confusion is now so great, the errors so enormous, that the editor must use a boldness quite unallowable in any other case. All I can say as to Beaumont and Fletcher is, that I can point out well enough where something has been lost, and that something so and so was probably in the original; but the law of Shakspeare's thought and verse is such, that I feel convinced that not only could I detect the spurious, but supply the genuine, word.

March 20. 1834.

LORD BYRON AND H. WALPOLE'S

"MYS

TERIOUS MOTHER."-LEWIS'S "JAMAICA JOURNAL."

LORD BYRON, as quoted by Lord Dover *, says, that the "Mysterious Mother" raises

* In the memoir prefixed to the correspondence with Sir H. Mann, Lord Byron's words are: "He is the ultimus Romanorum, the author of the Mysterious Mother,' a tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling love play. He is the father of the first ro

Horace Walpole above every author living in his, Lord Byron's, time. Upon which I venture to remark, first, that I do not believe that Lord Byron spoke sincerely; for I suspect that he made a tacit exception in favour of himself at least ;-secondly, that it is a miserable mode of comparison which does not rest on difference of kind. It proceeds of envy and malice and detraction to say that A. is higher than B., unless you show that they are in pari materiá; ;-thirdly, that the "Mysterious Mother" is the most disgusting, detestable, vile composition that ever came from the hand of man. No one with a spark of true manliness, of which Horace Walpole had none, could have written it. As to the blank verse, it is indeed better than Rowe's and Thomson's, which was execrably bad: -any approach, therefore, to the manner of

mance, and of the last tragedy, in our language; and surely worthy of a higher place than any living author, be he who he may." — Preface to Marino Faliero. Is not" Romeo and Juliet a love play?-But why reason about such insincere, splenetic trash? — ED.

the old dramatists was of course an improvement; but the loosest lines in Shirley are superior to Walpole's best.

Lewis's "Jamaica Journal" is delightful; it is almost the only unaffected book of travels or touring I have read of late years. You have the man himself, and not an inconsiderable man, certainly a much finer mind than I supposed before from the perusal of his romances, &c. It is by far his best work, and will live and be popular. Those verses on the Hours are very pretty; but the Isle of Devils is, like his romances, a fever dream- horrible, without point or terror.

I FOUND that every thing in and about Sicily had been exaggerated by travellers,

except two things the folly of the government and the wretchedness of the people. They did not admit of exaggeration.

Really you may learn the fundamental principles of political economy in a very compendious way, by taking a short tour through Sicily, and simply reversing in your own mind every law, custom, and ordinance you meet with. I never was in a country in which every thing proceeding from man was so exactly wrong. You have peremptory ordinances against making roads, taxes on the passage of common vegetables from one miserable village to another, and so on.

By the by, do you know any parallel in modern history to the absurdity of our giving a legislative assembly to the Sicilians? It exceeds any thing I know. legislature passed two bills

This precious before it was

knocked on the head: the first was, to render lands inalienable; and the second, to cancel all debts due before the date of the bill.

VOL. II.

And then, consider the gross ignorance and folly of our laying a tax upon the Sicilians! Taxation in its proper sense can only exist where there is a free circulation of capital, labour, and commodities throughout the community. But to tax the people in countries like Sicily and Corsica, where there is no internal communication, is mere robbery and confiscation. A crown taken from a Corsican living in the sierras would not get back to him again in ten years.

It is interesting to pass from Malta to Sicily -from the highest specimen of an inferior race, the Saracenic, to the most degraded class of a superior race, the Eu

ropean.

But what can Sir Francis Head, in the *

* I have the following note by Mr. C. on this work:

"How can I account for the Anglo-gentlemanly, sensible, and kindly mind breathing forth every where in the first half of this volume, as contrasted with the