continue, until I have met a doctor like your friend Richardson, whe proves himself to be a sensible and intelligent man. I maintain (continued Byron) that more than half our maladies are produced by accus toming ourselves to more sustenance than is required for the support of nature. We put too much oil into the lamp, and it blazes and burns out; but if we only put enough to feed the flame, it burns brightly and steadily. We have, God knows, sufficient alloy in our compositions, without reducing them still nearer to the brute by overfeeding. I think that one of the reasons why women are in general so much better than men, for I do think they are, whatever I may say to the contrary,(continued Byron,) is, that they do not indulge in gourmandise as men do; and, consequently, do not labour under the complicated horrors that indigestion produces, which has such a dreadful effect on the tempers, as I have both witnessed and felt.

"There is nothing I so much dread as flattery, (said Byron ;) not that I mean to say I dislike it,-for, on the contrary, if well administered, it is very agreeable, but I dread it because I know, from experience, we end by disliking those we flatter: it is the mode we take to avenge ourselves for stooping to the humiliation of flattering them. On this account, I never flatter those I really like; and, also, I should be fearful and jealous of owing their regard for me to the pleasure my flattery gave them. I am not so forbearing with those I am indifferent about; for seeing how much people like flattery, I cannot resist giving them some, and it amuses me to see how they swallow even the largest doses. Now, there is ; who could live on passable terms with them, that did not administer to their vanity? One tells you all his bonnes fortunes, and would never forgive you if you appeared to be surprised at their extent; and the other talks to you of prime ministers and dukes by their surnames, and cannot state the most simple fact or occurrence without telling you that Wellington or Devonshire told him so. One does not (continued Byron) meet this last foiblesse out of England, and not then, I must admit, except among parvenus.

and

“It is doubtful which, vanity or conceit, is the most offensive, (said Byron ;) but I think conceit is, because the gratification of vanity depends on the suffrages of others, to gain which vain people must endeavour to please; but as conceit is content with its own approbation, it makes no sacrifice, and is not susceptible of humiliation. I confess that I have a spiteful pleasure (continued Byron) in mortifying conceited people; and the gratification is enhanced by the difficulty of the task. One of the reasons why I dislike society is, that its contact excites all the evil qualities of my nature, which, like the fire in the flint, can only be elicited by friction. My philosophy is more theoretical than practical it is never at hand when I want it; and the puerile passions that I witness in those whom I encounter excite disgust when examined near, though, viewed at a distance, they only create pity,-that is to say, in

simple, homely truth, (continued Byron,) the follies of mankind, when they touch me not, I can be lenient to, and moralize on; but if they rub against my own, there is an end to the philosopher. We are all better -in solitude, and more especially if we are tainted with evil passions, which, God help us! we all are, more or less, (said Byron.) They are not then brought into action: reason and reflection have time and opportunity to resume that influence over us which they rarely can do if we are actors in the busy scene of life; and we grow better, because we -believe ourselves better. Our passions often only sleep when we suppose them dead; and we are not convinced of our mistake, till they awake with renewed strength, gained by repose. We are, therefore, wise when we choose solitude, where 'passions sleep and reason wakes;' for if we cannot conquer the evil qualities that adhere to our nature, we do well to encourage their slumber. Like cases of acute pain, when the physician cannot remove the malady he administers soporifics.

"When I recommend solitude, (said Byron,) I do not mean the solitude of country neighbourhood, where people pass their time à dire, ́redire, et médire. No! I mean a regular retirement, with a woman that one loves, and interrupted only by a correspondence with a man that one esteems, though if we put plural of man, it would be more agreeable for the correspondence. By this means, friendships would not be subject to the variations and estrangements that are so often ́caused by a frequent personal intercourse; and we might delude our selves into a belief that they were sincere, and might be lasting two difficult articles of faith in my creed of friendship. Socrates and Plato (continued Byron) ridiculed Laches, who defined fortitude to consist in remaining firm in the ranks opposed to the enemy; and I agree with those philosophers in thinking that a retreat is not inglorious, whether from the enemy in the field or in the town, if one feels one's own weakness, and anticipates a defeat. I feel that society is my enemy, in even more than a figurative sense: I have not fled, but retreated from it; and if solitude has not made me better, I am sure it has prevented my becoming worse, which is a point gained.

one.

"Have you ever observed (said Byron) the extreme dread that parvenies have of aught that approaches to vulgarity? In manners, letters, conversation, nay, even in literature, they are always superfine; and a man of birth would unconsciously hazard a thousand dubious phrases, sooner than a parvenu would risk the possibility of being suspected of One of the many advantages of birth is, that it saves one from this hypercritical gentility, and he of noble blood may be natural without the fear of being accused of vulgarity. I have left an assembly filled with all the names of haut ton in London, and where little but names were to be found, to seek relief from the ennui that overpowered me, in a-cyder cellar are you not shocked ?—and have found there more food for speculation than in the vapid circles of glittering dulness I had left.

S

or dared not have done this, but I had the patent of nobility to carry me through it, and what would have been deemed originality and spirit in me, would have been considered a natural bias to vulgar habits in them. In my works, too, I have dared to pass the frozen mole hillsI cannot call them Alps, though they are frozen eminences-of high life, and have used common thoughts and common words to express my impressions; where poor would have clarified each thought, and doublerefined each sentence, until he had reduced them to the polished and cold temperature of the illuminated houses of ice that he loves to frequent; which have always reminded me of the palace of ice built to please an empress, cold, glittering, and costly. But I suppose that

and - like them, from the same cause that I like high life below stairs, not being born to it-there is a good deal in this. I have been abused for dining at Tom Cribb's, where I certainly was amused, and have returned from a dinner where the guests were composed of the magnates of the land, where I had nigh gone to sleep-at least my intellect slumbered-so dullified was I and those around me, by the soporific quality of the conversation, if conversation it might be called. For a long time I thought it was my constitutional melancholy that made me think London society so insufferably tiresome; but I discovered that those who had no such malady found it equally so; the only difference was that they yawned under the nightly inflictions, yet still continued to bear them, while I writhed, and muttered curses not loud but deep' against the well-dressed automatons, that threw a spell over my faculties, making me doubt if I could any longer feel or think; and I have sought the solitude of my chamber, almost doubting my own identity, or, at least, my sanity, such was the overpowering effect produced on me by exclusive society in London. Madame de Staël was the only person of talent I ever knew who was not overcome by it; but this was owing to the constant state of excitement she was kept in by her extraordinary selfcomplacency, and the mystifications of the dandies, who made her believe all sorts of things. I have seen her entranced by them, listening with undisguised delight to exaggerated compliments, uttered only to hoax her, by persons incapable of appreciating her genius, and who doubted its existence from the facility with which she received mystifications which would have been detected in a moment by the most commonplace woman in the room. It is thus genius and talent are judged, of (continued Byron) by those who, having neither, are incapable of understanding them; and a punster may glory in puzzling a genius of the first order, by a play on words that was below his comprehension, though suited to that of the most ordinary understandings. Madame de Staël had no tact; she would believe anything merely because she did not take the trouble to examine, being too much occupied with self, and often said the most mal à propos things, because she was thinking not of the person she addressed, but of herself. She had a party to dine with her one day in

entered the drawing-room, the

London, when Sir James and Lady lady dressed in a green gown, with a shawl of the same verdant hue, and a bright red turban. Madame de Staël marched up to her in her eager manner, and exclaimed, Ah, mon Dieu, miladi! comme vous ressemblez à un perroquet.' The poor lady looked confounded: the company tried, but in vain, to suppress the smiles the observation excited; but all felt that the making it betrayed a total want of tact in the Corinne. "Does the cant of sentiment still continue in England? (asked Byron.) Childe Harold' called it forth; but my Juan was well calculated to cast it into shade, and had that merit, if it had no other; but I must not refer to the Don, as that, I remember, is a prohibited subject between us. Nothing sickens me so completely (said Byron) as women who affect sentiment in conversation. A woman without sentiment is not a woman; but I have observed, that those who most display it in words have least of the reality. Sentiment, like love and grief, should be reserved for privacy; and when I hear women affichant their sentimentality, I look upon it as an allegorical mode of declaring their wish of finding an object on whom they could bestow its superfluity. I am of a jealous nature, (said Byron,) and should wish to call slumbering sentiment into life in the woman I love, instead of finding that I was chosen, from its excess and activity rendering a partner in the firm indispensable. I should hate a woman (continued Byron) who could laugh at or ridicule sentiment, as I should, and do, women who have not religious feelings; and, much as I dislike bigotry, I think it a thousand times more pardonable in a woman than irreligion. There is something unfeminine in the want of religion, that takes off the peculiar charm of woman. It inculcates mildness, forbearance, and charity,those graces that adorn them more than all others, (continued Byron,) and whose beneficent effects are felt, not only on their minds and manners, but are visible in their countenances, to which they give their own sweet character. But when I say that I admire religion in women, (said Byron,) don't fancy that I like sectarian ladies, distributors of tracts, armed and ready for controversies, many of whom only preach religion, but do not practise it. No! I like to know that it is the guide of woman's actions, the softener of her words, the soother of her cares, and those of all dear to her, who are comforted by her,—that it is, in short, the animating principle to which all else is referred. When I see women professing religion and violating its duties,-mothers turning from erring daughters, instead of staying to reclaim,-sisters deserting sisters, whom, in their hearts, they know to be more pure than themselves, and wives abandoning husbands on the ground of faults that they should have wept over, and redeemed by the force of love, then it is (continued Byron) that I exclaim against the cant of false religion, and laugh at the credulity of those who can reconcile such conduct with the dictates of a creed that ordains forgiveness, and commands that if a man be

overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted;' and that tells a wife, that if she hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife,' &c. Now, people professing religion either believe, or do not believe, such creeds, (continued Byron,) If they believe, and act contrary to their belief, what avails their religion, except to throw discredit on its followers, by showing that they practise not its tenets? and if they inwardly disbelieve, as their conduct would lead one to think, are they not guilty of hypocrisy? It is such incongruities between the professions and conduct of those who affect to be religious that puts me out of patience, (continued Byron,) and makes me wage war with cant, and not, as many suppose, a disbelief or want of faith in religion. I want to see it practised, and to know, which is soon made known by the conduct, that it dwells in the heart, instead of being on the lips only of its votaries. Let me not be told that the mothers, sisters, and wives, who violate the duties such relationships impose, are good and religious people: let it be admitted that a mother, sister, or wife, who deserts instead of trying to lead back the stray sheep to the flock, cannot be truly religious, and I shall exclaim no more against hypocrisy and cant, because they will no longer be dangerous. Poor Mrs. Sheppard tried more, and did more, to reclaim me (continued Byron) than-but no, as I have been preaching religion, I shall practise one of its tenets, and be charitable; so I shall not finish the sentence."

It appears to me that Byron has reflected much on religion, and that many, if not all, the doubts and sarcasms he has expressed on it are to be attributed only to his enmity against its false worshippers. He is indignant at seeing people professing it governed wholly by worldly principles in their conduct; and fancies that he is serving the true cause by exposing the votaries that he thinks dishonour it. He forgets that in so exposing and decrying them, he is breaking through the command+ ments of charity he admires, and says ought to govern our actions towards our erring brethren; but that he reflects deeply on the subject of religion and its duties, is, I hope, a step gained in the right path, in which I trust he will continue to advance; and which step I attribute, as does he, to the effect the prayer of Mrs. Sheppard had on his mind, and which, it is evident, has made a lasting impression, by the frequency and seriousness with which he refers to it.

(To be continued.)