Richmond Enquirer

This extraordinary Poem, attributed to the pen of Byron, has been severely handled by the critics of Great Britain. While its genius has been admired, it has been pronounced a disgrace to the morals of the Muse, and it certainly is so. It is a tale founded on the well known pantomime of Don Juan, whose infamous adventures have disgusted the moral sensibility of a hundred late years.

I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
The age discovering he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan,
We all have seen him in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil, somewhat ere his time.

And Don Juan is traced through scenes of the loosest amorous intrigues; gross in their conception, and unredeemed by a single particle of the refinement of love. But he is not contented with this obscene painting. Scarcely any thing respectable escapes the Poet's satire. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine even asserts that under one of the female characters he has personated and exposed his own wife. Notwithstanding these disgraceful blemishes, there is a remarkable ease (perhaps too negligent) through the whole of this production; and some passages are lit up by the finest genius. The adventures of a shipwreck were never before painted in more horrible and affecting colors: The following are a few of its lines.

SHIPWRECK.

At half past eight o'clock, booms, henceops, spars,
And all things for a chance, had been cast loose,
That still could keep afloat the struggling tars.
For yet they strove, although of no great use:
There was no light in heaven but a few stars,
The boats put off o'er-crowded with their crews;
She gave a lurch, and then a lurch to port,
And, going down head foremost—sunk, in short.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell—
Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave,
—Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;
And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell,
And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave,
Like one who grapples with his enemy,
And strives to strangle him before he die.

And first one universal shriek there rush'd,
Louder than the hoarsen'd ocean's crash
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hush'd,
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash
Of billows; but at intervals there gush'd
Accompanied with a convulsive splash,
A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.