plish in short, the brief career which he passed through in this life, amply entitled him to the credit of a philanthropist, a philosopher, and a patriot. Mr. Carpenter, in conclusion, exhorts Unitarians to employ such opportunities as now exist, to promote the reception of the Gospel in its simplicity. If," he says, "the British and American Unitarians cannot do this by direct means, we may do it by contributing, as far as in us lies, to the promotion, among those who already receive the Gospel, of what we believe to be the real Scriptural views as to the character and dealings of our Heavenly Father, and the worship due to him, and of the work and doctrive of him whom he hath appointed to be our Lord, our Saviour, and our Judge. In my opinion it is certain, that it is only in connexion with the full acknowledgment of the unity and essential mercy of God, and with the direction of worship to Him alone, that the Gospel of Christ, and its inestimable blessings, can be extensively and effectually received among the intelligent Heathen, or that it can be embraced at all by those who, together with the admixtures and deficiencies of Mahomedanism, maintain, with the Jews, as an essential doctrine of religion, that God is OneJehovah will reign, in truth and righteousness, over the whole earth; but in that day Jehovah shall be One, and his name One.'"-Zech. xiv. 9. We have thought it right to endeavour to set the question of Rammohun Roy, being a Christian, on its true footing. ART. XI.-Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blessington. 1 vol. London: Colburn. 1834. THE subject of this volume, and the quarter from which it emanates, renders it only an act of sound discretion on our part to take some notice of this volume, whatever be the objections in other respects which may arise against such a course. Such a durable interest does Lord Byron maintain in the minds of his cotemporaries, that every record, however trifling, which adds a new shade even to our knowledge of him, is hailed with satisfaction by the public. With all respect for the noble author of these Conversations, we may be permitted to inquire in what school of erudition it was that the Countess acquired the extraordinary faculty which she possesses of remembering. We have here some four hundred solid pages of choice conversation, in which a vast proportion is represented as having been spoken by Lord Byron: here and there we have whole pages which are stated to have been exactly delivered by his Lordship, and there is nothing suggested throughout the volume to make us suppose but that we are listening to the precise words which, at various periods, dropped from the lips of the illustrious poet. If VOL. I. (1834) NO. I. H the account of these speeches and conversations be strictly correct, then we can only admire Lady Blessington as the very pattern of a reporter, and we are sure that it is only the exalted circumstances in which she is placed that prevent her from being employed at this moment, on the invitation of some spirited proprietor of a morning paper, at an allowance of her own choice. It was at Genoa that Lady Blessington first met with Lord Byron; she saw him frequently afterwards, and carefully notes every interview which took place during the early period of the acquaintance. Taking the result of what she says of him at this era of her knowledge of his character, it appears to us to be very unfavourable. She describes his person and manners, the expression of his countenance and the gaucherie of his gait, together with the awkwardness which characterises him, and which is to be attributed to a vain effort to conceal his deformed leg. Then she finds him a great talker, his flippancy, she says, ceases a tête-à-tête, and he becomes sententious, abandoning himself to the subject, and seeming to think aloud, though his language has the appearance of stiffness, and is quite opposed to the trifling chit-chat that he enters into when in general society. I attribute this to his having lived so much alone, as also to the desire he now professes of applying himself to prose writing. He affects a sort of Johnsonian tone, likes very much to be listened to, and seems to observe the effect he produces on his hearer. In mixed society, his ambition is to appear the man of fashion; he adopts a light tone of bandinage and persiflage that does not sit gracefully on him, but is always anxious to turn the subject to his own personal affairs, or feelings, which are either lamented with an air of melancholy, or dwelt on with playful ridicule, according to the humour he happens to be in. She takes it for granted that Byron is right in making himself out an avaricious man, and that he talks of his faults as one would of an acquaintance, in a deprecating tone, as much as to say, "I know all my faults better than you do ;" and she adds, that Byron often brought forward his defects as if in expectation of some one else exposing them, a liberty which he never liked; he is jealous of being found fault with, and shows that he is so in a thousand ways. This is not all: Byron affects to dislike hearing his poetry praised; but Lady Blessington seems to understand matters much better, for the dislike, she says, is not real. He prided himself on his horsemanship, shot, swimming, &c.; and was particularly delighted if any body bore testimony to his success in fashionable life. As a sort of relief to this process of flaying poor Byron, Lady Blessington just pauses, to soothe the victim, and she gives him the great credit of being charitable to the poor, and that what he bestowed was given with gentleness and kindness; these feelings, she takes care to remark, being more particularly observable in his conduct when the object of his benevolence had some deformity. In the next place, Byron was fond of gossip, and he delighted in scandal: he was a person to be extremely bored by the constraint imposed on him by any change of system, and with respect to his philosophy, it is disposed of by this Lady with this scornful apostrophe: Poor Byron! he is still far from arriving at the philosophy that he aims at and thinks he has acquired, when the absence or presence of a person who is indifferent to him, whatever his station in life may be, can occupy his thoughts for a moment." Another of his faults was, that he habitually attached importance to trifles, and, on the other hand, turning serious events into ridicule; superstition, too, is thrown in his face, for it is held by the author that Byron was sincere in his belief of supernatural appearances, and carried his notions to such an extreme, as to put credit in the certainty of lucky and unlucky days, in the criminality of doing business of a Friday, in the horrors of spilling salt, or helping it! But we must allow the Lady to speak for herself. "I should say that Byron was not either skilled in, or an admirer of, works of art; he confessed to me that very few had excited his attention, and that to admire these he had been forced to draw on his imagination. Of objects of taste or virtu he was equally regardless, and antiquities had interest for him, nay, he carried this so far, that he disbelieved the possibility of their exciting interest in any one, and said that they merely served as excuses for indulging the vanity and ostentation of those who had no other means of exciting attention. "Byron is of a very suspicious nature; he dreads imposition on all points, declares that he foregoes many things, for the fear of being cheated in the purchase, and is afraid to give way to the natural impulses of his character, lest he should be duped or mocked. "Byron seems to take a peculiar pleasure in ridiculing sentiment and romantic feelings; and yet the day after will betray both, to an extent that appears impossible to be sincere, to those who had heard his previous sarcasms: that he is sincere, is evident, as his eyes fill with tears, his voice becomes tremulous, and his whole manner evinces that he feels what he says. " He never appeared to so little advantage as when he talked sentiment, this did not at all strike me at first; on the contrary, it excited a powerful interest for him; but when he had vented his spleen, in sarcasms, and pointed ridicule on sentiment, reducing all that is noblest in our natures to the level of common every-day life, the charm was broken, and it was impossible to sympathise with him again. He observed something of this, and seemed dissatisfied and restless when he perceived that he could no longer excite either strong sympathy or astonishment."-pp. 43—47. In talking of literary productions, it was Lord Byron's uncharitable practice to speak more of the faults than the beauties of authors: he never failed to remember some quotation that told against the composer, and this he would recite with a mock-heroic air, which made it quite ludicrous. Lady Blessington found it difficult to determine often whether Lord Byron was serious or not; for he had a habit of mystifying which could not impose upon her, however it might on others. But his decided taste for aristocracy, is particularly noted by the Countess, and this disposition she declares he showed in a thousand different forms. Upon the subject of his intimacy with the Countess Guiccioli, his lordship was very candid, and he did not hesitate to disclose the history of his intimacy with this lady to the author. He stated that she and her family lived beneath his roof, because his rank as a British peer, afforded her father and brother protection, they having been banished from Ravenna, their native place, on account of their politics. He spoke in high terms of the Counts Gamba, father and son; he said that he had given the family a wing of his house, but that their establishments were totally separate, their repasts never taken together, and that such was their scrupulous delicacy, that they never would accept a pecuniary obligation from him in all the difficulties entailed on them by their exile. He represented La Contessa Guiccioli as a most amiable and lady-like person, perfectly disinterested and noble-minded, devotedly attached to him, and possessing so many high and estimable qualities, as to offer an excuse for any man's attachment to her. He said that he had been passionately in love with her, and that she had sacrificed everything for him; that the whole of her conduct towards him had been admirable, and that not only did he feel the strongest personal attachment to her, but the highest sentiments of esteem. He dwelt with evident complacency on her noble birth and distinguished connexions,-advantages to which he attaches great importance. A strange melange, concludes Lady Blessington, good and evil is Lord Byron. The improbability of his keeping a secret, is dwelt on in this volume at some length. The author says, that he is incapable of being trusted with a confidential communication, and this, she admits, not from malice but shear indiscretion, and want of delicacy. As a set off against the character of Byron, in his treatment of authors, it is related by the Countess, that he praised many performances of the day. Hope's "Anastasius" received the highest applause; and Mr. Galt's novels, he said, reminded him of Wilkie's pictures, by the identity which characterizes them. Mrs. Heman's came in for his marked eulogy. With respect to the Lake School, he continued to abhor it, and had a quarrel with Lady Blessington because she defended Keat's. Shelly was next mentioned; " you should have known Shelley," observed Byron to her, "to feel how much I regret him. He was the most gentle, most amiable, and least worldly-minded person I ever met; full of delicacy, disinterested beyond all other men, and possessing a degree of genius, joined to a simplicity, as rare as it is admirable. He had formed to himself a beau ideal of all that is fine, high-minded, and noble, and he acted up to this ideal even to the very letter. He had a most brilliant imagination, but a total want of worldly-wisdom. I have seen nothing like him, and never shall again, I am certain. I never can forget the night that his poor wife rushed into my room at Pisa, with a face as pale as marble, and terror impressed on her brow, demanding, with all the tragic impetuosity of grief and alarm, where was her husband! Vain were all our efforts to calm her; a desperate sort of courage seemed to give her energy to confront the horrible truth that awaited her; it was the courage of despair. I have seen nothing in tragedy on the stage so powerful, or so affecting, as her appearance, and it often presents itself to my memory. I knew nothing then of the catastrophe, but the vividness of her terror communicated itself to me, and I feared the worst, which fears were, alas! too soon fearfully realized. In reference to Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron expressed regret that he had ever embarked in the "Liberal." Our author says, we believe truly, that the noble lord was a person who would readily form without reflection, engagements which, when he repented of them. he would gladly exonerate himself from, without being very particular about the means. He gave to her the idea of a man who, feeling himself in a dilemma, would become cold and ungracious to the parties with whom he so stood, merely wanting the mental courage to break with them at once. She confesses that this was the impression which she derived from all he said about Hunt. Of Hobhouse, Byron talked in high commendation, particularly in reference to his talents and acquirements; but it is Lady Blessington's opinion that he was piqued with Hobhouse, whose frankness and unbending honesty he always admitted. The Countess frequently alludes to the manifestations which Lord Byron occasionally afforded of recollections of his wife: he took great pains to convince her ladyship, that no fault was attributable to him, and from the earnestness with which he sought to free himself from any imputation was carried to a considerable length. The author is convinced that his lady occupied much of his thoughts, for he frequently spoke of her. She informs us, that the noble poet once gave her a copy of a poem which was written by him during the emotions he felt after reading a paragraph in a newspaper, stating that Lady Byron was ill. It certainly possesses the genuine character of the author, and is replete with deep feeling. We shall extract a portion of it for the gratification of the reader. Mercy is for the merciful!-if thou Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now. Thy nights are banish'd from the realms of sleep!— A hollow agony which will not heal, For thou art pillow'd on a curse too deep; I have had many foes, but none like thee; |