"Come forth, oh Campbell! give thy talents scope;
Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope?
And thou, melodious Rogers! rise at last.
Recall the pleasing memory of the past;
Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire,
And strike to wonted tones thy hallow'd lyre ;
Restore Apollo to his vacant throne,

Assert thy country's honour and thine own.
What! must deserted Poesy still weep

Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep?

No! though contempt hath mark'd the spurious brood,

The race who rhyme from folly, or for food,

Yet still some genuine sons 'tis hers to boast,
Who, least affecting, still affect the most:

Feel as they write, and write but as they feel-
Bear witness Gifford, Sotheby, Macneil."

These illustrious names were the representatives, according to the young poet who was so soon to seize the very crown of rapid fame in England, of the poetry of his time. The last name will scarcely be known even to the most well-informed reader. Macneil was the author of "Scotland's Scaith," and the "Waes of War," of which we are told "ten thousand copies were sold in one month." It is about all that history has to say on his account. The reader will smile to see what the poetic youth, fresh from Cambridge, and touched himself (though his genius was as yet undiscovered, either by himself or others) by the divine fire, thought of the poets of his time.

Curiously enough, however, it was to this assault upon his contemporaries that Byron owed his first introduction to the world of literature, and through it

to society. It has been mentioned in a previous chapter that a duel of a somewhat ludicrous description took place between Jeffrey and the young poet Moore on the occasion of a severe review (these were days in which reviews were dangerous for the critics as well as for the authors) of the first volume of dubious verse, which he published under the name of Little. This absurd incident exactly suited Byron's purpose. He brings in with delighted malice

"That ever glorious, almost fatal fray,

When Little's leadless pistol met his eye,

And Bow Street myrmidons stood laughing by."

Moore, however, who had published an accurate account of the transaction, exonerating himself from the ridicule of the "leadless pistol," considered Byron's allusion to it as directly giving him the lie, and being as Irish and as warlike as ever, wrote a sort of challenge to the new assailant, which, however, never reached Byron till a year later, when the little Irishman was married and had cooled down. Several letters followed, and Moore was glad to accept the explanation that Byron had never seen his published denial of the more ludicrous part of the circumstances, and not unwilling to meet and make friends with the young man who had proved himself at least a dangerous enemy, and who was a lord and a wonder besides. On receiving Byron's letter proposing a friendly, not a hostile meeting, "I went instantly," he says, "to my friend Mr. Rogers and informed him of the correspondence in which I had been engaged. With his usual readiness to oblige

VOL. III.

C

and serve, he proposed that the meeting between Lord Byron and myself should take place at his table, and requested of me to convey to the noble lord his wish." The invitation was immediately accepted. It was intended at first that Rogers and Moore alone should form the party, "but Mr. Thomas Campbell, having called upon our host that morning, was invited to join it." It is easy to imagine the curiosity and interest with which these three awaited the altogether unknown and remarkable young stranger. The two elder men had been specially distinguished by his praises, and little Moore, though laughed at, had been far more leniently treated than his betters.

"-Little! young Catullus of his day,

As sweet, but as immoral in his lay!"

was such a shaft as made no very serious wound. Lords were familiar to Rogers, and probably not exciting; but yet rank adds an attraction the more to all other qualities, and a noble poet is piquant and picturesque; whereas the other two convives were of a humble position, and could scarcely fail to be dazzled by the title of the new brother, who had it in his power to be so potent a friend or enemy. And already many stories had been told of this wild and wandering spirit: youthful orgies at Newstead exaggerated into something portentous, and adventures innumerable, by sea and land, all contributed to rouse the expectations of the poets, who waited for the opening of the door and the announcement of the novel, the terrible, the delightful guest. He came,

1

and Moore, for one, was enchanted with everything about him-" the nobleness of his air, his beauty, the gentleness of his voice and manners, and-what was naturally not the least attraction-his kindness to myself." "Being in mourning for his mother, the colour, as well of his dress as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure, spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, as he spoke, there was a perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character when in repose." Altogether, it was a hero of romance who thus burst upon the vision of the assembled poets-good Campbell, fresh from his respectable, middle-class, suburban cottage; Moore, out of his economical retirement; middle-aged Rogers, who from another point of view could scarcely fail to be dazzled too by the youth and limitless future which lay before his young guest. It was a little embarrassing that there was nothing for him to eat, for the young poet, afraid of getting fat,-a very natural if somewhat absurd fear,-lived upon vegetables; and "biscuits and soda water," for which he asked, were not to be had. "He professed, however," says Moore, "to be equally well pleased with potatoes and vinegar, and of these meagre materials contrived to make rather a hearty dinner." Barring this whimsical difficulty, the meeting was very successful, and Moore continued Byron's devoted liege-man for the rest of his life.

This is the first glimpse we have of the poet in anything that can be called or imagined the society of

his peers. He had as a boy been received at one or two houses of his kinsfolk, in one of which he formed a romantic and premature attachment, which certainly was the inspiration of several poems, and which is womantically supposed to have helped to overshadow his life. The terrible want of that life was, it is evident, something to fix him in his orbit, some ties of home or duty, some sense of responsibility, anything that would have freed him from the restlessness that consumed his soul, and which no excitement satisfied. The air of hurry and breathless reposeless movement which is about him during this early period, when as yet there was no fatal step taken, or irrecoverable mistake made, is very remarkable. His letters, which in our opinion are never very attractive, have an air of haste for which there could be no necessity, save in his nature. Everything is mentioned in the curtest manner, not a pause, not an indication of interest beyond the most cursory and trifling. His friends, his occupations, the (fine) people he meets, the news of the time, all come in hurriedly to the breathless record. Few glimmers of genius, and not even much that could be called human individuality, the features that mark one man from another, are to be found in these productions. His biographer gives them at full length, and it has again become a fashion in the present renaissance of Byron's fame to applaud those hasty chapters of his experiences: but we cannot find them worthy of any serious remark. They are the kind of letters which any undistinguished young man, with coarsish tastes, and time entirely