"To aid thy mind's developement, to watch And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,- I know not what is there, yet something like to this. "Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught, Though the grave closed between us,-'twere the same, My blood from out thy being, were an aim, And an attainment, all would be in vain, -- Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain. "The child of love,-though born in bitterness, As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to me!" We have not room to say all we could wish upon this topic; but the very tenderness of the above lines makes them more cutting to the individual to whom they are applied. Has Lord Byron a right to impute to his wife, that wife whose affection and temper he has before so extolled, that she will endeavour to teach her infant daughter to hate its banished father?-banished by her unrelenting animosity! These are dark accusations referring to circumstances but half known, of the mystery involving which his lordship well knows how to avail himself. Having now dismissed what is merely personal, which however occupies a very considerable portion of the canto, we will enter upon the scenes described in the course of this renewed pilgrimage. The course taken by his lordship on quitting England is known to have been the common tour through the Netherlands and along the fertile banks of the Rhine to Switzerland. The reflections and descriptions in this third canto are confined to spots within that range: it terminates as Lord Byron is about to enter Italy. We suppose that the scenery and habits of that country will form the subject of a further portion of the Pilgrimage, for as long as the noble author can travel, and realms remain to be visited, there seems no reason why he should discontinue this history of his peregrinations. Of all his lordship's productions it is to us the most pleasing, from the poetical passages interspersed; the least offensive because no characters are introduced of the revolting passions of all men incongruously mixed in one and the most instructive from the historical recollections and observations upon men and their customs. Of course his lordship could not pass over the field of Waterloo without some remarks upon the causes and consequences of that battle; but they are prosaic and political, and without any novelty in the opinions promul gated. His lordship judiciously does not attempt to describe the battle, but he touches upon what preceded happily and forcibly. "There was a sound of revelry by night, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! "Within a windowed niche of that high hall Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear "And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, Or whispering, with white lips-The foe! They come ! they come !'" The consequences of this great struggle are likewise adverted to, and a character of Buonaparte is subjoined, which we omit, with the less regret because this exhausted subject has only left to his lordship an opportunity of concentrating the attributes commonly assigned: one stanza we will, however, extract, in which justice is attempted to be done to the manner in which the late Emperor of the French sustained his fallen fortunes. "Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favourite child, The contemplation of the disposition and conduct of this unprecedented man, naturally produces some reflections on ambition, and the miseries of those who, in the hope of reigning over others, make themselves miserable slaves. The topic is stale enough, nor is it treated in a very new way, but what is said is well said, and the comparison at the close, though highly wrought, is extremely felicitous. "But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. "This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school "Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, "He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find And thus reward the toils which to those summits led." The reader is of course aware that in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage there is no connected story, though hints are here and there obscurely given of events in the life of the hero: they are inserted rather to account for the state of his mind, which in the two first cantos is one dark sombre mass unillumined by a ray of hope either for the present or the future religion inspired him with no zeal, and love with no ardour: he was one of those souls "with whom revenge is virtue," and who disclaimed all kindred with the benevolences of human nature. We have already stated that his mind is represented in the third canto, by the noble author as having undergone considerable alterations both of passion and opinion: his religious tenets, as they are now and then developed, savour less of infidelity: on one point, regarding a future state, he even ceases to be a sceptic; and in the delightful prospects he views he acknowledges, not reluctantly, "the wonder-working hand of heaven." He begins also, in conformity with this change, no longer absolutely to detest his species because they are unlike himself; and the playful innocence of children at tracts his affections. It appears likewise more distinctly that he has been capable of love, and he pours out his feelings very pathetically. All these amendments in his disposition may easily be accounted for, and they constitute one more feature of resemblance between Lord Byron and Harold. "Nor was all love shut from him, though his days On such as smile upon us; the heart must "And he had learn'd to love,-I know not why, Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow, "And there was one soft breast, as hath been said, Still undivided, and cemented more By peril, dreaded most in female eyes; But this was firm, and from a foreign shore Well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour!", To this succeed four stanzas in a different metre, supposed to be addressed, by the disconsolate Harold, to his absent mistress; the burden of which is the increased enjoyment he should experience in wandering over the banks of the Rhine were she his companion. After mentioning several ancient castles, and stories connected with them, Lord Byron bids farewell to the Rhine in the subsequent descriptive passages. "Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray; |