BY KIRK & MERCEIN, AT THE OFFICE OF THE EDINBURGH AND QUAR- Opposite to the Manhattan Bank, And Sold by the principal Booksellers in the United States. PRINTED BY T. & W. MERCEIN, No. 93 Gold street. 1817. AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE AND CRITICAL REVIEW, FOR MAY, 1817. NO. I.....VOL. I. ART. I. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III,-Prisoners of Chillon, and other Poems, by Lord Byron. IT T has been so fashionable of late, to oscillation of public opinion in his faadmire Lord Byron's poetry, that no vour should have prepared him for its man who valued his pretensions to ton, vicissitude. As so much of his excel dared to speak irreverently of any thing lence was taken upon trust, his fame was that bore the sanction of his name. His closely connected with his veracity; lordship's writings, indeed, pretty plain- and he should not be astonished to find ly intimate his own sense of the sublimi- his reputation declining with the devety of his genius; and what can be more lopement of his character. Violent conclusive? What better authority could emotions are apt to be succeeded by we possibly have than his lordship's their opposites. Contempt naturally judgment in the case? or who could be follows disabused esteem; and mistaken so conusant to his lordship's merits sympathy may easily be converted into as himself? But be this as it may, it detestation. His lordship's boastful was, at any rate, very generally agreed blazon of the depravity of his beart, to believe what his lordship so seriously persisted in asserting; and if he obtained credit in any proportion to the extent of his claims, his celebrity is not wonderful. His title to panegyric being thus established, the only strife seemed to Yet, but for his folly, he might still be, who should be most vociferous in have basked in the sunshine of favour. his praise. If a snarling critic were He had long enjoyed a plenary indulsurly enough to question a decree pro- gence for sins against the canons of nounced by acclamation, he could taste, and might have continued to scarcely hope to be heard in the tumult transgress them with impunity, had he of applause. contravened no other laws. But, as he casts no little imputation on the strength of his understanding; whilst his wanton exhibition of his deformity, has not left good-nature even a fig-leaf with which to cover his shame. But fanaticism, which is generally has chosen so intimately to blend his founded in delusion, is ever transient; poetic with his moral character, and to and the fickleness of fashion is prover- obtrude himself, in both, so often, and bial. His lordship's experience of the with so little modesty, on the public, it |