Ho, there!-But seek not for the buckler; 'tis I ne'er doubted it. Give me the cuirass-so: my baldric! now Sire, I deem'd Sfero. That too conspicuous from the precious stones To risk your sacred brow beneath-and, trust me, This is of better metal though less rich. Sard. You deem'd! Are you too turn'd a rebel? Your part is to obey: return, and-no— Sale. Sard. Indeed! You see, this night Made warriors of more than me. I paused To look upon her, and her kindled cheek; Her large black eyes, that flash'd through her long hair As it stream'd o'er her; her blue veins that rose Apart; her voice that clove through all the din, Than the steel her hand held, which she caught up Myr. Prince. Myrrha ! Sale. You have shown a soul to-night, Which, were he not my sister's lord-But now I have no time: thou lov'st the king? Myr. I love Wear Caucasus! why, 'tis Sardanapalus. A mountain on my temples. Sale. Myrrha, retire unto a place of safety. Why went you not forth with the other damsels? Myr. Because my place is here. I dare all things Except survive what I have loved, to be A rebel's booty: forth, and do your bravest." pp. 85-89. The noise of the conflict now reaches her in doubtful clamour; and a soldier comes in, of whom she asks how the King bears himself-and is answered, "All. Make him a mark too royal. Every arrow Soon after, she rushes out in agony to meet the fate that seemed impending. The King, however, by his daring valour, restores the fortune of the fight; and returns, with all his train, to the palace. The scene that ensues is very masterly and characteristic. Turning to Myrrha "Know'st thou, my brother, where I lighted on This minion? But wouldst have him king still? Myr. I would not have him less than what he should be. Sale. Well, then, to have him king, and yours, and all He should, or should not be; to have him live, You have more power upon his spirit than Raging without: look well that he relapse not. [Exit SALEMENES. Sard. Myrrha! what, at whispers A man more worthy of a woman's love- After this, there is an useless and unnatural scene with the Queen, whose fondness her erring husband meets with great kindness and remorse. It is carefully, but rather tediously written; and ends, a great deal too long after it ought to have ended, by Salemenes carrying off his sister in a fit. The fifth act gives, rather languidly, the consummation of the rebellion. Salemenes is slain; and the King, in spite of a desperate resistance, driven back to his palace and its gardens. He then distributes his treasure to his friends, and forces them to embark on the river, which is still open for their escape; only requiring, as the last service of his faithful veterans, that they should build up a huge pile of combustibles around the throne in his presence-chamber, and leave him there with Myrrha alone; and commanding then, when they had cleared the city with their galleys, to sound their trumpets as a signal of safety. We shall close our extracts with a few frag ments of the final scene. This is his fare- "Sard. [well. There be I shall know soon. Farewell-fare[Exeunt PANIA and Soldiers. Myr. These men were honest: It is comfort still The brink, thou feel'st an inward shrinking from Myr. Thou shalt see."-pp. 162, 163. Having gone so much at length into this drama, which we take to be much the best in the volume, we may be excused for saying little of the others. "The two Foscari," we think, is a failure. The interest is founded upon feelings so peculiar or overstrained, as to engage no sympathy; and the whole story turns on incidents that are neither pleasing nor natural. The Younger Foscari undergoes the rack twice (once in the hearing of the audience), merely because he has chosen to feign himself a traitor, that he might be brought back from undeserved banishment, and dies at last of pure dotage on this sentiment; while the Elder Foscari submits, in profound and immovable silence, to this treatment of his son, lest, by seeming to feel for his unhappy fate, he should be implicated in his guilt-though he is supposed guiltless. The "Marino Faliero"-though rather more vigorously written-is scarcely more successful. The story, in so far as it is original in our drama, is extremely improbable; though, like most other very improbable stories, derived from authentic sources: But, in the main, it is not original-being indeed merely another Venice Preserved; and continually recalling, though certainly without eclipsing, the memory of the first. Except that Jaffier is driven to join the conspirators by the natural impulse of love and misery, and the Doge by a resentment so outrageous as to exclude 'Tis my country's custom to all sympathy-and that the disclosure, which Make a libation to the gods. There is then a long invocation to the shades of his ancestors; at the end of which, Myrrha returns with a lighted torch and a cup of wine-and says, "Lo! I've lit the lamp which lights us to the stars. Sard. And mine To make libations amongst men. Yet pause, Myr. And dost thou think A Greek girl dare not do for love, that which An Indian widow braves for custom? Sard. We but await the signal. Myr. In sounding. more. It is long - Then Sard. Now, farewell; one last embrace. Myr. Is yours. [thee! were of is produced by love in the old play, is here ascribed (with less likelihood) to mere friendship, the general action and catastrophe of the two pieces are almost identical-while, with regard to the writing and management, it must be owned that, if Lord Byron has most sense and vigour, Otway has by far the most passion and pathos; and that, though our new conspirators are better orators and reasoners than the gang of Pierre and Reynault, the tenderness of Belvidera is as much more touching, as it is more natural than the stoical and self-satisfied decorum of Angiolina. The abstract, or argument of the piece, is shortly as follows. Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice, and nearly fourscore years of age, marries a young beauty of the name of Angiolina-and, soon after their union, a giddy young nobleman, whom he had had occasion to rebuke in public, sticks up some indecent lines on his chair of state; purporting that he was the husband of a fair wife, whom he had the honour of keeping for [The trumpet of PANIA sounds without. the benefit of others. The Doge having disSard. Hark! covered the author of this lampoon, complains of him to the Senate-who, upon proof of the charge, sentence him to a month's confinement. The Doge, considering this as altogether inadequate to the reparation of his injured honour, immediately conceives a most insane and unintelligible animosity at the whole body of the nobility-and, in spite of the dignified example and gentle soothing of Angiolina, puts himself at the head of a conspiracy, which had just been organised for the overthrow of the government by certain plebeian malecontents, who had more sub stantial wrongs and grievances to complain of. | a truth and a luxuriance in the description of One of the faction, however, had a friend in the rout, which mark at once the hand of a the Senate whom he wished to preserve; and master, and raise it to a very high rank as a goes to him, on the eve of the insurrection, piece of poetical painting-while the moonwith words of warning, which lead to its light view from the window is equally grand timely detection. The Doge and his asso- and beautiful, and reminds us of those magciates are arrested and brought to trial; and nificent and enchanting lookings forth in the former, after a vain intercession from An- Manfred, which have left, we will confess, giolina, who candidly admits the enormity of far deeper traces on our fancy, than any thing his guilt, and prays only for his life, is led, in in the more elaborate work before us. his ducal robes, to the place where he was says, first consecrated a sovereign, and there publicly decapitated by the hands of the executioner. We can afford but a few specimens of the execution. The following passage, in which the ancient Doge, while urging his gentle spouse to enter more warmly into his resentment, reminds her of the motives that had led him to seek her alliance, (her father's request, and his own desire to afford her orphan helplessness the highest and most unsuspected protection,) though not perfectly dramatic, has great sweetness and dignity; and reminds us, in its rich verbosity, of the moral and mellifluous parts of Massinger. "Doge. For love, romantic love, which in my I knew to be illusion, and ne'er saw [youth Lasting, but often fatal, it had been No lure for me, in my most passionate days, A pride not in your beauty, but your conduct- "I trusted to the blood of Loredano [you God gave you to the truths your father taught His majesty of superhuman manhood, The fourth Act opens with the most poetical and brilliantly written scene in the playthough it is a soliloquy, and altogether alien from the business of the piece. Lioni, a young nobleman, returns home from a splendid assembly, rather out of spirits; and, opening his palace window for air, contrasts the tranquillity of the night scene which lies before him, with the feverish turbulence and glittering enchantments of that which he has just quitted. Nothing can be finer than this picture in both its compartments. There is -I will try Lioni Whether the air will calm my spirits: 'tis [&c. And what a contrast with the scene I left, The eye like what it circled; the thin robes Of the fair forms which terminate so well! Its false and true enchantments-art and nature, Are gone.-Around me are the stars and waters- pp. 98-101. We can now afford but one other extract; | nor expect, by any exaggerations, so to rouse -and we take it from the grand and prophetic rant of which the unhappy Doge delivers himself at the place of execution. He asks whether he may speak; and is told he may, but that the people are too far off to hear him. He then says, I speak to Time and to Eternity, and rule our sympathies, by the senseless anger of an old man, and the prudish proprieties of an untempted woman, as by the agency of the great and simple passions with which, in some of their degrees, all men are familiar, and by which alone the Dramatic Muse has hitherto wrought her miracles. Of "Cain, a Mystery," we are constrained to say, that, though it abounds in beautiful passages, and shows more power perhaps than any of the author's dramatical compositions, we regret very much that it should ever have been published. It will give great scandal and offence to pious persons in general-and may be the means of suggesting the most painful doubts and distressing perplexities, to hundreds of minds that might never otherwise have been exposed to such dangerous disturbance. It is nothing less than absurd, And show these eyes, before they close, the doom in such a case, to observe, that Lucifer cannot Of this proud city!-Yes, the hours Shedding so much blood in her last defence When all the ills of conquer'd states shall cling thee, well be expected to talk like an orthodox divine-and that the conversation of the first Rebel and the first Murderer was not likely to be very unexceptionable or to plead the authority of Milton, or the authors of the old mysteries, for such offensive colloquies. The fact is, that here the whole argument—and a very elaborate and specious argument it is— is directed against the goodness or the power of the Deity, and against the reasonableness of religion in general; and there is no answer so much as attempted to the offensive doctrines that are so strenuously inculcated. The Devil and his pupil have the field entirely to themselves and are encountered with nothhorrors. Nor is this argumentative blasphemy ing but feeble obtestations and unreasoning a mere incidental deformity that arises in the course of an action directed to the common sympathies of our nature. It forms, on the contrary, the great staple of the piece-and 'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not occupies, we should think, not less than two Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts, thirds of it; so that it is really difficult to beThen in the last gasp of thine agony, lieve that it was written for any other purpose Amidst thy many murders, think of mine! than to inculcate these doctrines-or at least to Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes! discuss the question on which they bear. Now, Gehenna of the waters! thou sea Sodom!" we can certainly have no objection to Lord Thus I devote thee to the infernal gods! Thee and thy serpent seed! Byron writing an Essay on the Origin of Evil [Here the DOGE turns, and addresses the Exe--and sifting the whole of that vast and percutioner. plexing subject with the force and the freedom that would be expected and allowed in not think it fair, thus to argue it partially and a fair philosophical discussion. But we do con amore, in the name of Lucifer and Cain; without the responsibility or the liability to answer that would attach to a philosophical disputant-and in a form which both doubles the danger, if the sentiments are pernicious, and almost precludes his opponents from the possibility of a reply. murmur, Slave, do thine office! Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my curse! Strike--and but once !-pp. 162-165. It will not now be difficult to estimate the character of this work.-As a play, it is deficient in the attractive passions; in probability, and in depth and variety of interest; and revolts throughout, by the extravagant disproportion which the injury bears to the Philosophy and Poetry are both very good unmeasured resentment with which it is things in their way; but, in our opinion, they pursued. Lord Byron is, undoubtedly, a poet do not go very well together. It is but a poor of the very first order--and has talents to and pedantic sort of poetry that seeks chiefly reach the very highest honours of the drama. to embody metaphysical subtilties and abstract But he must not again disdain love and am- deductions of reason-and a very suspicious bition and jealousy. He must not substitute philosophy that aims at establishing its docwhat is merely bizarre and extraordinary, for trines by appeals to the passions and the what is naturally and universally interesting-fancy. Though such arguments, however, are worth little in the schools, it does not follow that their effect is inconsiderable in the world. On the contrary, it is the mischief of all poetical paradoxes, that, from the very limits and end of poetry, which deals only in obvious and glancing views, they are never brought to the fair test of argument. An allusion to a doubtful topic will often pass for a definitive conclusion on it; and, when clothed in beautiful language, may leave the most pernicious impressions behind. In the courts of morality, poets are unexceptionable witnesses; they may give in the evidence, and depose to facts whether good or ill; but we demur to their arbitrary and self-pleasing summings up. They are suspected judges, and not very often safe advocates; where great questions are concerned, and universal principles brought to issue. But we shall not press this point farther at present. We shall give but one specimen, and that the least offensive we can find, of the prevailing tone of this extraordinary drama. It is the address (for we cannot call it prayer) with which Cain accompanies the offering of his sheaves on the altar-and directed to be delivered, standing erect. "Spirit! whate'er or whosoe'er thou art, Or if the sweet and blooming fruits of earth, Of the broad sun which ripen'd them, may seem The catastrophe follows soon after, and is brought about with great dramatic skill and effect. The murderer is sorrowful and confounded-his parents reprobate and renounce him-his wife clings to him with eager and unhesitating affection; and they wander forth together into the vast solitude of the universe. We have now gone through the poetical part of this volume, and ought here, perhaps, to close our account of it. But there are a few pages in prose that are more talked of than all the rest; and whicn lead irresistibly to topics, upon which it seems at last necessary that we should express an opinion. We allude to the concluding part of the Appendix to "The Two Foscari," in which Lord Byron resumes his habitual complaint of the hostility which he has experienced from the writers of his own country--makes reprisals on those who have assailed his reputation-and inflicts, in particular, a memorable chastisement upon the unhappy Laureate, interspersed with some political reflections of great weight and authority. It is not however with these, or the merits of the treatment which Mr. Southey has either given or received, that we have now any concern. But we have a word or two to say on the griefs of Lord Byron himself. He complains bitterly of the detraction by which he has been assailed-and intimates that his works have been received by the public with far less cordiality and favour than he was entitled to expect. We are constrained to say that this appears to us a very extraordinary mistake. In the whole course of our experience, we cannot recollect a single author who has had so little reason to complain of his reception to whose genius the public has been so early and so constantly just-to whose faults they have been so long and so signally indulgent. From the very first, he must have been aware that he offended the principles and shocked the prejudices of the majority, them by his talents. Yet there never was an by his sentiments, as much as he delighted author so universally and warmly applauded, so gently admonished-so kindly entreated to look more heedfully to his opinions. He took the praise, as usual, and rejected the advice. As he grew in fame and authority, he aggravated all his offences-clung more fondly to all he had been reproached with-and only took leave of Childe Harold to ally himself to Don Juan! That he has since been talked of, in public and in private, with less unmingled admiration-that his name is now mentioned as often for censure as for praise-and that the exultation with which his countrymen once hailed the greatest of our living poets, is now alloyed by the recollection of the tendency of his writings-is matter of notoriety to all the world; but matter of surprise, we should imagine, to nobody but Lord Byron himself. He would fain persuade himself, indeed, that for this decline of his popularity-or rather this stain upon its lustre-for he is still popular beyond all other example-and it is only because he is so that we feel any interest in this discussion; he is indebted, not to any actual demerits of his own, but to the jealousy of those he has supplanted, the envy of those he has outshone, or the party rancour of those against whose corruptions he has testified ;— while, at other times, he seems inclined to insinuate, that it is chiefly because he is a Gentleman and a Nobleman that plebeian censors have conspired to bear him down! We scarcely think, however, that these theories will pass with Lord Byron himself-we are |