Bowles's poetry were written long before the pub- and even flatteringly. The reader will forgive the lication of his last and best poem; and that a weakness in favor of mortality, and correct your poet's last poem should be his best, is his highest adulation with a smile. But to sit down "mingere praise. But, however, he may duly and honorably in patriots cineres," as Mr. Bowles has done, merits rank with his living rivals, there never was so a reprobation so strong, that I am as incapable of complete a proof of the superiority of Pope, as in expressing as of ceasing to feel it. the lines with which Mr. Bowles closes his "to be concluded in our next.” Mr. Bowles is avowedly the champion and the poet of nature. Art and the arts are dragged, some before. and others behind his chariot. Pope, where he deals with passion, and with the nature of the naturals of the day, is allowed even by themselves to be sublime; but they complain that too soon "He stoop'd to truth and moralised his song." FURTHER ADDENDA. It is worthy of remark that, after all this outery about "in-door nature " and "artificial images," Pope was the principal inventor of that boast of the English, Modern Gardening. He divides this honor with Milton. Hear Warton:-"It hence appears, that this enchanting art of modern gardening, in which this kingdom claims a preference over every and there even they allow him to be unrivalled. He nation in Europe, chiefly owes its origin and its has succeeded, and even surpassed them, when he improvements to two great poets, Milton and Pope." chose, in their own pretended province. Let us see Walpole (no friend to Pope) asserts that Pope what their Corypheus effects in Pope's. But it is formed Kent's taste, and that Kent was the artist too pitiable, it is too melancholy to see Mr. Bowles to whom the English are chiefly indebted for difus "sinning' not "up" but "down" as a poet to his ing "a taste in laying out grounds." The design lowest depth as an editor. By the way, Mr. Bowles of the Prince of Wales's garden was copied from Pope's at Twickenham. is always quoting Pope. I grant that there is no Warton applauds “his poet-not Shakspeare himself-who can be so often singular effort of art and taste, in impressing so quoted, with reference to life;-but his editor is so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres," like the devil quoting Scripture, that I could wish Pope was the first who ridiculed the formal, Mr. Bowles in his proper place, quoting in the French, Dutch, false and unnatural taste in gardening," both in prose and verse. (See, for the pulpit. former, "The Guardian.") And now for his lines. But it is painful-painful -to see such a suicide, though at the shrine of Pope. I can't copy them all : "Shall the rank, loathsome miscreant of the age "Whose pye-bald character so aptly suit The two extremes of Bantom and of Brute, 66 "Pope has given not only some of our first, but best rules and observations on Architecture and Gardening." (See Warton's Essay, vol. ii. p. 237, &ĉng &c.) Now, is it not a shame, after this, to hear our Lakers in "Kendal Green," and our Buccolical Cockneys, crying out (the latter in a wilderness of bricks and mortar) about "Nature," and Pope's "artificial in-door habits?" Pope had seen all of nature that England alone can supply. He was bred in Windsor Forest, and amidst the beautiful scenery of Eton; he lived familiarly and frequently at the country seats of Bathurst, Cobham, Burlington, Peterborough, Digby, and Bolingbroke; amongst whose seats was to be numbered Store. With regard to the last line, the only one upon He made his own little "five acres” a model to which I shall venture for fear of infection, I would princes, and to the first of our artists who imitated Warton thinks "that the most engage advise Mr. Gilchrist to keep out of the way of such reciprocal morsure-unless he has more faith in the of Kent's works was also planned on the model "Ormskirk medicine" than most people, or may Pope's,—at least in the opening and retiring shades wish to anticipate the pension of the recent German of Venus's Vale." "And thus stand forth, spite of thy venom'd foam, To give thee bite for bite, or lash thee limping home." nature. On a tree at Lord Barthurst's is professor, (I forget his name, but it is advertised It is true that Pope was infirm and deformed; t and full of consonants,) who presented his memoir he could walk, and he could ride, (he rode to Oxford of an infallible remedy for the hydrophobia to the from London at a stretch,) and he was famous for German diet last month, coupled with the philan-an exquisite eye. thropic condition of a large annuity, provided that carved, "Here Pope sang,"-he composed beneath his cure cured. Let him begin with the editor of it. Bolingbroke, in one of his letters, represents Pope, and double his demand. them both writing in the hay-field. No poet ever admired Nature more, or used her better, than Pope has done, as I will undertake to prove from Eis works, prose and verse, if not anticipated in so easy and agreeable a labor. I remember a passage in To John Murray, Esq. Yours ever, BYRON. P. S. Amongst the above-mentioned lines there Walpole, somewhere, of a gentleman who wished occurs the following, applied to Pope 66 "The assassin's vengeance, and the coward's lie." a common to give directions about some willows to a man who had long served Pope in his grounds: "I understand, sir," he replied: "you would have them And Mr. Bowles persists that he is a well-wisher of hang down, sir, somewhat poetical." Now, if nePope!!! He has, then, edited an "assassin" and thing existed but this little anecdote, it would sufa coward" wittingly, as well as lovingly. In my fice to prove Pope's taste for Nature, and the former letter I have remarked upon the editor's for- impression which he had made on getfulness of Pope's benevolence. But where he minded man. But I have already quoted Wartca mentions his faults it is "with sorrow "-his tears and Walpole (both his enemies) and, were it neces drop, but they do not blot them out. The "record- sary, I could amply quote Pope himself for such ing angel" differs from the recording clergyman. tributes to Nature as no poet of the present day has A fulsome editor is pardonable though tiresome, even approached. like a panegyrical son whose pious sincerity would His various excellence is really wonderful: archidemi-deify his father. But a detracting editor is a tecture, painting, gardening, all are alike subject to paricide. He sins against the nature of his office, his genius. Be it remembered, that English gar and connection-he murders the life to come of his dening is the purposed perfectioning of niggard victim. If his author is not worthy to be men- Nature, and that without it England is but a tioned, do not edit at all: f he be, edit honestly, hedge-and-ditch, double-post-and-rail, Hounslow Heath and Clapham-Common sort of country, since been near it, when he described so beautifully the the principal forests have been felled. It is, in "artificial' works of the Benefactor of Nature general, far from a picturesque country. The case and mankind, the "Man of Ross," whose picture, is different with. Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and still suspended in the parlor of the inn, I have so I except also the lake countries and Derbyshire, often contemplated with reverence for his memory, together with Eton, Windsor, and my own dear and admiration of the poet, without whom even his Harrow on the Hill, and some spots near the coast. own still existing good works could hardly have In the present rank fertility of great poets of the preserved his honest renown. age," and "schools of poetry "-a word which, like 66 "schools of eloquence" and of "philosophy," is shall be very glad to see him at Ravenna, not only I would also observe to my friend Hunt, that I never introduced till the decay of the art has in- for my sincere pleasure in his company, and the creased with the number of its professors-in the advantage which a thousand miles or so of travel present day, then, there have sprung up two sorts might produce to a "natural" poet, but also to of Naturals:-the Lakers, who whine about Nature point out one or two little things in "Rimini," because they live in Cumberland; and their under-which he probably would not have placed in his sect (which some one has maliciously called the opening to that poem, if he had ever seen Ravenna. Cockney School,") who are enthusiastical for the unless, indeed, it made "part of his system!! country because they live in London. It is to be I must also crave his indulgence for having spoken observed, that the rustical founders are rather anx- of his disciples-by no means an agreeable or selfious to disclaim any connexion with their metropo- sought subject. If they had said nothing of Pope, litan followers, whom they ungraciously review, they might have remained "alone with their glory" and call cockneys, atheists, foolish fellows, bad for aught I should have said or thought about them writers, and other hard names not less ungrateful or their nonsense. than unjust. I can understand the pretensions of "little Nightingale" of Twickenham, they may But if they interfere with the the aquatic gentlemen of Windermere to what Mr. find others who will bear it-I won't. Braham terms "entusymusy," for lakes, and moun-time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age, can ever Neither tains, and daffodils, and buttercups; but I should diminish my veneration for him, who is the great be glad to be apprised of the foundation of the Lon- moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, don propensities of their imitative brethren to the and of all stages of existence. The delight of my "high argument." Southey, Wordsworth, boyhood, the study of my manhood, perhaps (if and Coleridge have rambled over half Europe, and allowed to me to attain it) he may be the consolaseen Nature in most of her varieties, (although I tion of my age. think that they have occasionally not used her very Without canting, and yet without neglecting religHis poetry is the Book of Life. well;) but what on earth-of earth, and sea, and ion, he has assembled all that a good and great man Nature-have the others seen? Not a half, nor a can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in tenth part so much a Pope. While they sneer at consummate beauty. Sir William Temple observes, Windsor Forest, have they ever seen any thing of "that of all the members of mankind that live Windsor except its brick? within the compass of a thousand years, for one same The most rural of these gentlemen is my friend man that is born capable of making a great poet, Leigh Hunt, who lives at Hampstead. I believe there may be a thousand born capable of making as that I need not disclaim any personal or poetical great generals and ministers of state as any in hostility against that gentleman. A more amiable story." Here is a statesman's opinion of poetry: man in society I know not; nor (when he will allow it is honorable to him and to the art. Such a "poet his sense to prevail over his sectarian principles) a of a thousand years better writer. was Pope. A thousand years When he was writing his "Remi- will roll away before such another can be hoped for ni," I was not the last to discover its beauties, long in our literature. But it can want them-he himbefore it was published. Even then I remonstrated self is a literature. against its vulgarisms; which are the more extraordinary, because the author is any thing but a of Homer. One word upon his so brutally abused translation vulgar man. "Dr. Clarke, whose critical exactness Mr. Hunt's answer was, that he wrote is well known, has not been able to point out above them upon principle; they made part of his "sys-three or four mistakes in the sense through the tem!!" I then said no more. When a man talks whole Iliad. The real faults of the translation are of his system, it is like a woman's talking of her vir- of a different kind." So says Warton, himself a tue. I let them talk on. Whether there are writers scholar. It appears by this, then, that he avoided who could have written "Rimini," as it might the chief fault of a translator. As to its other have been written, I know not; but Mr. Hunt is, faults, they consist in his having made a beautiful probably, the only poet who could have had the English poem of a sublime Greek one. heart to spoil his own Capo d'Opera. 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. With the rest of his young people I have no acquaintance, except through some things of theirs (which have been sent out without my desire,) and I confess that till I had read them I was not aware of the full extent of human absurdity. Like Gar-new school of poets in their vulgarity. By this I The grand distinction of the under forms of the rick's "Ode to Shakspeare," they "defy criticism." do not mean that they are coarse, but "shabbyThese are of the personages who decry Pope. One genteel," as it is termed. A man may be coarse of them, a Mr. John Ketch, has written some lines and yet not vulgar, and the reverse. against him, of which it were better to be the sub-coarse, but never vulgar. Chatterton is never vulBurns is often ject than the author. Mr. Hunt redeems himself gar, nor Wordsworth, nor the higher of the Lake by occasional beauties; but the rest of these poor school, though they treat of low life in all its creatures seem so far gone that I would not "march branches. It is in their finery that that the new through Coventry with them, that's flat!" were I under school are most vulgar, and they may be in Mr. Hunt's place. To be sure, he has "led his known by this at once; as what we called at Harragamuffins where they will be well peppered;" but row "a Sunday blood" might be easily distin1 system-maker must receive all sorts of proselytes. guished from a gentleman, although his clothes When they have really seen life-when they have might be the better cut, and his boots the best felt it-when they have travelled beyond the far blackened, of the two;-probably because he made distant boundaries of the wilds of Middlesex-when the one, or cleaned the other, with his own hands. they have overpassed the Alps of Highgate, and traced to its sources the Nile of the New River-sons. In the present case, I speak of writing, not of perOf the latter, I know nothing; of the former, then, and not till then, can it properly be permitted I judge as it is found. Of my friend Hunt, I have to them to despise Pope; who had, if not in Wales, already said, that he is any thing but vulgar in his manners; and of his disciples, therefore, I will not divines (when they are not pedants); that fencing judge of their manners from their verses. They masters have more of it than dancing-masters, and may be honorable and gentlemanly men, for what I singers than players; and that (if it be not an know; but the latter quality is studiously excluded Irishism to say so) it is far more generally diffused from their publications. They remind me of Mr. among women than among men. In poetry, as Smith and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead well as writing in general, it will never make enAssembly, in "Evelina." In these things (in pri- tirely a poet or a poem; but neither poet nor poem vate life, at least), I pretend to some small experi- will ever be good for any thing without it. It is the ence; because, in the course of my youth, I have salt of society, and the seasoning of composition. seen a little of all sorts of society, from the Christ- Vulgarity is far worse than downright blackguardian prince and the Mussulman sultan and pacha, ism; for the latter comprehends wit, humor, and and the higher ranks of their countries, down to strong sense at times; while the former is a sad the London boxer, the "flash and the swell," the abortive attempt at all things, "signifying nothing." Spanish muleteer, the wandering Turkish dervise, It does not depend upon low themes, or even low the Scotch highlander, and the Albanian robber;-language, for Fielding revels in both;-but is he to say nothing of the curious varieties of Italian ever vulgar? No. You see the man of education, social life. Far be it from me to presume that there the gentleman, and the scholar, sporting with his ever was, or can be such a thing as an aristocracy subject,-its master, not its slave. Your vulgar of poets; but there is a nobility of thought and of writer is always most vulgar, the higher, his substyle, open to all stations, and derived partly from ject; as the man who showed the menagerie at talent, and partly from education,-which is to be Pidcock's was wont to say,-"This, gentlemen, is found in Shakspeare, and Pope, and Burns, no less the eagle of the sun, from Archangel, in Russia; than in Dante and Alfieri, but which is nowhere to the otterer it is, the igherer he flies." But to the he perceived in the mock birds and bards of Mr. proofs. It is a thing to be felt more than explained. Hunt's little chorus. If I were asked to define Let any man take up a volume of Mr. Hunt's subwhat this gentlemanliness is, I should say that it is ordinate writers, read (if possible) a couple of pages, only to be defined by examples-of those who have and pronounce for himself, if they contain not the it, and those who have it not. In life, I should say kind of writing which may be likened to "shabbythat most military men have it, and few naval;- genteel" in actual life. When he has done this, that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers; let him take up Pope;-and when he has laid him -that it is more frequent among authors than down, take up the cockney again-if he can. NOTE. [Note referring to some remarks of Mr. Bowles, | relative to Pope's 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 May every fond pleasure that moments endear! encouraged him: but I would rather decline the There, Mr. Bowles !-what say you to such a supper task-though she should have remembered her own with such a woman? and her own description too? line, "He comes too near, that comes to be denied." Is not her "champagne and chicken" worth a forest I admire her so much-her beauty, her talents-that or two? Is it not poetry? It appears to me that I should do this reluctantly. I, besides, am so at- this stanza contains the "puree" of the whole tached to the very name of Mary, that, as Johnson philosophy of Epicurus:-I mean the practical phi once said, "If you called a dog Hervey, I should losophy of his school, not the precepts of the m love him;" so, if you were to call a female of the ter; for I have been too long at the university not same species "Mary," I should love it better than to know that the philosopher was himself a mode others (biped or quadruped) of the same sex with a different appellation. She was an extraordinary woman; she could translate Epictetus, and yet write song worthy of Aristippus. The lines, "And when the long hours of the public are past, rate man. But, after all, would not some of 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. SOME OBSERVATIONS UPON AN ARTICLE IN BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, No. XXIX., AUGUST, 1819. "Why, how now, Hecate? you look angrily." Macbeth. TO J. D'ISRAELI, ESQ., 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. I have never shrunk from the responsibility of what I have written, and have more than once incurred obloquy by neglecting to disavow what was attributed to my pen without foundation. THE life of a writer" has been said, by Pope, I believe, to be "a warfare upon earth.' As far as my own experience has gone, I have nothing to say against the proposition; and, like the rest, having The greater part, however, of the "Remarks on once plunged into this state of hostility, must, Don Juan" contain but little on the work itself, however reluctantly, carry it on. An article has which receives an extraordinary portion of praise as appeared in a periodical work, entitled "Remarks a composition. With the exception of some quotaon Don Juan," which has been so full of this spirit tions, and a few incidental remarks, the rest of the on the part of the writer, as to require some obser- article is neither more nor less than a personal atvations on mine. tack upon the imputed author. It is not the first In the first place, I am not aware by what right in the same publication: for I recollect to have the writer assumes this work, which is anonymous, read, some time ago, similar remarks upon "Bepto be my production. He will answer, that there is po" (said to have been written by a celebrated internal evidence; that is to say, that there are pas- northern preacher); in which the conclusion drawn sages which appear to be written in my name, or in was, that "Childe Harold, Byron, and the Count my manner. But might not this have been done on in Beppo, were one and the same person; thereby purpose by another? He will say, why not then making me turn out to be, as Mrs. Malaprop says, deny it? To this I could answer, that of all the "like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once." That artithings attributed to me within the last five years, cle was signed "Presbyter Anglicanus; " which, I -Pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Deaths upon Pale presume, being interpreted, means Scotch PresbyHorses, Odes to the Land of the Gaul, Adieus to terian. I must here observe,-and it is at once luEngland, Songs to Madame La Valette, Odes to St. dicrous and vexatious to be compelled so frequently Helena, Vampires, and what not,-of which, God to repeat the same thing,-that my case, as an knows, I never composed nor read a syllable beyond author, is peculiarly hard, in being everlastingly their titles in advertisements,-I never thought it taken, or mistaken for my own protagonist. It is worth while to disavow any, except one which came unjust and particular. I never heard that my friend linked with an account of my "residence in the isle Moore was set down for a fire-worshipper on account of Mitylene," where I never resided, and appeared of his Guebre; that Scott was identified with Rodto be carrying the amusement of those persons, who erick Dhu, or with Balfour of Burley; or that, notthink my name can be of any use to them, a little withstanding all the magicians in Thalaba, any too far. body has ever taken Mr. Southey for a conjuror; I should hardly, therefore, if I did not take the whereas I have had some difficulty in extricating trouble to disavow these things published in my me even from Manfred, who, as Mr. Southey slily name, and yet not mine, go out of my way to deny observes in one of his articles in the Quarterly, an anonymous work; which might appear an act of "met the devil on the Jungfrau, and bullied him; supererogation. With regard to Don Juan, I neither and I answer Mr. Southey, who has apparently, in deny nor admit it to be mine-every body may form his poetical life, not been so successful against the their own opinion; but, if there be any who now, or great enemy, that, in this, Manfred exactly followed in the progress of that poem, if it is to be continued, the sacred precept," Resist the devil, and he will feel, or should feel themselves so aggrieved as to flee from you."-I shall have more to say on the require a more explicit answer, privately and per- subject of this person-not the devil, but his most sonally, they shall have it. humble servant Mr. Southey-before I conclude; but, for the present, I must return to the article in Cave of Montesinos, "Patience, and shuffle the the Edinburgh Magazine. cards." In the course of this article, amidst some extra- I bitterly feel the ostentation of this statement, ordinary observations, there occur the following the first of the kind I have ever made: I feel the words:"It appears, in short, as if this miserable degradation of being compelled to make it; but I man, having exhausted every species of sensual also feel its truth, and I trust to feel it on my deathgratification, having drained the cup of sin even bed, should it be my lot to die there. I am not less to its bitterest dregs, were resolved to show us that sensible of the egotism of all this; but, alas! who he is no longer a human being even in his frailties, have made me thus egotistical in my own defence, -but a cold, unconcerned fiend, laughing with a if not they, who, by perversely persisting in refer detestable glee over the whole of the better and ring fiction to truth, and tracing poetry to life, and worse elements of which human life is composed." regarding characters of imagination as creatures of In another place there appears, "the lurking-place existence, have made me personally responsible for of his selfish and polluted exile."-"By my troth, almost every poetical delineation which fancy and these be bitter words!"-With regard to the first particular bias of thought, may have tended to prosentence, I shall content myself with observing, duce? that it appears to have been composed for Sardana- The writer continues:-"Those who are acpalus, Tiberius, the Regent Duke of Orleans, or quainted, as who is not? with the main incidents of Louis XV.; and that I have copied it with as much the private life of Lord B.," &c. Assuredly, who indifference as I would a passage from Suetonius, or ever may be acquainted with these "main incifrom any of the private memoirs of the regency, dents," the writer of the "Remarks on Don Juan" conceiving it to be amply refuted by the terms in is not, or he would use a very different language which it is expressed, and to be utterly inapplicable That which I believe he alludes to as a "main inc to any private individual. On the words, "lurking- dent," happened to be a very subordinate one, and place," and "selfish and polluted exile," I have the natural and almost inevitable consequence of something more to say.-How far the capital city events and circumstances long prior to the period of a government, which survived the vicissitudes of at which it occurred. It is the last drop which thirteen hundred years, and might still have existed makes the cup run over, and mine was already full but for the treachery of Bonaparte, and the iniquity But, to return to this man's charge: he accuses of his imitators,-a city which was the emporium Lord B. of "an elaborate satire on the character of Europe, when London and Edinburgh were dens and manners of his wife." From what parts of of barbarians,-may be termed a "lurking-place," Don Juan the writer has inferred this, he himself I leave to those who have seen or heard of Venice, best knows. As far as I recollect of the female to decide. How far my exile may have been "pol- characters in that production, there is but one who luted," it is not for me to say, because the word is is depicted in ridiculous colors, or that could be ina wide one, and, with some of its branches, may terpreted as a satire upon any body. But here my chance to overshadow the actions of most men; poetical sins are again visited upon me, supposing but that it has been "selfish" I deny. If, to the that the poem be mine. If I depict a corsair, a extent of my means and my power, and my infor- misanthrope, a libertine, a chief of insurgents, r mation of their calamities, to have assisted many an infidel, he is set down to the author; and if, in miserable beings, reduced by the decay of the place a poem by no means ascertained to be my production, of their birth, and their consequent loss of sub-there appears a disagreeable, casuistical, and by e stance-if to have never rejected an application means respectable female pedant, it is set down for which appeared founded on truth-if to have ex-my wife. Is there any resemblance? If there be, pended in this manner sums far out of proportion to it is in those who make it. I can see none. I my fortune, there and elsewhere, be selfish, then writings I have rarely described any character under have I been selfish. To have done such things I do a fictitious name: those of whom I have spoke not deem much: but it is hard indeed to be com- have had their own-in many cases a stronger ste pelled to recapitulate them in my own defence, by in itself than any which could be appended to it such accusations as that before me, like a panel be- But of real circumstances I have availed mysel fore a jury calling testimonies to his character, or plentifully, both in the serious and the ludicrousa soldier recording his services to obtain his dis- they are to poetry what landscapes are to the pas charge. If the person who has made the charge of ter; but my figures are not portraits. It may re "selfishness" wishes to inform himself further on have happened, that I have seized on some events the subject, he may acquire, not what he would that have occurred under my own observation, or in wish to find, but what will silence and shame him, my own family, as I would paint a view from my by applying to the Consul-General of our nation, grounds, did it harmonize with my picture; but I resident in the place, who will be in the case either never would introduce the likenesses of its living to confirm or deny what I have asserted. members, unless their features could be made as f I neither make, nor have ever made, pretensions vorable to themselves as to the effect; which, in the to sanctity of demeanor, nor regularity of conduct; above instance, would be extremely difficult. but my means have been expended principally on My learned brother proceeds to observe, that “it my own gratification, neither now nor heretofore, is in vain for Lord B. to attempt in any way to neither in England nor out of it; and it wants but justify his own behavior in that affair; and no a word from me, if I thought that word decent or that he has so openly and audaciously invited innecessary, to call forth the most willing witnesses, quiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason and at once witnesses and proofs, in England itself, why he should not be plainly told so by the voice of to show that there are those who have derived, not his countrymen. How far the "openness" of the mere temporary relief of a wretched boon, but anonymous poem, and the "audacity" of an imag the means which led them to immediate happiness inary character, which the writer supposes to be and ultimate independence, by my want of that meant for Lady B., may be deemed to merit this ery "selfishness," as grossly and falsely now im- formidable denunciation from their "most sweet puted to my conduct. voices," I neither know nor care; but when he tells Had I been a selfish man-had I been a grasping me that I cannot "in any way justify my own be man-had I been, in the worldly sense of the word, havior in that affair," I acquiesce, because no ma even a prudent man,-I should not be where I now can "justify" himself until he knows of what be am; I should not have taken the step which was is accused; and I have never had-and, God knows, the first that led to the events which have sunk and my whole desire has ever been to obtain itswoln a gulf between me and mine; but in this re-specific charge, in a tangible shape, submitted to spect the truth will one day be made known: in me by the adversary, nor by others, unless the atro the mean time, as Durandearte says, in the cities of public rumor and the mysterious silence of |