SELECT WORKS:

CONSISTING OF

CAIN, A MYSTERY;

Hours of Edleness;

ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS;

WITH OCCASIONAL PIECES;

AND

LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

LONDON:

CHARLES DALY, 19, RED LION SQUARE.

1841.

3jk-

THE LIFE

OF

LORD BYRON.

LORD BYRON as, without an exception, one of the greatest poets that England ever produced. His genius was of the very first order-he was one of those characters from whose existence new era's date their commencement, and his writings promise to have an extraordinary influence on our literature, and on our most important opinions. He was, indeed, a poet whom it "were vain to blame, and useless to praise ;" or he commanded every avenue to the heart, and wakened every emotion of the spirit; from the pal

pable to the obscure; from such as may be expressed by the lip, or indicated by the features, to the dark and undefinable of whose very existence we were before scarcely assured. We read his page with an alternately beating and overflowing heart; with "eyes that o'er it shed tears feelingly and fast," and we acknowledge the mighty power of his genius that binds us to his verse like enchantment.

It is not our intention to enter into an extended critical analysis of Lord Byron's works, as every reader will be enabled to judge for himself on a perusal of the selection of his "beauties" which form the present work, and more especially as little can be said, except what must be couched in the language of unqualified praise; neither shall we enter into the question of the infidel or sceptical opinions, on religious matters which he was said to have entertained -it is with his life, which is the property of his kind, that our more immediate business lies.

George Gordon BYRON, (Lord Byron) was the eldest son of the hon. Captain John Byron (grandson

was a "

This man, whose usual soubriquet was Jack Byron, chartered libertine," to associate with whom was ruin and disgrace. His life was one unvaried round of irregularity and debauchery. His first wife was the illfated Marchioness of Carmarthen, whom.