are harsh jangles and discords in the verse, is not disputed; but still it abounds in a grave patriarchal spirit, and is echo to the oracles of Adam and Melchisedek.  It may not be worthy of Lord Byron’s genius, but it does him no dishonour, and contains passages which accord with the solemn diapasons of ancient devotion.  The disgust which The Vision of Judgment had produced, rendered it easy to persuade the world that there was impiety in the Heaven and Earth, although, in point of fact, it may be described as hallowed with the Scriptural theology of Milton.  The objections to its literary defects were magnified into sins against worship and religion.

The Liberal stopped with the fourth number, I believe.  It disappointed not merely literary men in general, but even the most special admirers of the talents of the contributors.  The main defect of the work was a lack of knowledge.  Neither in style nor genius, nor even in general ability, was it wanting; but where it showed learning it was not of a kind in which the age took much interest.  Moreover, the manner and cast of thinking of all the writers in it were familiar to the public, and they were too few in number to variegate their pages with sufficient novelty.  But the main cause of the failure was the antipathy formed and fostered against it before it appeared.  It was cried down, and it must be acknowledged that it did not much deserve a better fate.

With The Liberal I shall close my observations on the works of Lord Byron.  They are too voluminous to be examined even in the brief and sketchy manner in which I have considered those which are deemed the principal.  Besides, they are not, like them, all characteristic of the author, though possessing great similarity in style and thought to one another.  Nor would such general criticism accord with the plan of this work.  Lord Byron was not always thinking of himself; like other authors, he sometimes wrote from imaginary circumstances; and often fancied both situations and feelings which had no reference to his own, nor to his experience.  But were the matter deserving of the research, I am persuaded, that with Mr Moore’s work, and the poet’s original journals, notes, and letters, innumerable additions might be made to the list of passages which the incidents of his own life dictated.

The abandonment of The Liberal closed his Lordship’s connection with Mr Hunt; their friendship, if such ever really existed, was ended long before.  It is to be regretted that Byron has not given some account of it himself; for the manner in which he is represented to have acted towards his unfortunate partner, renders another version of the tale desirable.  At the same time—­and I am not one of those who are disposed to magnify the faults and infirmities of Byron—­I fear there is no excess of truth in Hunt’s opinion of him.  I judge by an account which Lord Byron gave himself to a mutual friend, who did not, however, see the treatment in exactly