will dwell on all the wildest extremes of passion, particularly such as can lead to a state of cureless melancholy like his own. For cureless melancholy (notwithstanding his quest after pleasure) will assuredly be his lot, as long as the same course of error is persisted in. Clearness, calmness, and energy of mind, are not always to be gained by restless movements from place to place. Perhaps the best resource often times is intense application; for deep thought, for the most part, is the source of genuine tranquillity. Lord Byron appears never to have thought very deeply. He has felt morbidly, and has been unhappy; but there are not any traces in his productions of that depth of meditation, and that internal activity, which, in a state of solitude and freedom, generally lead to a state of intellectual renovation. But there is an art in thinking not to be learned from the treatises of logicians wise❘ in their own conceit; an art which a few individuals, supernaturally aided, have learned, but which cannot be explained and imparted in words; a science which every individual must study and discover for himself, and by himself alone, independent at least of any assistance from his fellow mortals. One chief requisite is, that he should be free from the ordinary disturbances of the world. This advantage Lord Byron ought especially to possess, for he has been exempted from whatever difficulties (and these are considerable) arise from the ne cessity of obtaining the means of subsist ence, by submitting to give up a great portion of his time to the pursuit of some lucrative worldly profession. This is indeed a very great advantage; for the abilities required for worldly business never must rise beyond a certain standard; and are therefore utterly unlike the faculties and

moods of mind requisite for poetry. Extraordinary depth of thought and feeling, however useful to the politician (for example) in his private hours, is of course out of the question when he appears in his public capacity. He must then judge of circumstances as they are in themselves, not as they may be re-acted on by a powerful mind in solitude. His business is purely temporal; that of the poet may be said to be spiritual and eternal. The mental operations of the poet are free; those of the man of business are always more or less under the controul of others.

There is, then, one great disadvantage which Lord Byron has through life been exempted from; but he never seems to have suspected, that the thoughts, of which, we believe, he somewhere complains as being too deep, were, in truth, not deep enough. He had not resolution to sit down and fol low them out, whereby an entirely new. and unexpected light might have been eli cited. Accordingly, there is no depth in the character of Manfred. He pours forth his complaints to the spirits of the lakes and the mountains; but the beings to whom he resorts assuredly have no power to help him, for his woes are of that kind which admit of a cure only by the mind's internal (though not independent) operations. But it is in the spirit of tranquillity that tranquillity must be sought. It must be by some new course, and not by perseverance in the old, that renovation of character can be hoped for. To discover the paths of usefulness and intellectual amelioration, may be a work of time and arduous, difficulty; nor can any one individual ever be benefitted by the experience of another. This much may be said, it is very seldom that first thoughts are best. The plans that may

be successful are not the first that present themselves. Another remark also, which we hinted at above, and may safely repeat, is, that the poet's ambition should not be fixed on any ordinary worldly acquisitions; for it is obvious that the desire of obtaining temporary distinction (which is very different from the love of posthumous fame), and the other predominant passions of this world, will be found in his case always irritating, never tranquillizing,—always more or less delusive, never substantial. But in one word, they are temporal, and therefore cannot administer to the wants of a soul, which could not bear long to be sunk in sensual gratifications, and would soon be more restless in the station of a king (even without the cares of government), than in the humblest rank of life; therefore the first requisite for improvement must be the renouncing of those usual principles which animate common minds. To such minds ordinary passions are not a source of injury, because they are content with the acquisitions to which those passions lead. Disappointed endeavours indeed may prove may prove an abundant spring of discontent; but the greatest temporal acquisitions, when gained, would prove unsatisfactory to the poet. They cannot administer the proper food or support for his mind. The fame which he wishes to secure must be lasting. He cannot be satisfied with that which will end with his own life. But still, though we have alluded more than once to one requisite for acquiring peace of mind to the poet, viz. the renunciation of pursuits which will prove unsatisfactory, yet we cannot tell Lord Byron, or any one else, how to finish what is thus begun. Herein each individual mind must, as we have already said, (with divine assistance,) administer to it

self. On this subject it may be permitted us to quote the following passage (which has only this moment occurred to remembrance,) from a work which is at present out of print, and of which no revival has yet been announced.

"A familiar incident may render plain the manner in which a process of intellectual improvements, the reverse of that which nature pursues, is by reason introduced. There never perhaps existed a schoolboy, who, having when he retired to rest, carelessly blown out his candle, and having chanced to notice, as he lay upon his bed in the ensuing darkness, the sullen light which had survived the extinguished flame, did not, at some time or other, watch that light as if his mind were bound to it by a spell. It fades and revives-gathers to a point-seems as if it would go out in a moment-again recovers its strength, nay becomes brighter than before: it continues to shine with an endurance, which in its apparent weakness is a mystery-it protracts its existence so long, clinging to the power power which supports it, that the observer, who had laid down in his bed so easy-minded, becomes sad and melancholy his sympathies are touched-it is to him an intimation and an image of departing human life, the thought comes nearer to him—it is the life of a venerated parent, of a. belo-. ved brother or sister, or of an aged domestic; who are gone to the grave, or whose destiny it soon may be thus to linger, thus to hang upon the last point of mortal existence, thus finally to depart and be seen no more. This is nature teaching seriously and sweetly through the affections-melting the heart, and, through that instinct of tenderness, developing the understanding. In this instance the object of solicitude is.

the bodily life of another. Let us accompany this same boy to that period between youth and manhood, when a solicitude may be awakened for the moral life of himself. Are there any powers by which, beginning with a sense of inward decay that affects not however the natural life, he could call up to mind the same image and hang over it with an equal interest as a visible type of his own perishing spirit ?-Oh! surely, if the being of the individual be under his own care if it be his first care-if duty begin from the point of accountableness to our conscience, and, through that, to God and human nature;-if without such primary sense of duty, all secondary care of teacher, of friend, or parent, must be baseless and fruitless; if, lastly, the motions of the soul transcend in worth those of the animal functions, nay give to them their sole value, then truly are there such powers and the image of the dying taper may be recalled and contemplated, though with no sadness in the nerves, no disposition to tears, no unconquerable sighs, yet with a melancholy in the soul, a sinking inward into ourselves from thought to thought, a steady remonstrance, and a high resolve. Let then the youth go back, as occasion will permit, to nature and to solitude, thus admonished by reason, and relying upon this newly-acquired support. A world of fresh sensations will gradually open upon him as his mind puts off its infirmities, and as instead of being propelled restlessly towards others in admiration, or too hasty love, he makes it his prime business to understand himself. New sensations, I affirm, will be opened out-pure, and sanctioned by that reason which is their original author; and precious feelings of disinterested, that is, self-disregarding joy and love,

may be regenerated and restored :-and, in this sense, may be said to measure back the track of life he has trod.

"In such disposition of mind let the youth return to the visible universe; and to conversation with ancient books; and to those, if such there be, which in the present day breathe the ancient spirit: and let him feed upon that beauty which unfolds itself, not to his eye as it sees carelessly the things which cannot possibly go unseen, and are remembered or not as accident shall decide, but to the thinking mind; which searches, discovers, and treasures up,-infusing by meditation into the objects with which it converses an intellectual life; whereby they remain planted in the memory, now, and for ever. Hitherto the youth, I suppose, has been content for the most part to look at his own mind, after the manner in which he ranges along the stars in the firmament with naked unaided sight: let him now apply the telescope of art to call the invisible, stars out of their hiding places; and let him endeavour to look through the system of his being, with the organ of reason; summoned to penetrate, as far as it has power, in discovery of the impelling forces and the governing laws.

"These expectations are not immoderate: they demand nothing more than the perception of a few plain truths; namely, that' knowledge efficacious for the production of virtue, is the ultimate end of all effort, the so sole dispenser of complacency and repose. A perception also is implied of the inherent superiority of contemplation to action. The FRIEND does not in this contradict his own words, where he has said heretofore, that "doubtless it is nobler to act than to think." In those words, it was his purpose to censure that barren contemplation which rests

THE HAUNTED ISLE;

AN OUTLINE.

Stans pede in uno.”

The peaceful moonlight slept around;
But what had he to do with peace ?→→
Restless along the mountain ground
He moved as if he might not cease.—
But meeter then for him had been,
Than lingering in that quiet scene,
A combat with the wildest rage
Of tempests that their warfare wage
On the wide ocean, where afar
Seamen in course irregular
Are borne, (all hope at last resign'd,)
Driven at the mercy of the wind!—

An isle there was that long had been,
Even at noonday, with terror seen ;
And none would look thereon by night:
A source it was of strange affright.
Even round the quiet waters wide,
Wherein that island was descried,
Were forest shades so dark and dun,
They never were pierced by summer sun!
And dusky towers, embower'd in wood,
Still on that fearful island stood.
And it was known, whoso by night
Would search that region of affright,
Ere long would see such trains convene
As he would wish had never been !-

Full gladly Gerald him bethought Of all the tales he had been taught;

With ardour fired he longed to try
The depth of each dread mystery.-
And now, beneath an arch he went,
'Mid rocky cliffs asunder rent.
Oh, long and awful, even by day,
Was that impervious archway!-
Onward he went, but even the sound
Of his own steps was dread around;
And gibberings ran along the walls :-
Perhaps 'twas but the water that falls,
Trickling like drops from cottage eaves,
Or light wind fluttering in the leaves.

At length 'twas past; and forth he brake
Önce more the quiet light to view,
That shone upon the lovely lake
And verdant woods around that grew.
'Twas but the reign of inward dread
That gloom had on that forest shed.
It would, in sooth, be fiendish mirth
To choose that scene, of all the earth
The sweetest, for dark rites unholy!-
Yet did an influence melancholy
Hang on that isle :—'twas like a cloud
Amid an azure heaven alone;

The ruins frown'd amid their shroud
Of dense oak woods :-it seem'd thereon
Nor moon nor sunlight e'er was thrown !-

He would have dash'd into the tide ;—
But there a vessel was descried,--
A skiff with oars ;-his place he took,
And with one stroke the water shook.
But with a motion of her own,
The bark across the waves hath gone!-
Two miles are past without a stroke ;—
And now she gently touches the rock.

Edinburgh, printed by James Ballantyne and Co. For John Ballantyne, Hanover-Street.