order to waive it. He certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family and ancestors-sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration only that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review, beside our desire to counsel him that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account. With this view we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet; nay, although (which does not always happen) those feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately upon the fingers-is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem; and that a poem, in the present day, to be read, must contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his candour, whether there is any thing so deserving the name of poetry in verses like the following, written in 1806, and whether, if a youth of eighteen could say any thing so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth of nineteen should publish it. "Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing "Though a tear dim his eye, at this sad separation, "That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish, When decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own." P. & Now we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor's volume. Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see at his writing master's) are odious.Gray's Ode on Eton College should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas "on a distant view of the village and school of Harrow." "Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied; How welcome to me, your ne'er fading remembrance, Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied." P. 4. In like manner, the exquisite lines of Mr. Rogers, "On a Tear," might have warned the noble author off those premises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the following. "Mild Charity's glow, To us mortals below, Where this virtue is felt, And its dew is diffus'd in a Tear. "The man doom'd to sail, The green sparkles bright with a Tear." P. 11. And so of instances in which former poets had failed. Thus, we do not think Lord Byron was made for translating, during his nonage, Adrian's Address to his Soul, when Pope succeeded so indifferently in the attempt. If our readers, however, are of another opinion, they may look at it. "Ah! gentle, fleeting, wav'ring sprite, To what unknown region borne, But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn." P. 72. However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are great favourites with Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from Anacreon to Ossian; and, viewing them as school exercises, they may pass. Only, why print them after they have had their day and served their turn? And why call the thing in p. 79. a translation, where two words (Ay) of the original are expanded into four lines, and the other thing in p. 81. where Tous Tot & gas, is rendered by means of six hobbling verses? As to his Ossianic poesy, we are not very good judges; being, in truth, so moderately skilled in that species of composition, that we should, in all probability, be criticising some bit of the genuine Macpherson itself, were we to express our opinion of Lord Byron's rhap sodies. If, then, the following beginning of a "Song of Bards," is by his lordship, we venture to object to it, as far as we can com prehend it. "What form rises on the roar of clouds, whose dark ghost gleams on the red stream of tempests? His voice rolls on the thunder; 'tis Orla, the brown chief of Otihona. He was," &c. After detaining this "brown chief" some time, the bards conclude by giving him their advice to "raise his fair locks;" then to "spread them on the arch of the rainbow ;" and "to smile through the tears of the storm." Of this kind of thing there are l no less than nine pages; and we can so far venture an opinion in their favour, that they look very like Macpherson; and we are positive they are pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome. It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should "use it as not abusing it;" and particularly one who piques himself (though indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) of being "an infant bard"—("The artless Helicon I boast is youth ;")-should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited on the family seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the selfsame subject, introduced with an apology, "he certainly had no intention of inserting it;" but really, "the particular request of some friends," &c. &c. It concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a noble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on Lachin-y-gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, and might have learnt that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle. As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalize his employments at school and college, we cannot pos sibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, called Granta, we have the following magnificent stanzas. "There, in apartments small and damp, The candidate for college prizes, "Who reads false quantities in Sele, "Renouncing ev'ry pleasing page, The square of the hypothenuse, Still harmless are these occupations, Which bring together the imprudent.” P. 123, 124, 125. We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college psalmody as is contained in the following Attic stanzas. "Our choir would scarcely be excus'd, Even as a band of raw beginners; All mercy, now, must be refus'd To such a set of croaking sinners. "If David, when his toils were ended, Had heard these blockheads sing before him, To us his psalms had ne'er descended; In furious' mood, he would have tore 'em." P. 126, 127. But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. He is at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like thoroughbred poets; and "though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, he excts no profit from his publication; and whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits hereafter," that he should again condescend to become an author. Therefore, let us take what we get and be thankful. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so much from a man of this lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth. 474 Quinti Smyrnai Posthomericum Libri XIV. [We understand that an American gentleman, who has already given proof of fair literary talent, proposes to give a translation into English blank verse, of the poem of Quintus Calaber. As this curious work, though possessing celebrity among the learned, is but little known in this country, we subjoin the following extracts, explaining its nature and character, from the British Review.] THE argument of Quintus Smyrnæus is sufficiently indicated by the title of Posthomerica, which his poem usually bears. He seems to have regarded the Iliad of Homer (we may be allowed to conjecture) as a detached fragment of the Trojan story, which he probably considered as executed with spirit and genius; but regretted that so noble a composition should be brought, as he conceived, to no regular and perfect conclusion. He therefore resolved to perform the same service for it, which at a subsequent period was undertaken by Maphæus Vegius, with similar views, for the Æneid. This supposition is at least suggested by the form of his work, which takes up the incidents of the Trojan war at the conclusion of the Iliad, and pursues them in a regular narrative to the capture of the city, and the departure of the Grecian fleet. If such were the design of the poet, it is evident that he had little comprehension of the nature of epic unity, and little perception of that excellence of plan which distinguishes the Iliad, and is not one of the least remarkable circumstances of that extraordinary composition. As the poem of Quintus has been little read, a brief account of the incidents which it comprises will not be useless, especially as they possess a close connexion with an important and curious subject of Greek literary history. The work consists of fourteen books. The business of the poem occupies about thirty-two days, independently of a few scattered pages which contain no distinct calculation of time; so that the interval which it supposes to have elasped between the concluding events of the Iliad, and the catastrophe of the Trojan war, consists of about forty days. The following are the principal events. A few days after the performance of the funeral rites of Hector, the Amazon Penthesilea, with a train of her attendants, arrives to the aid of the Trojans, and having signalized her valour, falls, in a combat with Achilles. Thersites reviles Achilles for his expressions of regret at the fate of Penthesilea, and is slain by him. This occasions a contention between Diomede and Achilles, which is appeased by the intervention of the Greeks. The Trojans, reduced to despondency by their successive defeats, summon a |