He was sensitively alive to all the beauties and the sublimities of external nature, and had a most penetrating insight into the complicated feelings, and the various workings of the human heart, with all its passions and affections; consequently, he abounds in passages of great beauty, and of singular strength and power. The gratification derived from the perusal of such passages, however, to a man at least who really believes himself to be an immortal and a responsible being, is but a poor compensation for the moral effects of many of his poems, his _later_ poems more especially[155:1]. They too often appear to breathe a spirit of engrossing selfishness; a spirit of captious and gloomy scepticism,--scepticism extending, not only to revelation, but to the primary truths of what is called natural religion, and even the most acknowledged bonds of moral obligation. The tendency of his writings is to make you dissatisfied with almost every thing, and every body in this world, and at the same time to unfit you for the world to come; indeed, to make you doubt, whether the idea of a world to come is not altogether a mere delusion. Lord Byron particularly excels in describing female loveliness, and the effect which such loveliness produces upon the ardent temperament of youth. In fact, the feeling within themselves so much that responds to these descriptions, is one great cause of the popularity of Lord Byron among young people. The sensations to which I allude, however, are of themselves but too importunate. It is most unwise to excite them,--to give them additional energy,--by the perusal of the high-wrought and glowing descriptions of this poet of the passions. I had heard much of Don Juan, and felt some curiosity to read it; but I was aware of the manner in which bold and flippant ribaldry sometimes takes hold of the mind, even when shocked at it. I knew well, that human nature has in itself but too much of passion and sensuality, without needing any additional stimulus. I was unwilling "to soil my mind" when I could avoid it. For my own sake, I was unwilling to see the most destructive vices treated as mere matter of jest, and the most awful truths of religion introduced in connexion with ludicrous images, and spoken of in the language of mockery. However much our judgment may disapprove of these things, yet the ludicrous passages and images are too apt to stick by us, even when we most wish to shake them off.