powers--his breathings for the happiness and liberty of mankind--his
splendid intellectual flowers, culled from a mind stored with the
choicest exotics, and cultivated with the most refined taste are all
still fresh in recollection. As the value of precious stones and metals
have become estimated by their scarcity, so will the fame of Byron live.

A mind like Lord Byron's,

"----born, not only to surprise, but cheer
With warmth and lustre all within its sphere,"

was one of Nature's brightest gems, whose splendour (even when
uncompared) dazzled and attracted all who passed within its sight.

"So let him stand, through ages yet unborn."

As comparison is a medium through which we are enabled to obtain most
accurate judgment, let us use it in the present instance, and compare
Lord Byron with the greatest poets that have preceded him, by which
means the world of letters will see what they have _really_ lost in Lord
Byron. To commence with the great Shakspeare himself, to whom universal
admiration continues to be paid. Had Shakspeare been cut off at the same
early period as Byron, _The Tempest, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Julius
Caesar, Coriolanus_, and several others of an equal character, would
never have been written. The high reputation of Dryden would also have
been limited--his fame, perhaps, unknown. The _Absalom_ and _Achitophel_
is the earliest of his best productions, which was written about his
fiftieth year; his principal production, at the age of Byron, was his
_Annus Mirabilis_; for nearly the whole of his dramatic works were
written at the latter part of his life. Pope is the like situated; that