xternal
circumstances, their respective media of judgement, their points of
mutual attraction and repulsion, the mental position of each in
relation to a variety of trifling phenomena of every-day nature and
life, are beautifully developed in a series of tales moulded into a
connected narrative. We are tempted to single out the fourth book,
which gives an account of the childhood and education of the younger
brother, and which for variety of thought as well as fidelity of
description is in our judgement beyond praise. The Waverley novels
would afford us specimens of a similar excellence. One striking
peculiarity of these tales is the author's practice of describing a
group of characters bearing the same general features of mind, and
placed in the same general circumstances; yet so contrasted with each
other in minute differences of mental constitution, that each diverges
from the common starting-place into a path peculiar to himself. The
brotherhood of villains in _Kenilworth_, of knights in _Ivanhoe_, and
of enthusiasts in _Old Mortality_ are instances of this. This bearing
of character and plot on each other is not often found in Byron's
poems. The Corsair is intended for a remarkable personage. We pass by
the inconsistencies of his character, considered by itself. The grand
fault is that, whether it be natural or not, we are obliged to accept
the author's word for the fidelity of his portrait. We are told, not
shown, what the hero was. There is nothing in the plot which results
from his peculiar formation of mind. An every-day bravo might equally
well have satisfied the requirements of the action. Childe Harold,
again, if he is any thing, is a being professedly isolated from the
world, and uninfluenced by it. One might as well draw Tityrus's stags
grazing in the air, as a character of this kind; which yet, with more
or less alteration, passes through successive editions in his other
poems. Byron had very little versatility or elasticity of genius; he
did not know how to make poetry out of existing materials. He declaims
in his own way, and has the upper hand as long as he is allowed to go
on; but, if interrogated on principles of nature and good sense, he is
at once put out and brought to a stand. Yet his conception of
Sardanapalus and Myrrha is fine and ideal, and in the style of
excellence which we have just been admiring in Shakespeare and Scott.

These illustrations of Aristotle's doctrine may suffice.

Now let