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general appearance being indicative of muscular strength. His hair at this time was worn short. When I saw him three years after in Venice, it was longer and curled in his neck behind. It was, if I remember, of a very dark hazel color. His forehead was not uncommonly high, but erect and manly, his face not very finely shaped, being inclined to be broad and flat. In this respect the best prints have flattered him; or at least the profile, which they exhibit, was better than the front face. His eye was a dark grey, mild and soft; his nose somewhat broad; the lips full, the upper lip considerably arched, and his smile singularly winning. The chin was marked with a dimple, but bold and finely turned. The line in his face from the chin to the ear has always been remarked as uncommonly beautiful. His complexion was perfectly white, without the least bloom, and his skin not clear.. On the whole, Lord Byron's face and head would probably not strike a person, who should see without knowing him, as those of a man of great power. There was certainly no trace in his expression of that strong peculiar character which reigns in his works.

'He had, it is well known, a considerable personal deformity. Both his feet were affected with a natural malformation. It appeared to consist in a want of a proper organisation of the joints of the ancles, and the feet were smaller than the natural size. With loose pantaloons, worn long, this deformity could not have been discerned, except on close inspection; but it produced a stiffness and effort in his gait, though not to a degree to excite painful emotions. The common accounts of extreme deformity, lameness, &c. are quite groundless; and Lord Byron's exploits in swimming are a sufficient proof, that his limbs were not disabled by the defect in question.

'It is not usual, that the conversation of a very distinguished man affords much of an idea of his character, in an interview of mere politeness. Lord Byron's conversation, in the few interviews I had with him, was certainly rather that of a well educated and well bred man, than of one of extraordinary powers. His usual tone of voice was quite low, and at the close of sentences indistinct. But on expressing some idea, which had just occurred to him, or in which he took more than usual interest, it suddenly rose to a shrill and piercing note. I may observe, that his handwriting was uncommonly

bad; not indeed particularly illegible-a quality sometimes affected by distinguished persons-but wholly destitute of firmness and character.

'The trifles, which are likely to form the subject of conversation on such an occasion as this, scarce admit of subsequent report. Lord Byron spoke to me of the topics likely to interest me as an American; the expedition then fitted out by our government against Algiers; the state of political opinion and of literature in America. He discovered considerable acquaintance with our state of society, and on this topic expressed great surprise at the virulence with which Moore, (of whom he spoke with particular fondness,) had attacked the Americans in his early poems. He called him the best tempered man he had ever known. On some topics of domestic English politics, he spoke with severity and even bitterness, and mentioned the late lord Londonderry in terms, which out of tenderness to the memory of men—both of whom are gone, ought not to be repeated. He said he regarded a seat in the House of Lords, as the most valuable privilege conferred by nobility in England. He added, that he had never spoken himself but twice in the house; once on the Catholic Question, on which "they accused him of saying saucy things." He was at this time twentyseven years and four or five months old; and he observed, that his feelings and opinions on all subjects had undergone great changes since his youth.

'He said, that though he had suppressed "the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," he supposed it would never be really forgiven him, by those who were mentioned in it. He remarked, that he had suppressed it at the instance of Rogers, and on grounds (which he stated) wholly disconnected from the obvious one usually assigned, of conciliating the reviewers and authors censured in it. He particularly repelled the suggestion, that he had suppressed the satire in order to propitiate Mr Jeffrey, adding, that he did it before the favorable notice of Childe Harold had appeared in the Edinburgh Review. He spoke in the highest terms of the magnanimity and independence of Mr Jeffrey, who was not the author of the severe notice of Lord Byron's juvenile poems, that led to the composition of the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. He said Southey's Vision of Roderick was the best of his

poems, and though he thought the author, on the whole, not a favorite poet in England, his reputation seemed to be rising from year to year. He spoke with great enthusiasm of Greece; took up a modern Greek work and read a passage from it; showed me a specimen of Athenian hemlock, and declared that the happiest days of his life were passed in that country, when he adopted the national dress and mingled like a native in the society. He kindly offered me letters of introduction to those whom he had known in that country, particularly Ali Pacha, who figures so conspicuously in Childe Harold. This promise he fulfilled, and three years after, his letter to that extraordinary character procured me many marks of favor from the barbarous old chieftain.

'I saw Lord Byron occasionally during my short visit to London. The unfortunate occurrences in his family, which led him to the continent had not then taken place. I afterwards saw him at Venice, where he lived in a very respectable manner; and to all appearance without affording the least foundation to many of the tales, which have obtained currency with respect to him. He was surrounded with books, and his works published about that time prove that he must have been a hard student. He then spoke of repeating his visit to Greece, but the revolution was not then even anticipated, though destined so shortly to break out.'

ART. II.-A Treatise on the Law of Insurance. By WILLARD PHILLIPS. 8vo. pp. 550. Boston. 1823.

THE progress of commerce in modern times will appear more surprising the more minutely it is examined. It steadily advanced among the nations of Europe during the whole of the eighteenth century, and in the latter half, notwithstanding occasional interruptions by war, it was probably double in extent and value, what it had ever attained in any other equal period. Holland had indeed lost her maritime superiority by the destruction of her carrying trade. But the Northern powers, and particularly Russia, assumed a highly commercial character. Italy was compelled to mourn the departure of the times, when Venice, and Genoa, and Leghorn, covered

the Mediterranean with their wealth. But France felt the invigorating influence of trade, and began to court with respect, what she had previously cherished only as a source of revenue. Above all, British commerce, during this period, enjoyed the most signal triumph. Her merchants and mariners were familiar with the whole Globe, with the Baltic and the Levant, the Black and the White Sea, the Atlantic and the Pacific, with the Americas and the Indies, with the fisheries of Newfoundland and Greenland, the fur trade of the Indians, the timber, hemp, and manufactures of the North, the cottons, spices, and teas of the East, and with the gums, drugs, ivory, and flesh, of Africa. It is probably short of the real state of the case to assert, that the commercial capital of Great Britain was quadrupled during the reign of George the Third. Of the causes of this vast increase it is beside our present purpose to enter into an examination. But there can be no doubt, that her navigation has been essentially aided by the improved state of her manufactures, arising as well from superior skill and workmanship, as from her wonderful inventions in cotton machinery. She now exports to the East Indies and China cotton goods of her own manufacture, to an immense value, which she formerly imported from those countries. And the unrivalled beauty and excellence of her fabrics, have not only suspended the use of those of foreign origin within her own dominions, but have enabled her in a great measure to command all the open markets of the world.

Under such circumstances it would be a natural inference, that there had been a correspondent advancement of her commercial law. The conclusion would seem natural, if not irresistible, that a people, distinguished for centuries by their commercial activity and enterprise, must have been under the protection of a well settled system of commercial jurisprudence. Philosophers and practical jurists would ask, how it would be possible for the infinite variety of business growing out of an extensive foreign trade to be adjusted, without resort to some well known rules and general principles? Strange, however, as it may seem, it is undeniable, that England had made very little progress in commercial law, at so late a period as the commencement of the reign of George the Third. Yet she had been a commercial nation, to a considerable extent, from the reign of Elisabeth; and

for more than a century had possessed plantations and colonies, whose population and trade perpetually invigorated her navigation.

A slight historical review will put this matter beyond any reasonable controversy. One of the earliest English works on maritime law is Malynes' Lex Mercatoria, published in 1622, in the reign of James the First. Welwood had a few years before printed his Abridgment of the Sea Laws; but it is principally a collection of the rules and ordinances of foreign countries. It is remarkable, that Malynes refers to no antecedent English writer on the subject of his treatise, and except in a very few unimportant instances, to no English adjudications. His work is principally a compendium of commercial usages, not confined to England, but supposed by him to be common to all the maritime states of Europe. It is quite a meagre and loose performance, and contains few principles, that are now of any practical importance. He has two or three short chapters upon bills of exchange, which show, that the doctrines upon that subject, then familiar on the Continent, were not much known in England, except as usages among merchants. He laments, that negotiable promissory notes, which then circulated among all the commercial cities of the neighboring nations, were strangers to the jurisprudence of England.

In fact, they were not introduced into general use until near the close of the reign of Charles the Second. Lord Holt, in the case of Buller v. Crisp, (6. Mod. Rep. 29.) decided in the second year of Queen Anne's reign, said, 'I remember when actions upon inland bills did first begin; and there, they laid a particular custom between London and Bristol, and it was an action against the acceptor. The defendant's counsel would put them to prove the custom, at which Hale, chief justice, laughed, and said, they had a hopeful case of it.' Lord Holt himself stubbornly denied the negotiability of promissory notes; and in this very case of Buller v. Crisp, it was proved, that these notes had then been used for a matter of thirty years.' It is familiar to the profession, that an act of Parliament was found necessary to put promissory notes upon the same footing as inland bills of exchange, although this laudable custom,' as Malynes calls it, had been long established on the Continent. VOL. XX.-No. 46.

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