JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE. [JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE was born in London in 1769, and died at Malta in 1846. The first part of his Whistlecraft poem was published in 1817 as the Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft of Stow-Market in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers. In the following year a second part was issued with the first under the title of The Monks and the Giants; but the work was never completed. Frere contributed much to the Anti-Jacobin, 1797-8, and translated several of the plays of Aristophanes. His Works in Verse and Prose, with a prefatory Memoir, were published in 1872 by his nephews, W. E., and Sir Bartle Frere.] Frere's versions of the Aristophanic Comedy have an established reputation for spirit of rendering and mastery of metre. His translations from the Poema del Cid, which were printed in Southey's Chronicle, have also a fine balladic lilt; but their literal fidelity to the Spanish has been lately challenged. Of his original work, the best examples are to be found in the Anti-Facobin and the Whistlecraft fragment. He had a hand in all the great successes of the former,-notably the immortal Needy KnifeGrinder and the excellent imitations of Darwin and Schiller in the Loves of the Triangles and The Rovers. For The Monks and the Giants he adopted an eight-line stanza based upon that of the Italians. It had already been used by Harrington, Drayton, Fairfax, and (as we have seen) in later times by Gay; it had even been used by Frere's contemporary, William Tennant; but to Frere belongs the honour of giving it the special characteristics which Byron afterwards popularised in Beppo and Don Juan. Structurally the ottava rima of Frere singularly resembles that of Byron, who admitted that Whistlecraft was his 'immediate model.' But notwithstanding the cleverness and versatility of The Monks and the Giants, its interest was too remote and its plan too uncertain to command any but an eclectic audience. Moreover, it was almost immediately eclipsed by Beppo. Byron, taking up the stanza with equal skill and greater genius, filled it with the vigour of his personality, and made it a measure of his own, which it has ever since been hazardous for inferior poets to attempt. AUSTIN DOBSON. FROM 'THE MONKS AND THE GIANTS.' And certainly they say, for fine behaving Their manners were refined and perfect-saving They looked a manly, generous generation; Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick, They were so very courteous and well-bred. The ladies looked of an heroic race At first a general likeness struck your eye, Large eyes, with ample eyebrows arched and high; Majestical, reserved, and somewhat sullen; Sir Gawain may be painted in a word- His courteous manners stand upon record, The proverb says, As brave as his own sword; On every point, in earnest or in jest, His judgment, and his prudence, and his wit, His memory was the magazine and hoard, He served his friend, but watched his opportunity. * * * * * Meanwhile the solemn mountains that surrounded Yet) Cader-Gibbrish from his cloudy throne Those giant-mountains inwardly were moved, Hearing a clatter which they disapproved, They ran straight forward to besiege the place Like house-dogs howling at a dinner-bell. As Bees, that when the skies are calm and fair, Launch forth colonial settlers in the air, Round, round, and round about, they whiz, they fly, With eager worry whirling here and there, They know not whence, nor whither, where, nor why, In utter hurry-scurry, going, coming, Maddening the summer air with ceaseless humming; Till the strong Frying-pan's energic jangle With thrilling thrum their feebler hum doth drown, E'en so the Monks, as wild as sparks of fire, The Belfry swarmed with Monks; it seemed alive. LORD BYRON. [BORN Jan. 22, 1788. Educated at Harrow, and Trinity College, Cambridge. Published Hours of Idleness in 1807. A review of this book in the Edinburgh provoked the Satire English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, which was published in March 1809. After this date Byron travelled in Spain, Greece and Turkey for two years. On his return he published the two first Cantos of Childe Harold in 1812. During the years 1813-1815 he wrote The Giaour, Bride of Abydos, Corsair, Lara, Hebrew Melodies, Siege of Corinth, Parisina. The two last were published in the spring of 1816 shortly after Byron's separation from the wife whom he had married on Jan. 2, 1815. This year, 1816, was the most important epoch in his life. He left England never to return; settled first at Geneva, where he made the acquaintance of Shelley, composed the Third Canto of Childe Harold, Prisoner of Chillon, and Prometheus, and began Manfred. In 1817 he removed to Venice, finished Manfred, wrote the Lament of Tasso, the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, and Beppo. In the years 1818 and 1819, still residing at Venice, he produced the Ode on Venice, Mazeppa, and the first four Cantos of Don Juan. In 1820 and 1821, while living at Ravenna, he wrote the Prophecy of Dante, Marino Faliero, Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari, Cain, Heaven and Earth, and A Vision of Judgment. Part of the two next years was spent at Pisa in close intimacy with Shelley. Werner, The Deformed Transformed, The Island, and the remaining Cantos of Don Juan, on which Byron had been from time to time at work during his Ravenna residence, were completed. On July 13, 1823, Byron sailed from Genoa for Greece, in order to take active part in the liberation of that country from Turkish rule. He died of fever at Missolonghi on the 19th of April, 1824, at the age of thirty-six years and three months.] The first thing that strikes a student of Byron's collected works is the quantity of poetry produced by him in a short lifetime. The second is the variety of forms attempted-the scope and range of intellectual power displayed. The third is the inequality of the |