The flowers that adorn his poetry bloom over charnel-houses and the grave! There is one subject on which Lord Byron is fond of writing, on which I wish he would not write—Buonaparte. Not that I quarrel with his writing for him, or against him, but with his writing both for him and against him. What right has he to do this? Buonaparte’s character, be it what else it may, does not change every hour according to his Lordship’s varying humour. He is not a pipe for Fortune’s finger, or for his Lordship’s Muse, to play what stop she pleases on. Why should Lord Byron now laud him to the skies in the hour of his success, and then peevishly wreak his disappointment on the God of his idolatry? The man he writes of does not rise or fall with circumstances: but ‘looks on tempests and is never shaken.’ Besides, he is a subject for history, and not for poetry. ‘Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread, But as the marigold at the sun’s eye, And in themselves their pride lies buried; For at a frown they in their glory die. The painful warrior, famoused for fight, After a thousand victories once foil’d, Is from the book of honour razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d.’ If Lord Byron will write any thing more on this hazardous theme, let him take these lines of Shakspeare for his guide, and finish them in the spirit of the original—they will then be worthy of the subject. Walter Scott is the most popular of all the poets of the present day, and deservedly so. He describes that which is most easily and generally understood with more vivacity and effect than any body else. He has no excellences, either of a lofty or recondite kind, which lie beyond the reach of the most ordinary capacity to find out; but he has all the good qualities which all the world agree to understand. His style is clear, flowing, and transparent: his sentiments, of which his style is an easy and natural medium, are common to him with his readers. He has none of Mr. Wordsworth’s _idiosyncracy_. He differs from his readers only in a greater range of knowledge and facility of expression. His poetry belongs to the class of _improvisatori_ poetry. It has neither depth, height, nor breadth in it; neither uncommon strength, nor uncommon refinement of thought, sentiment, or language. It has no originality. But if this author has no research, no moving power in his own breast, he relies with the greater safety and success on the force of his subject. He selects a story such as is sure to please, full of incidents, characters, peculiar manners, costume, and scenery; and he tells it in a way that can offend no one. He never wearies or disappoints you. He is communicative and garrulous; but he is not his own hero. He never obtrudes himself on your notice to prevent your seeing the subject. What passes in the poem, passes much as it would have done in reality.