CAMPBELL versus MOORE.
IT is a significant fact, that there has scarcely been a person, related to, connected, or associated with Lord BYRON, whose moral conduct has not, in some way or other, come in question through that circum- stance. Mother, wife, companion, guardian, DALLAS, MEDWIN, Husrr, MOORE, and a host of others, all in turn have been subjected to different sorts of impeachment. Every thing which the noble poet touched seems to have turned to strife, and his favour or hostility ap- pear to have been alike fraught with consequences of vexation or dis- grace to the parties. Mr. MOOn has been thrice unlucky through the noble poet. First, he was lampooned by him, to such a degree, that Mr. Mooitz had a month's mind to fight about it; but marriage abated his sanguinary intentions, and inclined him to tender his hand rather than present a pistol. In the second instance, Lord BYRON gave Mr. MOORE his Confessions, which Mr. MOORE, in due or undue course, burnt ; and for this deed Mr. Moona's conduct was called in question, and by some very sharply impugned, upon grounds we have no desire to fe- cite. Thirdly, Mr. MOORE writes the Life of Lord BYRON, and falls under the charge of suppression of truth, which would seem to be the common reproach of his biographical performances. In his Life of SHERIDAN, he omitted to mention the King's largest bounty to his friend. In his Life of BYRON, he is accused of suppressing the true judgment on the conjugal differences, and insinuating the blame to Lady BYRON which he knew to attach to her Lord. Lady BYRON lately made her reclamations ; and Mr. i CAMPBELL now comes forward, n the New Monthly Magazine, to maintain them in a stronger tone,—and with sincere honesty of pur- pose, we are persuaded, whatever oddities there may be in the effect. Thus, on the memory of BYRON, and the character of the wife, with whom, according to Mr. MOORE,* it was a necessary attribute of his genius to quarrel, the two poets are embroiled. Mr. CAMPBELL commences with this highly curious confession of editorial practice ; which none but a man far honester in purpose than considerate in conduct could be ingenuous enough to make :— "Mr Moore's Life of the Noble Bard was reviewed in our last number : it must now be reviewed again. Among the literary notices of the New Monthly, Icon-tented to the insertion of a laudatory account of the work ; nay, more, I expunged a portion of the manuscript critique, in which Mr. Moore was cen- sured for unfairness towards Lady Byron. This I did from unwillingness to blame my friend Mr. /licore, and from having scarcely dipped into the censured parts of the book."
Again acknowledging the honesty of purpose for which Mr. CAMP- BELL is deservedly noted, we declare that the morality of the conduct here described is shameful.
The first duty of every man who holds a pen, is regard to truth ; and here we see the conductor of a publication of influence sanction- ing an approbation and expunging a censure in utter ignorance and carelessness of the truth involved in either judgment. -He was un- willing to blame his friend—that was the reason for cancelling with- out any inquiry. He was willing to praise his friend—and that was the reason for accepting the laudatory matter without any assurance of its justness. Farther, he is blindly unjust to his writer, that he may be blindly partial to his friend ; and as for the chance of deceiv- ing the public, the consideration seems never to have entered into contemplation, not even in the stage of repentance. The public in- deed is a friend whose confidence editors have no scruple to abuse. Upon this occasion, we strongly recommend to the gravest attention of Mr. CAMPBELL, the following passage from MILL'S philosophical "Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind."
The praise and blame of most men are very erroneously-bestowed, with great precipitation, commonly in excess upon small,detasions, with little re- gard to its justice ; blame being very often inflicted where applause is due, and applause lavished where blame ought to be bestowed. When education is good, no point of morality will be reckoned of more importance than the distribution of praise and blame ; no act will be considered more immoral than the misapplication of them. They are the great instruments we possess for insuring moral acts on the part of our fellow-creatures ; and when we squander away or prostitute those great causes of virtue, and thereby deprive -them of a great part of their useful tendency, we do what in us lies to lessen the quantity of virtue, and thence of felicity, in the world."
We have not leisure or inclination to follow Mr. CAMPBELL through his impeachments of Mr. MOORE'S candour and fairness; which he oddly enough, in one instance, accompanies with an ac- knowledgment that he has not examined the ground of his animad- version, but adopted it from the report of others : " I have not read it in your book," says he, "for I hate to wade through it,"—a senti- ment more natural than just; but we believe the criticism is correct, though the mode of making it is not consistent with the prudence of fairness. We have one remark, however, to make upon the tenor of the whole paper ; and it is, that the morality is surely of a ques- tionable kind which allows the description of friend to be applied to the person whom it is the object of the argument to exhibit as a wil- ful traducer: In such cases, the friend and the zeal for virtue can- not both be retained.
* Mr. MOORE'S philosophy teaches, that genius is inapt for college or matrimony, and that a man of great fancy must necessarily be void of every social quality,—or, to speak plainly, fit only for the pen and the gallows.
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