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THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

WHEN marshall'd on the nightly plain,
The glittering host bestud the sky;
One star alone, of all the train,

Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.

Hark! hark! to God the chorus breaks,
From every host, from every gem;
But one alone the Saviour speaks,
It is the Star of Bethlehem.

Once on the raging seas I rode,

The storm was loud,-the night was dark, The ocean yawn'd-and rudely blow'd The wind that toss'd my foundering bark.

Deep horror then my vitals froze,
Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem;
When suddenly a star arose,

It was the Star of Bethlehem.

It was my guide, my light, my all,
It bade my dark forebodings cease;
And through the storm and dangers' thrall,
It led me to the port of peace.

Now safely moor'd-my perils o'er,
I'll sing, first in night's diadem,
For ever and for evermore,

The star-the Star of Bethlehem !

GEORGE LORD BYRON.

BORN 1788-DIED 1824.

GEORGE LORD BYRON was born at Dover on the 22d of January, 1788. His father was Captain John Byron of the Guards: his grandfather, Admiral Byron, the enterprising navigator. The mother of Lord Byron was Catherine Gordon, an Aberdeenshire heiress, claiming descent from the house of Huntley.

Captain Byron, remarkable for nothing but an uncommonly fine person and very profligate manners, died when his son was only three years of age, having long before spent the fortune he received with his wife. Previous to the death of her worthless husband, Mrs Byron had retired to Aberdeen with her infant son, where she lived in the seclusion rendered necessary by very narrow circumstances.

That Byron should have been a spoiled child, is not wonderful. He was lame, very delicate in health at this period of life, and he was the only child of a mother worse than widowed. At nine years old, the death of his greatuncle opened to him the succession to the estates and titles of his family; and he was taken from the grammar school of Aberdeen, which he had attended for two years with very little advantage, and sent to Harrow.

While still at Harrow, and in years a mere boy, Byron fell in love with Miss Chaworth, the daughter of a gentleman whom his great-uncle had killed in a very unfair duel. The lady, who was many years older than her juvenile suitor, after a little flirtation, gave her hand to a more suitable partner. Byron was not then sixteen; but he felt this disappointment with all the bitterness of maturity. It is to this lady, his first love, who after her marriage became deranged, that he alludes in his poem of the Dream.

When little more than sixteen, Byron entered Cambridge. Neither at Harrow nor Cambridge was he ever distinguished for any thing save contempt of all the ordinary rules of discipline, and a talent for satire, with which he paid off the rebukes his idleness or irregularities drew upon him. At nineteen, the wayward Childe went to his family residence of Newstead Abbey, and commenced that course of life which, with short interruptions, he continued till the end of his bright and unhappy career. Here he sailed, swam, wrote verses, and published the little volume called "Hours of Idleness, by George Gordon, Lord Byron, a Minor."

In an evil hour, the Reviewers thought it would be an exceedingly good joke to cut up the minor poet; but in this instance they in every sense mistook their man. Byron, on no occasion remarkable for meekness or forbearance, took ample revenge, in his " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," though at the expense of justice, propriety, and the dignity of his own character; and next, having by this time involved his fortune and impaired his constitution by a course of fashionable dissipation, he embarked for Lisbon, and proceeding through Spain to the Mediterranean, composed the first cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which were to prove to all Europe, that, whatever were his errors of heart or of life, he was one of those mighty masters of the lyre who arise in their terrible strength but once in many ages. In 1811, Byron, after being about two years abroad, re turned to England; and on the publication of his poem, rose at once to the giddy summit of popularity. His features, his manners, his adventures, his mysteries, all were subjects of the most anxious interest; and while he condescended to play the part of a London lion, he had tact sufficient to perform it with good effect. In the few following years, his shorter poems appeared in brilliant and rapid succession; and he continued to dazzle

and delight, not merely the circles of fashion, but the whole literary world; and not only to keep alive, but to increase the public expectation, from the splendour, variety, and boundless stores of his imagination.

On the 2d of January, 1815, Byron married Miss Noel. A period of thoughtless extravagance followed this union ; and in the month of December following, the lady, after giving birth to a daughter, withdrew to her relations, to avoid the embarrassments arising from the state of her husband's affairs-and refused to return. Whatever were the real causes of this disagreement, they never met again. A formal separation took place; and Lord Byron left England, avowedly never to return. In rambling over the continent, Byron lived for a time at Paris, Venice, and Genoa; and from time to time transmitted his tragedies to England for publication, with the cantos of Don Juan, and some other pieces. About this time he formed the resolution of devoting his fortune and splendid talents to the cause of the Greeks. By the Greek patriots he was received with enthusiasm; and, with the energy inseparable from his character he immediately commenced active operations. Thus, whatever might have been the course of his life, his latter days were nobly employed. In February, 1824, he had repeated and severe attacks of epilepsy; and when recovering from this dreadful seizure, he got wet while riding out on the 9th of April, and was taken ill of a fever, which terminated his life on the 19th of the same month, at Missolonghi. His body was brought to England, and buried in the family-vault near Newstead Abbey. The public opinion of this great but eccentric genius has ever been in a state of flux or reflux. If his vices were exaggerated and if even his good qualities were imputed to him as faults-from the period of his untimely death, his errors have been almost magnified into virtues. It is indeed much easier to estimate the genius

of this great man than his moral worth.

In his character, the indications of genius were striking, splendid, and irresistible; the signs of great moral qualities are ever fluctuating and equivocal.

ON A SKULL.

Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul;
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,
The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul:
Behold through each lack-lustre eyeless hole,
The gay recess of wisdom and of wit,
And passions hot that never brook'd control.
Can all saint, sage, or sophist, ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?

THE OCEAN AN IMAGE OF ETERNITY. ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy dead, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he
wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

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