ught where new conquests
were to be achieved.

It was impossible but that such a range of will and power should be
abused. It was impossible that, among the spirits he invoked from all
quarters, those of darkness should not appear, at his bidding, with
those of light. And here the dangers of an energy so multifold, and
thus luxuriating in its own transformations, show themselves. To this
one great object of displaying power,--various, splendid, and
all-adorning power,--every other consideration and duty were but too
likely to be sacrificed. Let the advocate but display his eloquence
and art, no matter what the cause;--let the stamp of energy be but
left behind, no matter with what seal. _Could_ it have been expected
that from such a career no mischief would ensue, or that among these
cross-lights of imagination the moral vision could remain
undisturbed? _Is_ it to be at all wondered at that in the works of
one thus gifted and carried away, we should find,--wholly, too,
without any prepense design of corrupting on his side,--a false
splendour given to Vice to make it look like Virtue, and Evil too
often invested with a grandeur which belongs intrinsically but to
Good?

Among the less serious ills flowing from this abuse of his great
versatile powers,--more especially as exhibited in his most
characteristic work, Don Juan,--it will be found that even the
strength and impressiveness of his poetry is sometimes not a little
injured by the capricious and desultory flights into which this
pliancy of wing allures him. It must be felt, indeed, by all readers
of that work, and particularly by those who, being gifted with but a
small portion of such ductility themselves, are unable to keep pace
with his changes, that the suddenness with which he passes from one
strain of sentiment to another,--from the frolic to the sad, from the
cynical to the tender,--begets a distrust in the sincerity of one or
both moods of mind which interferes with, if not chills, the sympathy
that a more natural transition would inspire. In general such a
suspicion would do him injustice; as, among the singular combinations
which his mind presented, that of uniting at once versatility and
depth of feeling was not the least remarkable. But, on the whole,
favourable as was all this quickness and variety of association to
the extension of the range and resources of his poetry, it may be
questioned whether a more select concentration of his powers would
not