest indignation had been mani-whom I have alluded and myself were living in promis. fested in the enlightened Anglo-circle of that year, which cuous intercourse with two sisters," having formed a happened to comprise within it-amidst a considerable league of incest" (I quote the words as they were stated leaven of Welbeck street and Devonshire Place, broken loose upon their travels-several really well-born and well-bred families, who did not the less participate in the feeling of the hour. "Why should he return to England?" was the general exclamation-I answer why? It is a question I have occasionally asked myself, and I never yet could give it a satisfactory reply. I had then no thoughts of returning, and if I have any now, they are of business, and not of pleasure. Amidst the ties that have been dashed to pieces, there are links yet entire, though the chain itself be broken. There are duties, and connections, which may one day require my presence and I am a father. I have still some friends whom I wish to meet again, and it may be an enemy. These things, and those minuter details of business, which time accumulates during absence, in every man's affairs and property, may, and probably will, recall me to See Quarterly Review, Vol. xvi. p. 172. to me), and indulged himself on the natural comments repeated publicly, with great complacency, by another upon such a conjunction, which are said to have been of that poetical fraternity, of whom I shall say only, that even had the story been true, he should not have repeated it, as far as it regarded myself, except in sorthe ladies were not sisters, nor in any degree conrow. The tale itself requires but a word in answer nected, except by the second marriage of their respective parents, a widower with a widow, both being the offspring of former marriages; neither of them were, in 1816, nineteen years old. could hardly have disgusted the great patron of panti"Promiscuous intercourse" socracy, (does Mr. Southey remember such a scheme?) but there was none. How far this man, who, as author of Wat Tyler, has • Dr. Polidori-author of the "Vampire." ↑ Mr. and Mrs. Shelley, Miss Clermont, and Master Shelley. |