is not Lord Byron entitled to the same justice. Besides, these immaculate critics ought to consider, that by imputing such sentiments and opinions to a man of great talents, they give weight and influence to them, which they would not otherwise possess, and which the innocent author never intended. They ought also to know, that publicly censuring a book as licentious, voluptuous, or unfit to be read, whether true or false, is the surest way to create a general desire to read it. Lord Byron himself says, in a letter, dated Pisa, March 4, 1822, speaking of his Werner,-"I have no such opinions as the characters in that drama. Yet they are not a whit more bold than those of Milton's Satan. Like all imaginative men, I, of course, embody myself with the character while I draw it, but not a moment after the pen is off from the paper." In a letter, dated February 22d, 1822, he says;-" There is nothing against the immortality of the soul in Cain,' that I recollect ;I hold no such opinions. But, in a drama, the first rebel and the first murderer must be made to talk according to their characters. However, the parsons are all preaching at it, from Kentish Town and Oxford to Pisa;-the scoundrels of priests, who do more harm to religion, than all the infidels that ever forgot their catechisms!" The unjust and unchristian manner, in which he considered himself to have been treated by the British priesthood, as well as the tyranny which he saw exercised daily over the people by the Catholic clergy in the Pope's dominions, had given him a bad opinion of churchmen as a body. He says, in another letter, "I am a better Christian than those parsons of yours, though not paid for being so." Of Don Juan,' against which so much has been said and written, he says, in a letter, dated Genoa, December 25, 1825,-“Don Juan will be known, by-and-by, for what it is intended, a satire on abuses of the present states of society, and not an eulogy on vice" It is indeed replete with wit and talent, and is seasoned with the keenest satire. To censure or defend it is not within the scope of my present design; I will only observe, that the works of nearly all the most celebrated British poets and dramatists, and of the standard novel writers, such as Smollet, Fielding, &c. are far more loose and licentious than Don Juan; and yet these authors are found in almost every respectable library. Shakspeare goes much beyond Byron in this respect; and yet, what clergyman is there, on whose shelves the plays of Shakspeare are not allowed a place? On the other hand, for passages of the more pure and lofty kind, calculated to inspire and exalt the soul, Childe Harold' will compare with any poem of these writers. The faults of Lord Byron, for which imprecations have been so abundantly showered on his head, would scarcely have excited observation in London, in an ordinary person, less endowed with talent. And even among eminent British statesmen, who are eulogized by the good as well as the bad, the opinions and lives of many of them varied little from those of Byron. But these great men were the depositories of power; they were on the popular side in politics; they conciliated the clergy; and they were upheld by the friendship of princes; they were therefore in possession of a cloak, which covered all their faults; of a dioptric glass, which changed all their vices into apparent virtues. In a journal kept by Lord Byron, he observes, that "the Duchesse de Broglio, in reply to a remark of mine on the errors of clever people, said, 'That they were not worse than those of others; only being more in view, were more noted; especially, in all that could reduce them to the rest, or raise the rest to them. In fact, I suppose, (continues Lord Byron,) that if the follies of fools were all set down, like those of the wise, the wise, who seem at present only a better sort of fools, would appear almost intelligent." With these preliminary remarks, it is my design to show, by various extracts from Lord Byron's confidential letters, with other collateral evidence of indisputable authority, what were his religious opinions. These opinions have been grossly misrepresented, and their obliquities highly exaggerated. He has been denounced as an Atheist, a general scoffer at all religion;-as destitute of all moral principleof every good and noble feeling-of every disinterested virtue. These representations are far from being true, as will presently be made to appear. Those who have been favored with the early discipline, instructions, and example of pious parents, and have thus acquired a belief of Christianity, and a decent conformity to its requirements, as a kind of second nature, are not easily rendered sensible of the opposite influences derived from an education like that under which Byron was reared. The early death of his father deprived him of the benefits of paternal authority and control. The violent temper of his mother, and her total unfitness for educating and managing a boy, and especially such a one as young Byron, were peculiarly unfortunate for him. With a proud, independent, mismanaged mind and disposition, he was sent to a large public school, far from parental control, to mingle with boys much older than himself. Their example and conversation gave a disastrous turn to his thoughts and his ambition. A mere child as he was, to hear a scoff at religion from older boys, or to find that the truth of Christianity admitted of dispute, was to awaken a new train of thought in his own mind; the result of which, assisted by extraneous influence, was partial infidelity, or darkness, doubt, and uncertainty, with regard to a divine revelation, and a future state. Among his papers was found a poem, called "The Prayer of Nature," probably suggested by Pope's Universal Prayer. It is dated, Dec. 29, 1806; his age being then somewhat less than nineteen. His doubts and hopes are expressed in the following verses. To thee, my God, to thee I call!- If, when this dust to dust restored, But if this fleeting spirit share With clay the grave's eternal bed; Though doom'd no more to quit the dead. To thee I breathe my humble strain, At a more mature age, the same doubts continued. He fully believed in the existence of a God; he did not positively disbelieve a divine revelation, or the immortality of the soul; but he doubted both. In 1813, he says, "It was the comparative insignificance of ourselves and of our world, when placed in comparison with the mighty whole, of which it is an atom, that first led me to imagine that our pretensions to eternity might be overrated." This thought has, no doubt, forced itself upon the minds of the greatest and best men, when contemplating the mighty wonders opened to view by philosophical astronomy. The most pious and zealous clergymen have left behind them records of gloomy periods of darkness and doubt. The late Dr. Payson has painted, in sombre hues, the distressing misgivings which sometimes haunted his mind. Indeed, to think deeply and independently on almost any subject, which is not mathematically certain, is, in some degree, to doubt. It is he that never thinks, who never doubts. once undertake to weigh the evidence on any question, we are no longer the arbiters of our belief. Lord Byron himself says, "indisputably, the firm believers of the gospel have a great advantage over others. But a man's creed does not depend upon himself. Who can say, I will believe this, that, or the other?-and, least of all, that which he least can comprehend?" If we Lord Byron, while in Greece, a very short time before his death, attended several private lectures, given by Dr. Kennedy, in proof of the truth of Christianity. Dr. Kennedy afterwards published some account of his conversations with Lord Byron at this time. Mr. Moore says, that "Lord Byron expressly disclaimed [to Dr. Kennedy] being one of those infidels, who deny the scriptures and wish to remain in unbelief.' On the contrary, he professed himself desirous to believe, as he experienced no happiness in having his religious opinions so unfixed.' He was unable, however, he added, to understand the scriptures. Those who conscientiously believed them, he could always respect, and was always disposed to trust in them more than in others,'" &c. He writes from Pisa to Sir Walter Scott, May 4, 1822; "I have just lost my natural daughter, Allegra, by fever. The only consolation, save time, is the reflection, that she is either at rest or happy ; for her few years (only five) prevented her from incurring any sin, except what we inherit from Adam. "Whom the gods love, die young.'" On a marble tablet, (beneath her name, age, &c.) he caused to be inscribed, "I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me." [2d Samuel, xii. 23.] From Ravenna, October 9, 1821, he thus writes to Murray ;— "Send a common Bible, of good legible print (bound in Russia.) I have one; but as it was the last gift of my sister (whom I shall probably never see again) I can only use it carefully, and less frequently, be cause I like to keep it in good order. Don't forget this, for I am a great reader and admirer of these books, and had read them through and through before I was eight years old; that is to say, the Old Testament; for the New struck me as a task, but the other as a pleasure. I speak as s boy, from the recollected impression of that period at Aberdeen, in 1796." October 9, 1821. He had translated, from the Armenian, an Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, which he found in manuscript at the convent of San Lazaro, at or near Venice. This was sent to his publisher, Murray, in London, who had neglected to print it. After a reprimand for this neglect, he adds, "I am a better Christian than those parsons of yours, though not paid for being so." This Epistle of St. Paul is supposed to be spurious, though ancient. Moore has inserted the translation in an appendix to his memoirs, end of vol. ii. From his own experience of the unhappy effect of religious doubt and unbelief on his own mind, he was anxious to preserve his natural child, Allegra, from that danger. She having been born in a Catholic country, of a Catholic mother, he placed her in a Catholic seminary for education. He probably considered, also, that those educated in this faith, particularly females, were less liable to have their religious belief disturbed, than those of other sects. Its imposing forms and ceremonies, addressed more to the senses and the imagination than to the understanding, he no doubt supposed favorable to a steady and effectual influence on the sex. In a letter dated, Pisa, March 4, 1822, he says;—“ I am no enemy to religion, but the contrary. As a proof, I am educating my daughter a strict Catholic in a convent." He had previously said, in a letter of April 3, 1821 ;—" It is, besides, my wish that she should be a Roman Catholic; which I look upon as the best religion, as it is assuredly the oldest of the various branches of Christianity." Having found that a firm religious faith was not, in his own mind, to be obtained from reasoning and investigation, he no doubt thought that system the best, which removed the mind farthest from the danger of being shipwrecked on those treacherous rocks so fatal to his own peace. The remainder of these extracts and remarks must be resumed for another paper. PERCY. MONTHLY RECORD. JULY, 1831. POLITICS AND STATISTICS. UNITED STATES. EXCEPT the dissolution of the old cabinet, and the attempted composition of a new one, no important event connected with our national politics,-using that term in a more liberal sense than is common in this country,—has transpired, since the dissolution of the twenty-first Congress. Every reader is familiar with the circumstances, under which that Congress assembled. A new administration had been in office but a few months. The executive officer had been elected by a very large majority of the people. He had, during an animated contest, which occupied the whole term of his predecessor, repeatedly professed the most liberal views. He had received the support of different parties, on account of his friendship or hostility to certain political doctrines, in regard to each of which the principles of those parties were entirely adverse to each other. He was claimed by each; and it may be said that he received support from all; for his friends were collected from the disbanded forces of all the previously existing political associations of the country. The Congressional elections which had already taken place, and the certain result of many which were to come, ensured the President a majority of the members sufficient to quiet any fears which he might entertain, of opposition to his measures. It was in the power of the President to have formed an Administration capable of withstanding almost any conceivable combination of politicians. At the period of his inauguration, there was no such thing as an opposition party. His policy, if he had formed any, either foreign or domestic, was undivulged; and, except an indistinct allusion in his brief inaugural address, he had given,-so far as we remember,-no public indication of the course he intended to pursue. It is certain that many persons, as they doubted the policy, feared the result, of electing an individual whose views were so discreetly kept from the public, and whose claims to civil distinction were more commonly asserted than recognised. But the better por tion of this class were not men to follow an example of which they had just witnessed the success, and it did not comport with their views of propriety, or their characters as public men, to commence an indiscriminate opposition to an individual, merely because he was elected to office contrary to their wishes. During the summer of 1829, the domestic policy of the new administration was rapidly unfolded. It certainly excited surprise from its novelty; and not much admiration from any thinking people, unless it were those, the correctness of whose previous predilections was established by the advantage which they derived from its personal character. It is unnecessary to advert more particularly to measures, which the adherents of the Administration, singularly enough, denominated "reformations," and which their opponents with quite as much unanimity, thought proscriptive, and in many cases cruel. At the opening of the session of Congress, in December, the President's message was looked for with much anxiety. It is a remarkable fact in the history of our politics, that no person was disappointed; it was exactly such a document as all parties had anticipated. We shall not undertake to assert where the charge of fatuity most properly belongs, but it is certain that the friends of the President saw, or affected to see in it, the fruition of all their hopes; and the members of the party, which was gradually forming an opposition, thought they discovered in its sentiments an assurance of all which |