them to be universal, are not likely to be viewed as subjects for serious lamentation; and the danger is, that the generality of men will contemplate the moral sketches with feelings similar to those commonly inspired by a spirited cariacature; namely, a desire that the object of ridicule may continue to exist, rather than not be so strikingly pourtrayed. As to Lord Byron, who stands pre-eminent, like Milton's Satan, at the head of all the mischief-workers of the present time, his poison is of another kind: slow and penetrating, it is inhaled in the breeze, and absorbed into the circulation; its effects are of the morbid class; it seduces, it insinuates, and, like opium too freely used, destroys every healthful function of the mind, and substitutes the distempered energy of an over-wrought imagination for the wholesome exercise of reason and the sweet charities of the heart. His beautiful poetry, and an inexhaustible source of talents, rare as they were brilliant, operate as cords which draw all mankind after him in bonds of submission. Descriptions of nature or character, external to ourselves, however happy in their delineation, interest but feebly in comparison with what you justly call the '_metaphysics_' of sentiment. This is the most fascinating of all possible studies; it requires no labour, it asks no preparation; and all people, whatever their pretensions in other respects, conceive themselves qualified for the school of mental analysis which Byron has instituted and endowed. A bad husband, a bad son, a bad father, has but to retire to some 'rose-leaf couch, where, nursing his dainty loves and slothful sympathies,' he may find, in a volume of this too-attractive bard, an apology for every sin of temper, every violation of duty; nay, so contagious is the influence of this Byron-mania, that our young men _cultivate_ the failings of their chief, and seem to fancy that in becoming imitators of Childe Harold's eccentricities, they may slide into his unrivalled genius. Selfishness and egotism are to be found in the fallows of many a mind; but where are our youth to learn Lord Byron's recipe for compounding them?" Though not convinced, I was excited, and ventured again into the field, by asking Mr. Otway whether good does not grow out of evil? "Surely," said I, "Truth, like a lazy corporation, would rely upon its charter, and have nothing to do but fatten on its revenues, were it not for opposition. 'Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non Saltasset.'