How many in this hour of tempest shiver
Beneath the biting wind and heavy rain,
Whose every drop bows them down nearer earth,
Which hath no chamber for them save beneath
Her surface.
Wer.
And that's not the worst: who cares
For chambers? rest is all. The wretches whom

Thou namest―ay, the wind howls round them, and
The dull and dropping rain saps in their bones
The creeping marrow. I have been a soldier,
A hunter, and a traveller, and am

Jos. (abruptly.) My son-our son—our Ulric, Been clasp'd again in these long-empty arms, And all a mother's hunger satisfied.

Twelve years! he was but eight then: -beautiful
He was, and beautiful he must be now,
My Ulric! my adored!

Wer.

I have been full oft
The chase of Fortune; now she hath o'ertaken
My spirit where it cannot turn at bay,—
Sick, poor, and lonely.

Jos.
Lonely! my dear husband?
Wer. Or worse-involving all I love, in this

And that is something.

times less criminal, he appears only the more weak, and his conduct is as wayward as his fate. His remorse at taking the rouleau from the man who was about to usurp his domains and throw him into prison is somewhat overcharged; and though his horror at hearing of Stralenheim's death is natural, it seems unaccountably to absorb his joy at finding himself delivered from his enemy, and restored to affluence. If his misfortune should appear to exceed his errors, let it be remembered, says his biographer, 'bow easily both might have been avoided, since an adherence to his duties at almost any period of his life would have spared him more than half his sufferings.' This is the moral of the tale; but it is but faintly illustrated in the drama. Werner is more the victim of what would be called fate. Lord Byron has not felt the real force of the character."-Ecl. Review.

(4) "In this play, Lord Byron adopts the same nerveless and pointless kind of blank verse, which was a sorrow to every body in his former dramatic essays. It is, indeed, 'most unmusical, most melancholy.'-'Ofs,' 'tos,' 'ands,' 'fors,' 'bys,' 'buts,' and the like, are the most common conclusions of a line; there is no ease, no flow, no harmony, 'in linked sweetness long drawn out: neither is there any thing of abrupt fiery vigour to compensate for these defects."-Blackwood.

(2) "In this drama there is absolutely no poetry to be found; and if the measure of verse which is here dealt to us be a sample

And all been over in a nameless grave.
Jos. And I had not outlived thee; but take
pray
Comfort! We have struggled long; and they who
strive

With Fortune win or weary her at last,
So that they find the goal or cease to feel
Further. Take comfort,-we shall find our boy.
Wer. We were in sight of him, of every thing
Which could bring compensation for past sorrow-
And to be baffled thus!

We ne'er were wealthy.

Wer. But I was born to wealth, and rank, and

power;

Enjoy'd them, loved them, and, alas! abused them,
And forfeited them, by my father's wrath,
In my o'er fervent youth; but for the abuse
Long sufferings have atoned. My father's death
Left the path open, yet not without snares.
This cold and creeping kinsman, who so long
Kept his eye on me, as the snake upon
The fluttering bird, hath ere this time outstept me,
Become the master of my rights and lord

of what we are to expect for the future, we have only to entreat that Lord Byron will drop the ceremony of cutting up his prose into lines of ten, eleven, or twelve syllables (for he is not very punctilious on this head), and favour us with it in its natural state. It requires no very cunning alchemy to transmute his verse into prose, nor, reversing the experiment, to convert his plain sentences into verses like his own.-'When,' says Werner, but for this untoward sickness, which seized me upon this desolate frontier, and hath wasted, not alone my strength, but means, and leaves us-no! this is beyond me! but for this I had been happy.'-This is, indeed, beyond us. If this be poetry, then we were wrong in taking his Lordship's preface for prose. It will run on ten feet as well as the rest-[See antè, p. 599] :—

Some of the characters are modified

Or altered, a few of the names changed, and
One character (Ida of Stralenheim)
Added by myself; but in the rest the
Original is chiefly followed. When

I was young (about fourteen, I think) I
First read this tale, which made a deep impression
Upon me'-

Nor is there a line in these so lame and halting, but we could point out many in the drama as bad.”—Campbell.

Of that which lifts him up to princes in Dominion and domain.

'T is hopeless.

Jos. Who knows? our son May have return'd back to his grandsire, and Even now uphold thy rights for thee! Wer. Since his strange disappearance from my father's, Entailing, as it were, my sins upon Himself, no tidings have reveal'd his course. I parted with him to his grandsire, on The promise that his anger would stop short Of the third generation; but heaven seems To claim her stern prerogative, and visit Upon my boy his father's faults and follies.

Jos. I must hope better still,—at least we have yet Baffled the long pursuit of Stralenheim.

Wer. We should have done, but for this fatal sickness;

More fatal than a mortal malady,

Because it takes not life, but life's sole solace :
Even now I feel my spirit girt about
By the snares of this avaricious fiend ;-
How do I know he hath not track'd us here?

Jos. He does not know thy person; and his spies, Who so long watch'd thee, have been left at Hamburgh.

Our unexpected journey, and this change
Of name, leaves all discovery far behind:
None hold us here for aught save what we seem.
Wer. Save what we seem! save what we are-sick
beggars,

Even to our very hopes.-Ha! ha!

Ponder'd not thus upon these worldly things,
My Werner! when you deign'd to choose for bride
The foreign daughter of a wandering exile.

Wer. An exile's daughter with an outcast's son
Were a fit marriage; but I still had hopes
To lift thee to the state we both were born for.
Your father's house was noble, though decay'd;
And worthy by its birth to match with ours.
Jos. Your father did not think so, though 't was
noble ;

But had my birth been all my claim to match

(1) "Werner's wife, Josephine, not only well maintains the character of her sex by general integrity, but equally displays the endearing, soft, and unshaken affection of a wife; cherishing and comforting a suffering husband throughout all the adversities of his fate, and all the errors of his own conduct. She is a native

While they last, let me comfort or divide them;
When they end, let mine end with them, or thee! (1)
Wer. My better angel! such I have ever found thee;
This rashness, or this weakness of my temper,
Ne'er raised a thought to injure thee or thine.
Thou didst not mar my fortunes; my own nature
In youth was such as to unmake an empire,
Had such been my inheritance; but now,
Chasten'd, subdued, out-worn, and taught to know
Myself, to lose this for our son and thee!

My name is Werner. Iden. A goodly name, a very worthy name As e'er was gilt upon a trader's board:.

I have a cousin in the lazaretto

Of Hamburgh, who has got a wife who bore
The same. He is an officer of trust,
Surgeon's assistant (hoping to be surgeon),
And has done miracles i' the way of business,
Perhaps you are related to my relative?
Wer. To yours?

Jos.

Oh, yes; we are, but distantly. Cannot you humour the dull gossip till We learn his purpose?

[Aside to WERNER. Iden. Well, I'm glad of that: I thought so all along, such natural yearnings Play'd round my heart!-blood is not water, cousin; And so let's have some wine, and drink unto Our better acquaintance : relatives should be Friends.

Wer. You appear to have drunk enough already; And, if you had not, I've no wine to offer, Else it were yours: but this you know, or should

know:

Iden. The river has o'erflow'd.
Jos.

That to our sorrow, for these five days; since
It keeps us here.
Iden.

But what you don't know is, That a great personage, who fain would cross, Against the stream and three postilions' wishes, Is drown'd below the ford, with five post-horses, A monkey, and a mastiff, and a valet.

Jos. Poor creatures! are you sure?
Iden.

Yes, of the monkey,

And the valet, and the cattle; but as yet
We know not if his excellency 's dead
Or no; your noblemen are hard to drown,
As it is fit that men in office should be;
But what is certain is, that he has swallow'd
Enough of the Oder to have burst two peasants;
And now a Saxon and Hungarian traveller,
Who, at their proper peril, snatch'd him from
The whirling river, have sent on to crave
A lodging, or a grave, according as
It may turn out with the live or dead body.
Jos. And where will you receive him? here, I hope,
If we can be of service-say the word.

Iden. Here! no; but in the prince's own apartment,
As fits a noble guest:-'tis damp, no doubt,
Not having been inhabited these twelve years;
But then he comes from a much damper place,
So scarcely will catch cold in 't, if he be
Still liable to cold-and if not, why

He'll be worse lodged to-morrow; ne'ertheless,
I have order'd fire and all appliances
To be got ready for the worst—that is,
In case he should survive.

Jos.

I hope he will, with all my

Poor gentleman! heart.

Intendant,

Wer. Have you not learn'd his name? My Josephine,

Retire: I'll sift this fool.

Iden.

[Aside to his wife. [Exit JOSEPHINE.

His name? oh Lord!
Who knows if he hath now a name or no?
'Tis time enough to ask it when he's able
To give an answer; or if not, to put

His heir's upon his epitaph. Methought
Just now you chid me for demanding names?
Wer. True, true, I did so ; you say well and wisely.
Enter GABOR. (1)

Gab. If I intrude, I crave――
Iden.

Oh, no intrusion!

This is the palace; this a stranger like