alone, and they will soon perish. If that intellectual Titan, Johnson, failed in the novel art of off-hand literary portraiture, how can Mr. Gilfillan expect to succeed, who does not possess a tithe of Johnson's talent and acumen, and who, in comparison with Johnson, is as one of his many dictionary amanuenses? One of the greatest proofs of the augmenting superficiality of our age is the satisfaction with which it, for the most part, regards such works as our Cummings and Gilfillans are constantly sending forth from the press. The true critic of Byron has, we say, yet to appear. Of Byronic poesy great, beautiful, and true things have been written; but the truest things have yet to be written. Comprehensiveness, depth, and vigour in criticism are greater essentials than beauty of style or characteristic originality. The main features of Byronic poetry are two-the passionate and the beautiful;-the passionate, as it relates to the human soul, and the beautiful, as it relates to nature. Under these two aspects we shall regard his writings. By the term "passionate," we mean, in relation to poesy, all those states of the human soul which are comprehended under the general terms, love, fear, hate, &c. Byron was not so much the student of the good and evil passions of the soul, and, consequently, the vivid pourtrayer of them in human language and action, as he was himself the experiencer of them. He wrote from experience, not from acquired knowledge of the passions. His own soul was, for the most part, the theatre, on the awful stage of which the passions he exhibits in such various lights in his writings first and often long played in dread reality. It is this that invests the different characters of his poesy with such Herculean vigour, such living reality, such mystic power-he makes the soul weep or smile, shrink back upon itself with convulsing horror, or to go forth with joy after the lovely and enchanting. Hence, whenever he exhibits the human soul, it is in "thoughts that glow, and words that burn." Byron the poet, and Locke the philosopher, are at one here; they both attained their knowledge of the human soul by the study and experience of their own, the only difference between the poet and philosopher being, that the one brought all to the rules of logic, divested of all circumstantial influences, and placed in the light of philosophy, while the other, having had the passions of his soul called by the various circumstances of his eventful life into no ordinary action, in the plenary inspiration and instinctive poesy of his being, embodied them in the various personages of his writings, which we shall glance at hereafter. It appears, then, in conformity with the principle laid down in our article on Shakspere, that the deepest philosophic writings, with the highest poesy, have a common origin-experience and consciousness. Hence, the highest poetry is "the most philosophical of all writings."* We see the deep and dark, the lofty and beautiful passions of Byron's soul in full play in the development of the different characters of his poems. "The Dream," which is one of the most thrilling and intensely beautiful of all his productions, delineates the history of the soul's chief passion-love. It speaks with a dread power, because it is the history of his own fatal affection. "The Prisoner of Chillon " is the beauteous expression of his own thoughtful sorrow for, and sympathy with, the oppressed. In it "he shows that he has a heart that can feed on the purest sympathies of our nature, and deliver itself up to the sorrows, the sadness, and the melancholy of humbler souls." Not to dwell upon the inimitable beauty and pathos of these two productions, we pass on further to notice how intimately allied all Byron's poetry is with the feelings and passions of his soul. There is a diversity of opinion as to which is Byron's greatest production. There appears to us to be often in criticism a leaning to the idea that the poet's most laboured production is necessarily and generally his highest and best. We think not. Poetry is not so much the happy result of any great spasmodic convulsion of the mind, the straining of soulnerve and sense after something scarcely within its eagle ken, as it is the free and unconstrained utterance of the inspired mind. The highest and purest specimens of the poetry of our literature are by no means the most laboured. They were penned in the inspiration of a moment, and sometimes * British Controversialist, vol. iv., p. 309. But, looking at "Don Juan" in this light, how melancholy is the only inference! He who might, by the exercise of the same powers of mind, have given stability and vigour to virtue, a greater attractiveness to all holiness and chastity of life, has rather given voluptuousness a greater licence, and which is never tinged with the crimson of penitence. How clearly does this show how destitute was the life of Byron of high and holy motives! By "Don Juan" he has most effectually manifested his misanthropy, and has given a more mystic charm to the fatal syren whose voice had led him into the awful vortex, and has left him a beaconwreck on the shores of time. almost disregarded by the poet, because should at least be found among earth's attended with so little labour. For our own greatest benefactors as well as soul potenpart, we have no hesitation in pronouncing tates. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" as far superior to "Don Juan" in point of poetic excellence, as it is in point of moral influence and life reality. Regarding the circumstances after which and in which it was written, it was to be expected that it would embody the awful poetry of his experience, and the mystic moods of his sorrow-stricken the deep shame of humanity a boldness heart. They, in fact, bear no comparison. "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" is a reality of a solemn nature, while "Don Juan" is a freak, "a playful satire," to use Byron's own words, and intended "to be a little quietly facetious upon everything"-this was the origin of " Don Juan," with its sixteen long cantos. In fact, Byron, in commencing this, his longest production, was delighted to find before him an opportunity to say what he pleased, and, through the mouthpiece of his libertine-hero-let-loose, to brand virtue or exalt vice-to point his terrible satire ten-fold at whom or what he liked, or even to indulge in that which cost him his deepest groans of agony and purest tears of penitence. If, indeed, "Don Juan" be the glory of Byron as a poet, as some affirm, it is his shame as a man. We do not think it would affect Byron's glory as a poet, were "Don Juan to be blotted out of all human remembrance. True, it contains many magnificent passages which will never fade, and which none would willingly let die. But how lamentable that the great production of such a genius should be at least a profane work, devoid of those many excellencies which belong to poesy-excellencies which are almost divine in their influence upon fallen humanity! The true poet can sweeten the bitterest cup of human woe; can wed joy with sorrow; can light up the Gorgon eye of despair with a permanent gleaming of hopefulness; can shake the vulcan fetters of vice, or rend the heart of adamant; can unnerve the soul nerved to the perpetration of the blackest deeds; can raise the tone of morals, and foster the life of God in man; can, in fine, exalt or debase the national character wherever it is greatly read. From the character of many parts of the Bible it would appear that poesy, by the divine appointment, was intended to be the channel of heavenly truth and vision. The poet If we may give our opinion as to which composition of Byron's appears to embody the highest amount of poetry, beauty, depth, and transcendent interest, we must say decidedly the third canto of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." Sir Egerton Brydges, in his "Letters on the Character and Genius of Lord Byron," speaks of this composition as needlessly laboured, and imputes to the poet the habit of labouring. In this we do not concur. We cannot for a moment conceive of Byron labouring in the production of any poem; and, as it regards the third canto of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," we can find no proof of labouring, but to the contrary; neither could Sir Walter Scott, whose opinion is the opposite to the critic's just mentioned, and far more trustworthy. He says of the third canto:-It "exhibits in all its strength and in all its peculiarity the wild, powerful, and original vein of poetry, which, in the preceding cantos, first fixed the public attention upon the author. If there is any difference, the former seem to us to have been rather more sedulously corrected and revised for publication, and the present work to have been dashed from the author's pen with less regard to the subordinate points of expression and versification. Yet such is the deep and powerful strain of passion, such the original tone and colouring of description, that the want of polish in some of its minute parts rather adds to than deprives the poem of its energy. It seems, occasionally, as if the consideration of mere 1816. he became a stranger to all soul-quietude; "But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, In this marvellous poem he shows how deep was the wound which his affection received in the severance of earth's dearest grace was beneath the care of the poet, in his ardour to hurry upon the reader the 'thoughts that glow and the words that burn,' and that the occasional roughness of the verse corresponded with the stern tone of thought and of mental suffering which it The soul of a Napoleon or Byron, if it expresses." On this point of difference we fail to find repose on the eternal granite-if refer the reader to Sir Walter Scott's valu- it loose its grasp of the divine hand-can able article in the "Quarterly Review" for know no rest. Genius, in such a case, tossed to and fro by its own convulsive energies, is Were this not sufficient to invalidate Sir like unto the demon-spirit, of which InfalE. Brydges' imputation concerning this mag-libility spake, as "walking through dry nificent poem, Byron's own language to places, seeking rest, and findeth none.' Moore concerning its production would for ever settle the point. He writes:-"I was half mad during the time of its composition between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love inextinguishable, thoughts unutterable, and the nightmare of my own delinquencies." "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" was written in the crisis of Byron's being, and the third canto contains the germ and prophecy of the after history "of a most tempestuous and sombre but magnificent soul." His experience and woe, ere he left his native land, cast his mind into a poetic delirium, which the beauties and splendours of the continental world rather intensified than soothed, and aroused him to the instantaneous production of this third canto of "Childe Harold." "I am as a weed, Flung from the rocks on Ocean's foam, to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail." Rejecting a biblic revelation of man and his destiny, Byron gave himself up to a belief in a dark and fatalistic creed, mysterious as monstrous, uncertain and undefined; a creed, indeed, which gave all the "delinquencies' "of erring passions and manhood full liberty and scope. Thus cast upon the stormy seas of doubt and error, ties: "My daughter! with thy name this song begun; I see thee not-I hear thee not-but none * * * The child of love, though born in bitterness, And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire These were the elements, and thine no less." It is this terrible bitterness of soul and convulsion of being, which breathes through all this poem in all the magic of poesy, allied to a most vivid conception of all that is awful, mysterious, and beautiful in life, spirit, and nature, that invests it to all minds with such transcendent interest and pathos. From beginning to end it is a pure inspiration, a live coal, white with the intensity of the heart's passions, plucked from the inmost depths of a delirious soul. It was produced in one of those dread periods, of which he has said: The Inquirer. QUESTIONS REQUIRING ANSWERS. 271. Would any of your obliging correspondents supply me with information upon the mode of government as existing in British India; the advantages derived by England from the possession of that large and extensive country, but more particularly that of the district called the Punjaub -its productions and manufactures, and the sources from whence the Hon. East India Company derive their immense revenues; and also upon what footing the East India Company stand in relation to the home government, as regards the disposal and maintenance of the large and well-appointed army which is kept there for its protection? If any of your numerous friends would answer the above queries they would greatly oblige, E. H. 160s. 272. Would any of the readers of the British |ing 80s.) is paid to the foreigner. 80s. to them Controversialist be so kind as to inform ine whose is the best Hebrew Grammar and Dictionary; also the prices and publishers' names. I would ask, at the same time, is it desirable to know Greek previous to the study of Hebrew? A. J. C., Nottingham. 273. A reader of your periodical would feel thankful if you could give him a receipt for a permanent black dye, for cotton and silk fabrics. ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS. SOL. 247. Painting.-If R. F. intends painting in oil colours, I would recommend him at once to commence painting in them, as he will gain no advantage by painting in water colours first. As a good work on the art, I would recommend R. F. to obtain a small publication, called " Practice in Oil Painting," published by Winsor and Newton, 38, Rathbone-place, London, price 1s.-J. W. S., Scarbro'. 248. The Unvarying value of Gold. -One reason, perhaps, why Government has fixed the price of gold is because it would not be advisable to alter the weight of the sovereign each time the price of the metal varies in the market. That gold (i. e., bullion) is worth more in England than in America arises from divers causes, more or less intricate; but I think in the following theory the principal source will be apparent. Suppose, under a government of 2,000 people, the inoney averages £5 per head, but that some one, in the course of trading, having amassed £2,000, and withdrawn it from circulation, the real amount averages £4 per head, or £8,000 in toto. Suppose, again, the ruling power for some purpose (say that of paying an army in a foreign country) withdraws half of this £8,000, leaving only £4,000 in circulation, or £2 per head. Now it is plain that if the £8,000 was entirely engaged in commerce, and £4,000 taken away, the remaining money in circulation must assume a double value, in order to meet the exigencies of the people. This it may do for a time in internal transactions, but when they wish to deal with a foreign nation, will the Americans, for instance, take 40s. a quarter for corn instead of 80s. because their money has doubled in value to them? Clearly not; so that, having to pay as much in specie as usual, and their money being twice as valuable, the price of the corn is increased 100 per cent. Thus:-40s. 80s. to them. 80s. (not 40s. equal The injury done is of course not confined exclusively to corn, but affects imports from all countries; neither does it end there, for people with limited means, when provisions become dear, will give up something else, to buy the necessaries of life. Articles of luxury or ornament go first, then furniture or clothing, so that a universal depression of trade is produced, and, as a consequence, competition begins, while prices and wages go down. Much more might be said on this subject, but we hope a sufficient clue has been given to the answer for Question 248.-TRUOCRAT. 253. A Scripture Query.-Since sending my former reply to this question I have had the opportunity of consulting a Greek concordance, and am glad to find that my conjecture as to the word in question was correct. The three passages necessary to complete the list on page 194 are:to bring to nought. are come to nought. he shall have put down. 1 Cor. i. 28, 1 Cor. ii. 6, 1 Cor. xv. 24, The suggestion of W. L. is remarkably unfortunate; KaρTOS (fruit) occurs in almost every book of the New Testament. It occurs no less than seven times in the short passage, Matt. vii. 16-20.-B. S. 259. Composition and Style.-The condition of "Endeavour" is indeed truly pitiable," for he says he is unable to discover whether anything "is well or ill written," and he must therefore be ignorant of the rules of composition. But he has "read and studied Blair's Lectures' and Campbell's Rhetoric ""-has he? We would not dispute our friend's word, but we shall honour his judgment in suggesting that there must be some mistake here. Has he so studied these works as to make the principles illustrated in every chapter and paragraph his own? We think he cannot have done this, or he would not have felt so much difficulty in applying them to his ordinary reading. It may be that our friend was not prepared for these works, but ought to have taken some of a more elementary character. If this be the case, we would commend to his attention the excellent exercises in the "Essentials of English Grammar and Composition," which have appeared in the pages of this magazine. Much of the superficiality of the present age arises from young men not being sufficiently well grounded in first principles. Without this no true excellence can be attained.-X. The Young Student and Writer's Assistant. GRAMMAR CLASS. Perform the exercise for the Senior Division contained in the September No. for 1854. Page 359. MODEL EXERCISE, No. XXVIII. 1. In the course of his work, many striking examples are to be found of the mistakes into which former inquirers had been led by neglecting this precaution. Many striking examples are to be found, in the course of his work, of the mistakes into which former inquirers had been led by neglecting this precaution, Many striking examples of the mistakes into which former inquirers had been led by neglecting this precaution, are to be found in the course of his work. Of the mistakes into which former inquirers had been led by neglecting this precaution, many striking examples are to be found in the course of his work. In the course of his work there are to be found many striking examples of the mistakes into which, by neglecting this precaution, former inquirers had been led. In the course of his work, of the mistakes into which former inquirers had been led by neglecting this precaution, many striking examples are to be found. In the course of his work, of the mistakes into which former inquirers had been led by neglect ing this precaution, there are to be found many striking examples. In the course of his work, of the mistakes into which former inquirers, by neglecting this precaution, had been led, many striking examples are to be found. Of the mistakes into which former inquirers had been led by neglecting this precaution, there are to be found, in the course of his work, many striking examples. There are to be found, in the course of his work, many striking examples of the mistakes into which former inquirers had been led by neglecting this precaution. There are to be found many striking examples in the course of his work, of the mistakes into which, by neglecting this precaution, former inquirers had been led. Many striking examples, in the course of his work, are to be found of the mistakes into which former inquirers had been led by neglecting this precaution. 2. He had, fortunately for science, been a skilful proficient in anatomy, both human and comparative, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in mere superficial situations, in crevices of rocks and in caves. Fortunately for science, he had been a skilful proficient in anatomy, both human and comparative, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in mere superficial situations, in crevices of rocks and in caves. In anatomy, both human and comparative, he had, fortunately for science, been a skilful proficient, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in mere superficial situations, in crevices of rocks and in caves. Both in human and comparative anatomy, he had, fortunately for science, been a skilful proficient, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in mere superficial situations, in crevices of rocks and in caves. Long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in mere superficial situations, in crevices of rocks and in caves, he had, fortunately for science, been a skilful proficient, both in human and comparative anatomy. He had been, fortunately for science, a skilful proficient in anatomy, both human and comparative, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in mere superficial situations, in crevices of rocks and in caves. He, fortunately for science, had been a skilful proficient, both in human and comparative anatomy, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in caves, in mere superficial situations, and in crevices of rocks. He, fortunately for science, had been a skilful proficient in anatomy, both human and comparative, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in caves, in crevices of rocks, and in mere superficial situations. He had been, fortunately for science, a skilful proficient in anatomy, both human and comparative, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in crevices of rocks, in mere superficial situations, and in caves. He, fortunately for science, had been a skilful proficient, both in human and comparative anatomy, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in crevices of rocks, in caves, and in mere superficial situations. He had been, fortunately for science, a skilful proficient in anatomy, both human and comparative, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in mere superficial situations, in caves, and in crevices of rocks. He had been, fortunately for science, long before his attention was drawn to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in mere superficial situations, in crevices of rocks, and in caves, a skilful proficient in anatomy, both human and comparative. (The middle of this sentence may be varied three or four times, as in the sentences preceding.) Fortunately for science, long before his attention was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in mere superficial situations, in crevices of rocks, and in caves, he had been a skilful proficient, both in human and comparative anatomy. Fortunately for science, long before his atten tion was called to the remains of animals found in various strata of the earth, in mere superficial situations, in crevices of rocks, and in caves, he had been, in anatomy, both human and compara tive, a skilful proficient. 3. The government was, with some variation of forms, from the execution of the king to the death of Cromwell, in substance monarchical and absolute, as a government established by military force will almost invariably be, especially when the exertions of such a force are continued for any length of time. In substance monarchical and absolute, as a government established by military force will almost invariably be, especially when the exertions of such a force are continued for any length of time, the government was, with some variation of forms, from the execution of the king to the death of Cromwell. With some variation of forms, the government was, from the execution of the king to the death of Cromwell, in substance monarchical and absolute, as a government established by military force will almost invariably be, especially when the exertions of such a force are continued for any length of time. Monarchical and absolute in substance, as a |