8. A Sketch of the British fur Trade in North America, with Observations relative to the North-west Company of Montreal; by the Earl of Selkirk: and Voyage de la Mer Atlantique a' l'Ocean Pacifique par le Nord-ouest dans la Mer Glaciale; par le Capitaine Laurent Ferrer Maldonado l'an 1588. Nouvellement traduit, &c.—Lord Selkirk, some years ago, attempted to divert the tide of emigration from the Highlands of Scotland to the United States, and turn it to Prince Edward's Island, within the territories of Great Britain. More lately, his views of colonization seem to have become more extensive; and having purchased about a third part of the stock of the Hudson's Bay Company, he obtained from their governors a grant of a wide extent of country, held, or supposed to be held, under their charter, of which he proceeded to take possession. The settlers on this tract have been molested, it appears, by the servants of the North-west Company, between which and the Hudson's Bay Company there had long subsisted a deadly feud; and some very extraordinary proceedings are understood to have taken place on both sides. According to Lord Selkirk, the fur trade is not in the best hands, nor carried on in a very honourable manner. The North-west Company is pointedly accused, indeed, of great violence and injustice, for which, as the law at present stands, it is extremely difficult, or altogether impossible, to call its servants to account. Of the Hudson's Bay Company, the Reviewers do not think so well as Lord Selkirk does.—The rest of this article, and that which is of a far deeper interest, relates to the North-west passage. The relation of Maldonado's voyage is held to be a clumsy and audacious forgery. The Reviewers firmly believe, however, that a navigable passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, round the northern coast of America, does exist, and may be of no difficult execution. In support of this opinion, they proceed to examine the various unsuccessful attempts that have been made at different periods. No human being, they say, has yet approached the coast of America on the eastern side, from 6612° to 72°, and here it is thought the passage may be found.
9. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III.; and the Prisoner of Chillon, and other Poems. By Lord Byron.—If the heart of Lord Byron be not dead to every emotion of pleasure and gratitude, this article must stir up these feelings in no common degree. The Reviewer displays throughout, not only the powers of a poet and of a critic of the highest order, but the delicacy and solicitude of a friend, without, however, shutting his eyes to the eccentricities and misjudged exhibitions of this lugubrious and indignant misanthrope. There are one or two digressions in it somewhat curious, for they may be thought to identify the Reviewer,—upon much the same grounds as Childe Harold has been supposed to speak the sentiments of Lord Byron. In the first, he disputes the proposition, that rapidity of composition and publication endangers the fame of an author of great talents. A little after it is stated, as an axiom, that "every author should, like Lord Byron, form to himself, and communicate to the reader, a precise, defined, and distinct view of the landscape, sentiment, or action, which he intends to describe to the reader." Lord Byron's political opinions, of course, meet with no favour; but his sins of omission, as well as commission, though pointed out in forcible language, do not call forth those expressions of contumely and bitterness, which so often disgrace the subalterns in political hostilities. There is something very serious, or, so different are peoples' tastes, perhaps amusing, at the conclusion of this article. It is impossible not to see in it the goodness of the writer's heart, though we make no doubt that others may pretend to discover also a slight infusion of amiable simplicity. For our own parts, we cannot help suspecting that there is a reasonable portion of affectation in some of Lord Byron's dolorous verses; and that to treat him like a spoilt child will not have much efficacy in removing the complaint. If any one should hereafter think it necessary, in order to establish his superiority of talent, to begin with distinguishing himself in the circles of vice and folly, despising the restraints to which ordinary mortals have agreed to submit, he may be led to doubt of the certainty of this mode of proving his claim, when he is assured, that the moral and religious regimen, here prescribed to Lord Byron, has been very faithfully observed, both in the private and public life of several of the most distinguished writers of the present age.
