The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 474, Supplementary NumberVarious
General
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 474, Supplementary Number
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
VOL. XVII. No. 474.] SUPPLEMENTARY NUMBER. [PRICE 2d.
* * * * *
LORD BYRON.
LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON, WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE, BY THOMAS
MOORE, Vol. ii.
[To attempt anything like an analysis of a "great big book," of 823
pages, like the present, and that within a sheet of 16 pages, would
be an effort of condensation indeed. Besides, the very nature of the
volume before us will not admit of such a task being performed with
much regard to accuracy or unique character. The "Letters," of which,
the work is, in great part, composed, are especially ill adapted for
such a purpose; since, many of them become interesting only from
manner rather than importance of matter. Horace Walpole's
Correspondence would make but a dull book cut in "little stars" in
the letter style; and Lord Byron, as a letter writer, resembles
Walpole more closely than any other writer of his time. His gay,
anecdotical style is delightful--his epithets and single words are
always well chosen, and often convey more than one side of the letter
of a common-place mind.
Our sheet of Extracts is from such portions of Mr. Moore's volume as
appear to illustrate the main points of the Noble Poet's character
and habits, as the superscriptions will best explain--_currente
calamo_ from pages 22 to 769--within a few leaves of the Appendix.]
HIS SENSIBILITY.
With the following melancholy passage one of his journals concludes:--
"In the weather for this tour (of thirteen days) I have been very
fortunate--fortunate in a companion (Mr. H.)--fortunate in all our
prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays
which often render journeys in a less wild country disappointing. I was
disposed to be pleased. I am a lover of nature, and an admirer of beauty;
I can bear fatigue and welcome privation, and have seen some of the
noblest views in the world. But in all this--the recollection of
bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which
must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the
music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the
mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment
lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched
identity in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above, and
beneath me----."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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