ignorance or suppressing knowledge. Others might readily separate good qualities from the contrary, but the good and the bad of Lord Byron were not always what appeared on the surface; and nothing short of intimate knowledge, and familiar intercourse, with the keenest sagacity, could penetrate the true character of either. In him these qualities were rather in a state of composition than of mixture, and it was no common chemistry that could analyse them. See what absurdities Sir Egerton Brydges falls into, for want of this interior knowledge.

"Mr. Moore's narrative is a model of transparency and order; the style throughout is one of the most perfect propriety. The flowers so thickly strewn in the Life of Sheridan' are here none of them visible; there is scarcely, we think, a trope in the book; in our judgment the absence is no loss. The point which he has most indefatigably and successfully laboured is the tracing of the forma tion of Lord Byron's character, so far as character is traceable, and that perhaps is not very far, to peculiarity of circumstances."

In the same article appears the following letter from Campbell to Moore, relative to Moore's suspicion that Campbell was jealous of Byron's popularity. The letter is interesting as showing the cordial tone which then existed between the brother poets :

"My dear Moore,

"A thousand thanks to you for the kind things which you have said of me in your Life of Lord Byron-but forgive me for animadverting to

what his lordship says of me, at page 463 of your first volume. It is not every day that one is mentioned in such joint pages as those of Moore and Byron.

"Lord Byron there states, that one evening at Lord Holland's I was nettled at something, and the whole passage, if believed, leaves it to be inferred that I was angry, envious, and ill-mannered. Now, I never envied Lord Byron, but, on the contrary, rejoiced in his fame; in the first place from a sense of justice, and in the next place because, as a poetical writer, he was my beneficent friend. I never was nettled in Lord Holland's house, as Lord and Lady Holland can witness; and on the evening to which Lord Byron alludes, I said, " carry all your incense to Lord Byron," in the most perfect spirit of good humour. I remember the evening most distinctly, one of the happiest evenings of my life; and if Lord Byron imagined me for a moment displeased, it only shows me, that with all his transcendant powers, he was one of the most fanciful of human beings. I, by no means, impeach his veracity; but I see from this case he was subject to strange illusions.

"What feeling but that of kindness could I have towards Lord Byron. He was always affectionate to me, both in his writings and in personal interviews. How strange he should misunderstand my manner on the occasion alluded to; and what temptation could I have to show myself pettish and envious before my inestimable friend Lord Holland? The whole scene, as described by Lord Byron, is a phantom of his own imagination. Ah! my dear Moore, if we had him but back again, how easily

could we settle these matters. But I have detained you too long; and begging pardon for all my egotism, I remain, my dear Moore, your obliged and faithful friend,

"T. CAMPBELL.”

In the June number of the same year, Campbell speaks of Watt's engraving of Moore as "the resemblance of a charming poet and an amiable

man."

In the review of the second volume, however, a very different tone was adopted, chiefly in consequence of Campbell's opinion, that Moore had not acted fairly as a friend to Byron in disclosing so many of the noble poet's weaknesses. This notice went so far beyond the limits of fair criticism as to impute very mercenary motives to Moore. Campbell's defence of Lady Byron was marked with excessive severity towards Moore. Campbell afterwards wrote Moore a letter of apology for his vehement language, but declaring that his opinion was unaltered upon the point of difference. withdrew all imputations of mercenary motives, and asked Moore's forgiveness for his angry tone.

He

In the passage from the works of Leigh Hunt respecting Moore, which we have given above, Hunt speaks of Moore's Letters in terms of considerable praise. Moore generally wrote briefly, but in a few sentences he included much interesting Fifteen of Moore's letters are affixed to Hunt's "Autobiography," of which we shall present a couple as illustrative not only of Moore's off-hand epistolary style, but as affording additional glimpses

matter.

of his personal feelings. Moore's reference to his domestic happiness, and his refusal to barter independence for a situation under Tory administration, will be read with much interest.

"My dear Sir,

August, 1812.

"I am very sorry to find, by your Examiner of last Sunday, that you are ill, and I sincerely hope, both for the sake of yourself and the world, that it is not an indisposition of any serious nature. I have very often, since I left town, had thoughts of writing to you; not that I had anything to say, but merely to keep myself alive in your recollection, till some lucky jostle in our life's journey throws us closer together than we have hitherto been. It is not true, however, that I have nothing to say to you, for I have to thank you for your poem in the Reflector, which I would praise for its beauty, if my praises could be thought disinterested enough to please you; but it has won my heart rather too much to leave my judgment fair play; and the pleasure of being praised by you makes me inca pable of returning the compliment. All that I can tell you is, that your good opinion of me, in general, is paid back with interest tenfold, and that my thoughts about you are so well known to those I live with, that I have the pleasure of finding you acknowledged among them by no other title than "Moore's Friend." I suppose you have heard that I suddenly burst upon my acquaintances last spring, in the new characters of husband and father; and I hope you will believe me when I say that (though my little intercourse with you might have made

such a confidence impertinent on my side,) I often wished to make you one of the very few friends who knew the secret of my happiness, and witnessed my enjoyment of it. I rather think, too, that if you were acquainted with the story of my marriage, it would not tend to lower me from that place, which, I am proud to believe, I hold in your esteem. I have got a small house and a large garden here in the neighbourhood of Lord Moira's fine library, and feel happy in the consciousness that I have indeed "mended my notions of pleasure," and that I am likely, after all, to be what men like you ap prove. Mrs. Moore and I have been for these ten days past on a visit to our noble neighbour, who is at length preparing for an old age of independence, by a manly and summary system of retrenchment. He has dismissed nearly all his servants, and is retiring to a small house in Sussex, leaving his fine park and fine library here to solitude and me. How I have mourned over his late negotiation! A sword looks crooked in water, and the weak medium of Carlton House has given an appearance of obliquity even to Lord Moira; but both the sword and he may be depended upon still at least I think so.

"I was very much flattered by you taking some doggrel of mine out of the Morning Chronicle some months since, called The Insurrection of the Papers. I don't know whether you saw The Plumassier about the sametime. It was mine also, but not so good. I hope next year, when I have got over a work I am about, to help you with a few shafts of ridicule in the noble warfare you are engaged in, since I find that you have thought some of them not unworthy of your notice.