im as
one of the most extraordinary persons of the age. Montgomery's book [1] I
have not much hope from, and the society with the affected name [2] has
been laboring at it for these twenty years, and made few converts. I
think it was injudicious to mix stories, avowedly colored by fiction,
with the sad, true statements from the parliamentary records, etc. But I
wish the little negroes all the good that can come from it. I battered
my brains (not buttered them,--but it is a bad _a_) for a few verses
for them, but I could make nothing of it. You have been luckier. But
Blake's are the flower of the set, you will, I am sure, agree; though
some of Montgomery's at the end are pretty, but the Dream awkwardly
paraphrased from B.

With the exception of an Epilogue for a Private Theatrical, I have
written nothing new for near six months. It is in vain to spur me on. I
must wait. I cannot write without a genial impulse, and I have none. 'T
is barren all and dearth. No matter; life is something without
scribbling. I have got rid of my bad spirits, and hold up pretty well
this rain-damned May.

So we have lost another poet. [3] I never much relished his Lordship's
mind, and shall be sorry if the Greeks have cause to miss him. He was to
me offensive, and I never can make out his real _power_, which his
admirers talk of. Why, a, line of Wordsworth's is a lever to lift the
immortal spirit; Byron can only move the spleen. He was at best a
satirist. In any other way, he was mean enough. I daresay I do him
injustice; but I cannot love him, nor squeeze a tear to his memory. He
did not like the world, and he has left it, as Alderman Curtis advised
the Radicals, "if they don't like their country, damn 'em, let 'em leave
it," they possessing no rood of ground in England, and he ten thousand
acres. Byron was better than many Curtises.

Farewell, and accept this apology for a letter from one who owes you so
much in that kind.

Yours ever truly, C. L.

[1] "The Chimney-Sweeper's Friend, and Climbing-Boy's Album,"--a book,
by James Montgomery, setting forth the wrongs of the little
chimney-sweepers, for whose relief a society had been started.

[2] The Society for Ameliorating the Condition of Infant
Chimney-Sweepers.

[3] Byron had died on April 19.

LXXXIII.

TO BERNARD BARTON.

_August_, 1824.

I can no more understand Shelley than you can; his poetry is "thin sown
with profit or delight." Yet I must point to your notice