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MORAL CHARACTER OF LORD BYRON.

been forgotten, when even the sympathy which has been consecrated to his " living agonies shall be no more, the pure light of his Genius will emerge from darkness into day, a brighter Luminary in a world more happy.

SINCE this pamphlet came from the hands of the binder, we have been furnished with good reasons for believing, that the act whereby the Memoirs of Lord Byron's Life were consigned to the flames, cannot in justice be visited upon Mr. Moore. Cut off as we were in

America from all authentic sources of information upon this subject, we conceived ourselves authorised in forming the opinion we have expressed, from the discussions and expositions to which the burning of the Memoirs gave rise in this country. The authority upon which we have been induced thus to cancel and recal what we have said relative to Mr. Moore, we have every reason for believing to be at once correct and honourable. At the same time, as in a Court of Law, every man in giving evidence is put upon his oath, we are compelled to express ourselves cautiously in what we now say, guided as we are by the simple, though solemn assurance of a single individual. For the present, therefore, we shall suspend our opinion upon this subject. In the

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mean time, for what has been said, we beg leave to tender to Mr. Moore our not insincere regret; hoping and believing that the time is not far distant, when he will have it in his power to furnish forth to the world the most unequivocal testimony to what, as far as our knowledge of circumstances extends, we now believe to have been the honourable disinterestedness of his conduct in relation to the moral memory of his illustrious Friend and Countryman.

NOTES.

(a) Of this species of fanfaronades, M. De. Staël, among others, is guilty when she observes, in one of her eloquent and passionate Letters upon the life and writings of Rousseau, "It is perhaps at the expense of happiness that great talents are conferred. Nature, as if exhausted by these magnificent presents, often refuses to great men the qualities which might render them happy."

(b) North American Review, July 1822.

(c) This doctrine, which seems to have originated with M. de. Staël, or was at all events supported by her with considerable ingenuity and more zeal, has been ridiculed by some and reprobated by others, as frivolous and presumptuous; but without having received that degree of attention which, as a topic at least of interesting speculation, it seems to merit. Addison, it is well known, has deduced a strong hypothetical argument in favour of the doctrine of the soul's Immortality, from the circumstance of its continually progressing towards perfection, without ever attaining to it. Johnson, likewise, seems to treat the notion as fantastic and visionary, when he observes, in the preface to his Dictionary, " To pursue perfection is to chase the sun, which, when we reach the hill where he seems to set, is still behind at the same distance from us." This, however, is to evade and not to investigate the subject. We trust we shall not be accused of an ignorantia eclenchi when we remark that, of such a state of being we cannot be said to have any just notions, because we are unable to determine first, what are the various components, their qualities, and the degrees of those qualities, which would be constitutive of such a state. Perfection, even relatively considered, admits of no definition; and of that which cannot be defined, we can have no just idea. Perfection, moreover, is strictly a condition, and not a quality. To speak of it therefore as an attribute of the Deity, is to confound a state of Being with those qualities or any one of them, of whicht nat state is originally compounded-which are adherent to it-and which it ne

cessarily presupposes. Were we to allow ourselves to express in a few words, the only notion we can have of perfection, as derived from the description of the moral Eden of our first Parents, ere sin had entered the garden, we should characterize it as a state of positive negation-and this without involving a paradox. Such it cer tainly was as it existed in Paradise; although we are by no means prepared to say that such is perfection, as we would understand the term-whether the moral perfection of a Socrates, or the intellectual perfection of a Newton-yet such was the perfection of Adam and Eve. Milton represents the former propounding various questions to Raphael, which implied a degree of ignorance which, while it may be said to have constituted the test of his obedience, would have been incompatible with a state of absolute perfection. Adam, ere he had committed sin, knew not what it was, or that he was capable of it; for the very cautions of the Angel were calculated to confirm him in the belief of his positive exemption from all frailty. His having been free from sin, therefore, previous to his eating of the Apple, implied no positive moral virtue. His Innocence was the result, not of a perception of, and consequent adherence to virtue—it was the necessary consequence of his ignorance of evil-and in so far, it was a mere absence from it. Adam was forbidden the tree of knowledge, he could therefore have known nothing-and knowing nothing, he was ignorant-and being ignorant, his ignorance implied his innocence.

The tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.

Adam experienced this truth to his cost. He ceased to be innocent the moment he partook of Knowledge. Would the perfection of the intellectual, imply that of the moral powers? Or would the perfection of any one intellectual, imply that of any one moral power? And further, would the perfection of the moral powers imply perfect happiness? There is perhaps a moral answer to these questions, not altogether unsatisfactory. In the first place, the fundamental doctrine of Natural Law, that man should be allowed to pursue his own happiness in his own way, would, in the case of a perfect moral agent, need no inculcation, because perfect happiness would be implied in such a case. In the next place, perfection in this world would be entirely out of its element; and the opposition and reviling that would most inevitably attend it here, would evince that it was regarded as an intrusive visitation upon human nature-a sarcastic comment upon its wretched frailties. In other words, perfection would be incompatible with the melancholy conditions upon which we hold the tenure of life; and in the ultimate fulfilment of which, the covenant betwixt God and his Creatures remains to be redeemed by the latter. That 66 special Providence" which, we are told, is made manifest 66 even