is but rarely) taken from actual Scripture, he has made as little alteration, even of words, as the rhythm would permit. The reader will recollect that the book of Genesis does not state that Eve was tempted by a demon, but by "the Serpent;" and that only because he was "the most subtil of all the beasts of the field." Whatever interpretation the Rabbins and the Fathers may have put upon this, I take the words as I find them, and reply, with Bishop Watson upon similar occasions, when the Fathers were quoted to him, as Moderator in the schools of Cambridge, "Behold the Book!"— holding up the Scripture. 1 It is to be recollected that my present subject has nothing to do with the New Testament, to which no reference can be here made without anachronism. With the poems upon similar topics I have not been recently familiar. Since I was twenty, I have never read Milton; but I had read him so frequently before, that this may make little difference. Gesner's "Death of Abel" I have never read since I was eight years of age, at Aberdeen. The general impression of my recollection is delight; but of the contents I remember only that Cain's wife was called Mahala, and Abel's Thirza: in the following pages I have called them "Adah" and "Zillah," the earliest female names which occur in Genesis; they were those of Lamech's wives: those of Cain and Abel are not called by their names. Whether, then, a coincidence of subject may have caused the same in expression, I know nothing, and care as little. 2

The reader will please to bear in mind (what few choose to recollect), that there is no allusion to a future state in any of the books of Moses, nor indeed in the Old Testament. 3 For a reason for this extraordinary omission he may consult Warburton's "Divine Legation; " whether satisfactory or not, no better has yet been assigned. I have therefore supposed it new to Cain, without, I hope, any perversion of Holy Writ.

With regard to the language of Lucifer, it was difficult for me to make him talk like a clergyman upon the same subjects; but I have done what I could to restrain him within the bounds of spiritual polite

["I never troubled myself with answering any arguments which the opponents in the divinity-schools brought against the Articles of the Church, nor ever admitted their authority as decisive of a difficulty; but I used on such occasions to say to them, holding up the New Testament in my hand, En sacrum codicem! Here is the fountain of truth; why do you follow the streams derived from it by sophistry, or polluted by the passions, of man ?"- Bp. Watson's Life, vol.ì. p.63.] 2 [Here follows, in the original draught," I am prepared to be accused of Manicheism, or some other hard name ending in ism, which make a formidable figure and awful sound in the eyes and ears of those who would be as much puzzled to explain the terms so bandied about, as the liberal and pious indulgers in such epithets. Against such I can defend myself, or, if necessary, I can attack in turn."]

3 [There are numerous passages dispersed throughout the Old Testament, which import something more than "an

derived from the different strata and the bones of enormous and unknown animals found in them, is not contrary to the Mosaic account, but rather confirms it; as no human bones have yet been discovered in those strata, although those of many known animals are found near the remains of the unknown. The assertion of Lucifer, that the pre-Adamite world was also peopled by rational beings much more intelligent than man, and proportionably powerful to the mammoth, &c. &c. is, of course, a poetical fiction to help him to make out his case.

I ought to add, that there is a "tramelogedia” of Alfieri, called " Abele.”—I have never read that, nor any other of the posthumous works of the writer, except his Life.

allusion to a future state." In truth, the Old Testament abounds in phrases which imply the immortality of the soul, and which would be insignificant and hardly intelligible, but upon that supposition. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return unto God who gave it." -Eccl. xii. 7. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame: and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." Dan. x. 2. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand in the latter days upon the earth: and though after my skin worms shail destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God"—Job xix. 25. Brit. Rev.]

Who didst divide the wave from wave, and call
Part of thy work the firmament—all hail!

Abel. God who didst call the elements into
Earth-ocean-air—and fire, and with the day
And night, and worlds, which these illuminate,
Or shadow, madest beings to enjoy them,

And love both them and thee-all hail! all hail ! Adah. God, the Eternal! Parent of all things! Who didst create these best and beauteous beings, To be beloved, more than all, save thee

Adam. And we must gather it again.

Oh, God! why didst thou plant the tree of knowledge?

Eve. My boy! thou speakest as I spoke, in sin, Before thy birth: let me not see renew'd My misery in thine. I have repented. Let me not see my offspring fall into The snares beyond the walls of Paradise, Which e'en in Paradise destroy'd his parents. Content thee with what is. Had we been so, Thou now hadst been contented. Oh, my son ! Adam. Our orisons completed, let us hence, Each to his task of toil-not heavy, though Needful the earth is young, and yields us kindly Her fruits with little labour.

Cain, my son,

Eve. Behold thy father cheerful and resign'd,

And do as he doth.

Zillah.

[Exeunt ADAM and EVE. Wilt thou not, my brother?

Cain (solus). Life-Toil! and wherefore should I toil?--because My father could not keep his place in Eden. What had I done in this ?-I was unborn:

I sought not to be born; nor love the state

mysterious events of our religion, which, indecent and unedifying as they seem to ourselves, were, perhaps, the principal means by which a knowledge of those events was conveyed to our rude and uninstructed ancestors. But, except in the topics on which it is employed, Lord Byron's Mystery has no resemblance to those which it claims as its prototypes. - HEBER.]

["Prayer," said Lord Byron, at Cephalonia, "does not consist in the act of kneeling, nor in repeating certain words in a solemn manner. Devotion is the affection of the heart, and this I feel; for when I view the wonders of creation, Í bow to the majesty of Heaven; and when I feel the enjoyment of life, health, and happiness, I feel grateful to God for having bestowed these upon me.". KENNEDY's Conversations, p. 135.]

["Say then, shall man, deprived all power of choice,
Ne'er raise to Heaven the supplicating voice?
Not so; but to the gods his fortunes trust;
Their thoughts are wise, their dispensations just.
What best may profit or delight they know,
And real good for fancied bliss bestow;
With eyes of pity they our frailties scan;

More dear to them, than to himself, is man." - Juv. "Though the Deity is inclined," says Owen, " by his own

Why did he

Yield to the serpent and the woman? or,
Yielding, why suffer? What was there in this?
The tree was planted, and why not for him?
If not, why place him near it, where it grew,
The fairest in the centre? They have but
One answer to all questions, ""Twas his will,
And he is good. How know I that? Because
He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow ?

benignity, to bless his creatures, yet he expects the outward expressions of devotion from the rational part of them." This is certainly what Juvenal means to inculcate: hence his earnest recommendation of a due regard to the public and ceremonial part of religion. - GIFFORD.]

3

["I took out my Ogden on Prayer,' and read some of it. Dr. Johnson praised him. Abernethy,' said he, allows only of a physical effect of prayer upon the mind, which may be produced many ways as well as by prayer; for instance, by meditation. Ogden goes farther. In truth, we have the consent of all nations for the efficacy of prayer, whether offered up by individuals or by assemblies; and revelation has told us it will be effectual." "BosWELL, vol. iv. p. 66. ed. 1835.]

[This passage affords a key to the temper and frame of mind of Cain throughout the piece. He disdains the limited existence allotted to him; he has a rooted horror of death, attended with a vehement curiosity as to his nature; and he nourishes a sullen anger against his parents, to whose misconduct he ascribes his degraded state. Added to this, he has an insatiable thirst for knowledge beyond the bounds prescribed to mortality; and this part of the poem bears a strong resemblance to Manfred, whose counterpart, indeed, in the main points of character, Cain seems to be. - CAMP BELL.]

I judge but by the fruits-and they are bitter
Which I must feed on for a fault not mine.
Whom have we here?-A shape like to the angels,
Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect

Of spiritual essence: why do I quake?
Why should I fear him more than other spirits,
Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords
Before the gates round which I linger oft,
In twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those
Gardens which are my just inheritance,
Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls
And the immortal trees which overtop
The cherubim-defended battlements?

If I shrink not from these, the fire-arm'd angels,
Why should I quail from him who now approaches?
Yet he seems mightier far than them, nor less
Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful

As he hath been, and might be: sorrow seems
Half of his immortality. 1 And is it

So? and can aught grieve save humanity?
He cometh.

Enter LUCIFER. ? Mortal!

Lucifer. Cain.

Spirit, who art thou?

[Cain's description of the approach of Lucifer would have shone in the "Paradise Lost." There is something spiritually fine in this conception of the terror of presentiment of coming evil. - JEFFREY.]

2 [Of Lucifer, as drawn by Lord Byron, we absolutely know no evil: on the contrary, the impression which we receive of him is, from his first introduction, most favourable. He is not only endued with all the beauty, the wisdom, and the unconquerable daring which Milton has assigned him, and which may reasonably be supposed to belong to a spirit of so exalted a nature, but he is represented as unhappy without a crime, and as pitying our unhappiness. Even before he appears, we are prepared (so far as the poet has had skill to prepare us) to sympathise with any spiritual being who is opposed to the government of Jehovah. The conversations, the exhibitions which ensue, are all conducive to the same conclusion, that whatever is is evil, and that, had the Devil been the Creator, he would have made his creatures happier. Above all, his arguments and insinuations are allowed to pass uncontradicted, or are answered only by overbearing force, and punishment inflicted not on himself but on his disciple. Nor is the intention less apparent, nor the poison less subtle, because the language employed is not indecorous, and the accuser of the Almighty does not descend to ribaldry or scurrilous invective. - HEBER.]

The Satan of Milton is no half-human devil, with enough of earth about him to typify the malignant sceptic, and enough of heaven to throw a shade of sublimity on his very malignity. The Lucifer of Byron is neither a noble-fiend, nor yet a villain-fiend - he does nothing, and he seems nothing - there is no poetry either of character or description about him - he is a poor, sneaking, talking devil-a most wretched metaphysician, without wit enough to save him even from the damnation of criticism he speaks neither poetry nor common

Lucifer.

sense. Thomas Aquinas would have flogged him more for his bad logic than his unbelief; and St. Dunstan would have caught him by the nose ere the purblind fiend was aware.— BLACKWOOD.]

The impiety chargeable on this Mystery consists mainly in this-that the purposeless and gratuitous blasphemies put into the mouth of Lucifer and Cain are left unrefuted, so that they appear introduced for their own sake, and the design of the writer seems to terminate in them. There is no attempt made to prevent their leaving the strongest possible impres sion on the reader's mind. On the contrary, the arguments, if such they can be called, levelled against the wisdom and goodness of the Creator, are put forth with the utmost ingenuity. And it has been the noble poet's endeavour to palliate as much as possible the characters of the Evil Spirit and of the first Murderer; the former of whom is made an elegant, poetical, philosophical sentimentalist, a sort of Manfred, the latter an ignorant, proud, and self-willed boy, Lucifer, too, is represented as denying all share in the tempt ation of Eve, which he throws upon the Serpent" in his serpentine capacity;" the author pleading, that he does so, only because the book of Genesis has not the most distant allusion to any thing of the kind, and that a reference to the New Testament would be an anachronism. Ecl. Rev.]

[In this long dialogue, the tempter tells Cain (who is thus far supposed to be ignorant of the fact) that the soul is immortal, and that" souls who dare use their immortality" are condemned by God to be wretched everlastingly. This se timent, which is the pervading moral (if we may call it so) ef the play, is developed in the lines which follow. - HEBER "There is nothing against the immortality of the soul m Cain' that I recollect. I hold no such opinions; — but, in a drama, the first rebel and the first murderer must be made to talk according to their characters."- Byron Letters.]

We in our conflict! Goodness would not make Evil; and what else hath he made? But let him

Sit on his vast and solitary throne,

Creating worlds, to make eternity

Less burthensome to his immense existence

And unparticipated solitude;

Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone

Indefinite, indissoluble tyrant;

Could he but crush himself, 't were the best boon

He ever granted: but let him reign on,
And multiply himself in misery!

Spirits and Men, at least we sympathise—

And, suffering in concert, make our pangs
Innumerable more endurable,

By the unbounded sympathy of all

With all! But He! so wretched in his height,
So restless in his wretchedness, must still
Create, and re-create

Cain. Thou speak'st to me of things which long have swum

In visions through my thought: I never could
Reconcile what I saw with what I heard.
My father and my mother talk to me
Of serpents, and of fruits and trees: I see
The gates of what they call their Paradise
Guarded by fiery-sworded cherubim,

Which shut them out, and me: I feel the weight
Of daily toil, and constant thought: I look
Around a world where I seem nothing, with
Thoughts which arise within me, as if they
Could master all things: but I thought alone
This misery was mine. My father is
Tamed down; my mother has forgot the mind
Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk
Of an eternal curse; my brother is

A watching shepherd boy, who offers up
The firstlings of the flock to him who bids
The earth yield nothing to us without sweat;
My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn
Than the birds' matins ; and my Adah, my
Own and beloved, she, too, understands not
The mind which overwhelms me: never till
Now met I aught to sympathise with me.

Tis well-I rather would consort with spirits. [soul
Lucifer. And hadst thou not been fit by thine own

[The poet rises to the sublime in making Lucifer first aspire Cain with the knowledge of his immortality a portion of truth which hath the efficacy of falsehood upon the victim; for Cain, feeling himself already unhappy, knowing that his being cannot be abridged, has the less scruple to desire to be as Lucifer, "mighty." The whole of this speech is truly satanic; a daring and dreadful description given by everlasting despair of the Deity.- GALT.]

["Create, and re-create- perhaps he 'll make One day a Son unto himself as he Gave you a father-and if he so doth, Mark me! that Son will be a sacrifice! "-MS.] 3["Have stood before thee as I am; but chosen

The serpent's charming symbol, as before." — MS.] [The tree of life was doubtless a material tree, producing material fruit, proper as such for the nourishment of the body; but was it not also set apart to be partaken of as a

Save with the truth: was not the tree the tree
Of knowledge? and was not the tree of life
Still fruitful ? 4 Did I bid her pluck them not?
Did I plant things prohibited within

The reach of beings innocent, and curious

By their own innocence ? 5 I would have made ye
Gods; and even He who thrust ye forth, so thrust ye
Because "ye should not eat the fruits of life,
And become gods as we." Were those his words?
Cain. They were, as I have heard from those who
heard them,

Poor clay! what should I tempt them for, or how? Cain. They say the serpent was a spirit. Lucifer.

Who

Saith that? It is not written so on high:
The proud One will not so far falsify,
Though man's vast fears and little vanity
Would make him cast upon the spiritual nature
His own low failing. The snake was the snake
No more; and yet not less than those he tempted,
In nature being earth also more in wisdom,
Since he could overcome them, and foreknew
The knowledge fatal to their narrow joys.
Think'st thou I'd take the shape of things that die?
Cain. But the thing had a demon?
Lucifer.
He but woke one
In those he spake to with his forky tongue.
I tell thee that the serpent was no more
Than a mere serpent: ask the cherubim
Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand ages
Have roll'd o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's,

symbol or sacrament of that celestial principle which nourishes the soul to immortality? - BISHOP HORNE.]

[The Eclectic reviewer, we believe the late Robert Hall, says, Innocence is not the cause of curiosity, but has, in every stage of society, been its victim. Curiosity has ruined greater numbers than any other passion; and as, in its incipie actings, it is the most dangerous foe of innocence, so, when it becomes a passion, it is only fed by guilt. Innocence, indeed, is gone, when desire has conceived the sin. Cain, in this drama, is made, like the Faust of Goethe, to be the victim of curiosity; and a fine moral might have been deduced from it." Dr. Johnson, on the contrary, says, "A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than by an eminent degree of curiosity. This passion is, perhaps, regularly heightened in proportion as the powers of the mind are elevated and enlarged." Curiosity is the thirst of the soul; it inflames and torments us, and makes us taste every thing with joy, however otherwise insipid, by which it may be quenched.")

Y

Lucifer.
The Maker- call him
Which name thou wilt; he makes but to destroy.
Cain. I knew not that, yet thought it, since I heard
Of death: although I know not what it is,
Yet it seems horrible. I have look'd out
In the vast desolate night in search of him;
And when I saw gigantic shadows in
The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequer'd
By the far-flashing of the cherubs' swords,

I watch'd for what I thought his coming: for
With fear rose longing in my heart to know
What 't was which shook us all but nothing came.
And then I turn'd my weary eyes from off
Our native and forbidden Paradise,

Up to the lights above us, in the azure,
Which are so beautiful: shall they, too, die?
Lucifer. Perhaps - but long outlive both thine

and thee.

[die

Cain. I'm glad of that: I would not have them They are so lovely. What is death? I fear, I feel, it is a dreadful thing; but what,

1 [It may appear a very prosaic, but it is certainly a very obvious criticism on these passages, that the young family of mankind had, long ere this, been quite familiar with the death of animals some of whom Abel was in the habit of offering