e never allowed that a thistle could produce a rose,
will question also whether those young Englishmen, whom M. Taine depicts
in such glowing colors,--"So active," says he, "just like harriers on
the beat flaring the air in the midst of the hunt," can be transformed
in a few years "into beings resembling animals good for slaughter, with
appearances equally anxious, vacant, and stupid; gentlemen six feet
high, with long and stout German bodies, issuing from their forests with
savage-looking whiskers and rolling eyes of pale earthenware-blue
color."

Such critics will question whether the "pale earthenware-blue eyes" of
these ugly sires can possibly be those of the fathers of the candid-eyed
girls, the fairest among the fair treasures of this earth, whom M. Taine
describes in such exquisite terms:--

"Delightful creatures, whose freshness and innocence can not be
conceived by those who have never seen them! full-blown flowers, of
which a morning rose, with its delicious and delicate color, with its
petals dipped in dew, can alone give an idea."

Critics will deny the possibility of the existence of such a phenomenon,
so contrary to the laws of creation does it seem to be. Such airy-like
forms can not be produced by such heavy brutes as he describes. Say what
he likes, nature can not act in the manner indicated by M. Taine. Nature
must ever follow the same track.

We, however, shall confine ourselves to oppose the real Lord Byron to
the fanciful one of M. Taine; and we say that the portrait of the poet
drawn by the latter is drawn systematically, in such a manner as to
contribute to the general harmony of his work. But truth can not be
subservient to systems. As M. Taine views Lord Byron from a false
starting point, it follows that, of course, the whole portrait of him is
equally unreal.

All the colors in his picture are too dark. What he says of the poet is
not so false as it is exaggerated. This is a method peculiar to him. He
decidedly perceives the real person, but exaggerates him, and thus fails
to realize the original.

If the facts are not always entirely false, his conclusions, and the
consequences suggested to him by them, are always eminently so.

When the facts seem ever so little to lend themselves to his reasoning,
when the proportions of his victim allow of their being placed in the
_bed of Procrustes_, the magnificent draperies of which do not hide the
atrocious torture; then, indeed, does M. Taine