A writer in a Northern Magazine has
written a long article to prove that Lord Byron is the author of Anastasius. Without meaning to question his Lordship's
powers, I shall say, that if he be the author, I shall never again believe in style of thought
or language. But let me first say a word or two of some other points adduced by the Reviewer,
as proving decidedly that if the work be not Lord Byron's it at least
cannot be Mr. Hope's; and first as to the localities, the
intimate acquaintance with which immediately, in his opinion, betrays Lord
Byron. But this divides the work among the whole host of English travellers who
have visited the East, and in fact it militates rather against the supposition, for the
Reviewer acknowledges that his Lordship has not visited Rhodes. Yet surely if ever a
description was penned from actual knowledge, it was that of the view from the castle to which
the attention of Anastasius is
directed by his companion. Another point on which considerable stress is laid, is the author
having made his hero a runaway from home; and he says that no one, who ever enjoyed the sweets
of a domestic circle, could have sneered at and mocked them as Anastasius does. It is true that Anastasius draws no very favourable picture of his
family group; but this is very different from sneering at the enjoyments of home; and surely
his sensations at hearing of his mother's death, at visiting his birth-place after his
apostasy, and seeing his father, his alienated brother and friends, can proceed only from the
recollected affections of his childhood. And even granting that he does despise those joys of a
home, which Lord Byron has not known, does it follow that the author of
Anastasius should be in the like
predicament? It was not necessary that he should stab his friend, to enable him to paint his
hero's remorse on the death of Anagosti, or have done any
other of the foolish or vicious things he makes his hero do. The old friend with a new face,
seems confirmed in his opinion by the similarity of style. I shall not occupy your columns by
quoting as he has done; but the following considerations justify me, at least, in doubting,
though in the present instance all proof drawn from style (in language) is peculiarly
fallacious, as we have no prose work of Lord Byron's to compare with Anastasius. The style of Anastasius is uniformly epigrammatic; it is perhaps not too
much to say that his pathos is so; it at any rate is evident that epigram is, if I may say so,
the habit of the author's thought. His language, however elegant and beautiful, never rises
into that eloquence that springs from the heart; his feelings not being deep enough to make him
forget his artificial mode of thinking. This makes him or enables him to be always witty and
sarcastic; but how different from that stinging of the heart, the world hath stung, which
startles and often shocks us in Lord Byron! There is no buffoonery in
Anastasius—no rich heartfelt joyous
humour—no sudden transitions from one state of feeling to its very opposite—there
are no hearty laughs, and but few sighs in its powerful pages. He is merely descriptive; there
are no bursting of the heart, which Byron cannot controul, and on which
his readers pause with feelings that make full atonement for the sarcasm and scoff,
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