My sisters and thyself are slow to-night.

Nem. I was detain'd repairing shatter'd thrones, Marrying fools, restoring dynasties,

Avenging men upon their enemies,

And making them repent their own revenge;
Goading the wise to madness; from the dull
Shaping out oracles to rule the world
Afresh, for they were waxing out of date,
And mortals dared to ponder for themselves,
To weigh kings in the balance, and to speak
Of freedom, the forbidden fruit. — Away!

We have outstay'd the hour-mount we our clouds!? [Exeunt.

1 ["Came to a morass; Hobhouse dismounted to get over well; I tried to pass my horse over; the horse sunk up to the chin, and of course he and I were in the mud together; bemired, but not hurt; laughed and rode on. Arrived at the Grindenwold; mounted again, and rode to the higher glacier -like a frozen hurricane."-Swiss Journal.]

2 [This stanza we think is out of place, at least, if not out of character; and though the author may tell us that human

SCENE IV.

The Hall of Arimanes — Arimanes on his Throne, a Globe of Fire, surrounded by the Spirits.

Hymn of the SPIRITS.

Hail to our Master!-)
- Prince of Earth and Air!
Who walks the clouds and waters-in his hand
The sceptre of the elements, which tear

Themselves to chaos at his high command !
He breatheth-and a tempest shakes the sea;
He speaketh- and the clouds reply in thunder;
He gazeth-from his glance the sunbeams flee;
He movethearthquakes rend the world asunder.
Beneath his footsteps the volcanoes rise;

His shadow is the Pestilence; his path The comets herald through the crackling skies; 9 And planets turn to ashes at his wrath.

To him War offers daily sacrifice;

To him Death pays his tribute; Life is his,

With all its infinite of agonies —

And his the spirit of whatever is !

Enter the DESTINIES and NEMESIS. First Des. Glory to Arimanes! on the earth His power increaseth- both my sisters did His bidding, nor did I neglect my duty!

Second Des. Glory to Arimanes! we who bow The necks of men, bow down before his throne! Third Des. Glory to Arimanes! we await His nod!

Nem. Sovereign of Sovereigns! we are thine, And all that liveth, more or less, is ours, And most things wholly so; still to increase Our power, increasing thine, demands our care, And we are vigilant. Thy late commands Have been fulfill'd to the utmost.

Tear him in pieces! —

First Des.

Crush the worm!

Hence! Avaunt!-he's mine.
Prince of the Powers invisible ! This man
Is of no common order, as his port

And presence here denote; his sufferings
Have been of an inimortal nature, like

Our own; his knowledge and his powers and will,
As far as is compatible with clay,

Which clogs the ethereal essence, have been such
As clay hath seldom borne; his aspirations
Have been beyond the dwellers of the earth,
And they have only taught him what we know-
That knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that

Which is another kind of ignorance.
This is not all-the passions, attributes

Of earth and heaven, from which no power, nor

Man. Can this be death? there's bloom upon her cheek;

But now I see it is no living hue,

But a strange hectic-like the unnatural red
Which Autumn plants upon the perish'd leaf.
It is the same! Oh, God! that I should dread
To look upon the same-Astarte ! - No,
I cannot speak to her-but bid her speak –
Forgive me or condemn me.

She is not of our order, but belongs
To the other powers. Mortal thy quest is vain,
And we are baffled also.

Man.

Hear me, hear me -
Astarte my beloved! speak to me:

I have so much endured-so much endure-
Look on me! the grave hath not changed thee more
Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me
Too much, as I loved thee: we were not made
To torture thus each other, though it were
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.
Say that thou loath'st me not-that I do bear
This punishment for both-that thou wilt be
One of the blessed-and that I shall die;
For hitherto all hateful things conspire

To bind me in existence-in a life
Which makes me shrink from immortality-
A future like the past. I cannot rest.

I know not what I ask, nor what I seek:
I feel but what thou art- and what I am;

And I would hear yet once before I perish
The voice which was my music- Speak to me !
For I have call'd on thee in the still night,
Startled the slumbering birds from the hush'd
boughs,

And woke the mountain wolves, and made the caves
Acquainted with thy vainly echoed name,

Which answer'd me- many things answer'd me—
Spirits and men- but thou wert silent all.
Yet speak to me! I have outwatch'd the stars,
And gazed o'er heaven in vain in search of thee.
Speak to me! I have wander'd o'er the earth,
And never found thy likeness-Speak to me !
Look on the fiends around-they feel for me:
I fear them not, and feel for thee alone -
Speak to me! though it be in wrath; - but say
I reck not what-but let me hear thee once-
This once-once more!

Phantom of Astarte. Manfred!
Man.

Say on, say on

[Over this fine drama, a moral feeling hangs like a sombrous thunder cloud. No other guilt but that so darkly shadowed out could have furnished so dreadful an illustration of the hideous aberrations of human nature, however noble and majestic, when left a prey to its desires, its passions, and its imagination. The beauty, at one time so innocently adored, is at last soiled, profaned, and violated. Affection, love, guilt, horror, remorse, and death, come in terrible succession, yet all darkly linked together. We think of Astarte as young, beautiful, innocent guilty-lost murdered buried judged pardoned; but still, in her permitted visit to earth, speaking in a voice of sorrow, and with a countenance yet pale with mortal trouble. We had but a glimpse of her in her beauty and innocence; but, at last, she rises up before us in all the mortal silence of a ghost, with fixed, glazed, and passionless eyes, revealing death, judgment, and eternity. The moral breathes and burns in every word, in sadness, misery, insanity, desolation, and death. The work is "instinct with spirit," and in the agony and distraction, and all its dimly imagined causes, we behold, though broken up, confused, and shattered, the elements of a purer existence.-WILSON.] 2 [The third Act, as originally written, being shown to Mr. Gifford, he expressed his unfavourable opinion of it very distinctly; and Mr. Murray transmitted this opinion to Lord Byron. The result is told in the following extracts from his letters:

Thou may'st retire. Man. (alone).

It is well:

(Exit HERMAN. There is a calm upon me

Inexplicable stillness! which till now
Did not belong to what I knew of life.
If that I did not know philosophy
To be of all our vanities the motliest,
The merest word that ever fool'd the ear
From out the schoolman's jargon, I should deem
The golden secret, the sought "Kalon," found,
And seated in my soul. It will not last,

But it is well to have known it, though but once:
It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense,
And I within my tablets would note down
That there is such a feeling. Who is there?

Re-enter HERMAN.

Her. My lord, the abbot of St. Maurice craves To greet your presence.

Enter the ABBOT OF ST. MAURICE.

Abbot. Peace be with Count Manfred! Man. Thanks, holy father! welcome to these walls; Thy presence honours them, and blesseth those Who dwell within them.

Abbot.

Would it were so, Count!

But I would fain confer with thee alone.

Man. Herman, retire.

guest?

Abbot. Thus, without

my office,

What would my reverend

prelude:- Age and zeal,

And good intent, must plead my privilege;
Our near, though not acquainted neighbourhood,

"Venice, April 14, 1817. The third Act is certainly d-d bad, and, like the Archbishop of Grenada's homily, (which savoured of the palsy,) has the dregs of my fever, during which it was written. It must on no account be published in its present state. I will try and reform it, or re-write it alto | gether; but the impulse is gone, and I have no chance of making any thing out of it. The speech of Manfred to the Sun is the only part of this Act I thought good myself; the rest is certainly as bad as bad can be, and I wonder what the devil possessed me. I am very glad indeed that you sent me Mr. Gifford's opinion without deduction. Do you suppose me such a booby as not, to be very much obliged to him? or that I was not, and am not, convinced and convicted in my conscience of this same overt act of nonsense? I shall try at it again; in the mean time, lay it upon the shelf-the whole Drama I mean. Recollect not to publish, upon pain o know not what, until I have tried again at the third act. I am not sure that I shall try, and still less that I shall succeed if I do."

"

11

Which are forbidden to the search of man;

That with the dwellers of the dark abodes,

The many evil and unheavenly spirits

Which walk the valley of the shade of death,

Thou communest. I know that with mankind,
Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely
Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude

Is as an anchorite's, were it but holy.

Man. And what are they who do avouch these things?

Abbot. My pious brethren-the scared peasantryEven thy own vassals—who do look on thee With most unquiet eyes. Thy life's in peril. Man. Take it.

Abbot.

[heaven.

I come to save, and not destroy — I would not pry into thy secret soul; But if these things be sooth, there still is time For penitence and pity: reconcile thee With the true church, and through the church to Man. I hear thee. This is my reply: whate'er may have been, or am, doth rest between Heaven and myself. I shall not choose a mortal To be my mediator. Have I sinn'd Against your ordinances? prove and punish!'

Abbot. My son! I did not speak of punishment, But penitence and pardon; -with thyself

The DEMON ASHTAROTH appears, singing as follows : —

The raven sits

On the raven-stone,

And his black wing flits

O'er the milk.white bone;

To and fro, as the night-winds blow,
The carcass of the assassin swings;
And there alone, on the raven-stone,
The raven flaps his dusky wings.

The fetters creak- and his ebon beak

Croaks to the close of the hollow sound;

And this is the tune, by the light of the moon,

To which the witches dance their round —

Merrily, merrily, cheerily, cheerily,

Merrily, speeds the ball:

The dead in their shrouds, and the demons in clouds,
Flock to the witches' carnival.

"Raven-stone (Rabenstein), a translation of the German word for the gibbet, which in Germany and Switzerland is permanent, and made of stone."

The choice of such remains-and for the last, Our institutions and our strong belief

Have given me power to smooth the path from sin
To higher hope and better thoughts; the first
I leave to heaven,-" Vengeance is mine alone!"
So saith the Lord, and with all humbleness
His servant echoes back the awful word.
Man. Old man! there is no power in holy men,
Nor charm in prayer-nor purifying form
Of penitence-nor outward look—nor fast-
Nor agony-nor, greater than all these,
The innate tortures of that deep despair,
Which is remorse without the fear of hell,
But all in all sufficient to itself

-

Would make a hell of heaven-can exorcise
From out the unbounded spirit, the quick sense
Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge
Upon itself; there is no future pang

Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd
He deals on his own soul.

All this is well;

Abbot.
For this will pass away, and be succeeded
By an auspicious hope, which shall look up
With calm assurance to that blessed place,
Which all who seek may win, whatever be
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned:
And the commencement of atonement is
The sense of its necessity. - Say on-

And all our church can teach thee shall be taught;
And all we can absolve thee shall be pardon'd.
Man. When Rome's sixth emperor 2 was near his
last,

The victim of a self-inflicted wound,

To shun the torments of a public death 3

Abbot. I fear thee not- hence - henceAvaunt thee, evil one! - help, ho! without there! Man. Convey this man to the Shreckhorn - to its peak To its extremest peak-watch with him there From now till sunrise; let him gaze, and know He ne'er again will be so near to heaven. But harm him not; and, when the morrow breaks, Set him down safe in his cell-away with him! Ash. Had I not better bring his brethren too,

Convent and all, to bear him company?

Man. No, this will serve for the present. Take him up. Ash. Come, friar! now an exorcism or two,

And we shall fly the lighter.

ASHTAROTH disappears with the ABBOT, singing as follows:

A prodigal son, and a maid undone,
And a widow re-wedded within the year;
And a worldly monk, and a pregnant nun,
Are things which every day appear.

MANFRED alone.

Man. Why would this fool break in on me, and force
My art to pranks fantastical?—no matter,
It was not of my seeking. My heart sickens,
And weighs a fix'd foreboding on my soul:
But it is calm-calm as a sullen sea
After the hurricane; the winds are still,
But the cold waves swell high and heavily,
And there is danger in them. Such a rest
Is no repose. My life hath been a combat,
And every thought a wound, till I am scarr'd
In the immortal part of me. What now?"]

2 Otho, being defeated in a general engagement near Brixellum, stabbed himself. Plutarch says, that, though he lived full as badly as Nero, his last moments were those of a philosopher. He comforted his soldiers who lamented his fortune, and expressed his concern for their safety, when they solicited to pay him the last friendly offices. Martial says: "Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Cæsare major, Dum moritur, numquid major Othone fuit ?" not loss of life, but public death. the torments of a

3 ["To shun {

Choose between them."- -MS.]

To reconcile thyself with thy own soul,

And thy own soul with heaven. Hast thou no hope?
"Tis strange-even those who do despair above,
Yet shape themselves some fantasy on earth,
To which frail twig they cling, like drowning men.
Man. Ay-father! I have had those earthly visions
And noble aspirations in my youth,

To make my own the mind of other men,
The enlightener of nations; and to rise
I knew not whither-it might be to fall;
But fall, even as the mountain-cataract,
Which having leapt from its more dazzling height,
Even in the foaming strength of its abyss,
(Which casts up misty columns that become
Clouds raining from the re-ascended skies,)
Lies low but mighty still. But this is past,
My thoughts mistook themselves.

Abbot.

And wherefore so? Man. I could not tame my nature down; for he Must serve who fain would sway-and soothe -and

sue

And watch all time- and pry into all place-
And be a living lie-who would become
A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such
The mass are; I disdain'd to mingle with
A herd, though to be leader-and of wolves.
The lion is alone, and so am 1.

Abbot. And why not live and act with other men?
Man. Because my nature was verse from life;
And yet not cruel; for I would not make,
But find a desolation: -like the wind,
The red-hot breath of the most lone simoom,
Which dwells but in the desert, and sweeps o'er
The barren sands which bear no shrubs to blast,
And revels o'er their wild and arid waves,

[This speech has been quoted in more than one of the sketches of the Poet's wif life. Much earlier, when only twenty-three years of age, he had thus prophesied :—“ It seems as if I were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of old age. My friends fall around me, and I shall be left a lonely tree before I am withered. Other men can always take refuge in their families I have no resource but my own reflections, and they present no prospect, here or hereafter, except the selfish satisfaction of surviving my betters. I am, indeed, very wretched. My days are listless, and my nights restless. I have very seldom any society; and when I have, I run out of it. I don't know that I sha'n't end with insanity." Byron Letters, 1811.]

2 ["Of the immortality of the soul, it appears to me that there can be little doubt if we attend for a moment to the action of mind. It is in perpetual activity. I used to doubt it -but reflection has taught me better. How far our future state will be individual; or, rather, how far it will at all resemble our present existence, is another question; but that the mind is eternal seems as probable as that the body is not so."- Byron Diary, 1821. "I have no wish to reject Christianity without investigation, on the contrary, I am very desirous of believing; for I have no happiness in my present unsettled notions on religion."— Byron Conversations with Kennedy, 1823.]

3 [There are three only, even among the great poets of modern times, who have chosen to depict, in their full shape and vigour, those agonies to which great and meditative

Some perishing of pleasure-some of stuly.
Some worn with toil-some of mere weariness-
Some of disease-and some insanity — 1
And some of wither'd or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are number'd in the lists of Fate,
Taking all shapes, and bearing many names.
Look upon me! for even of all these things
Have I partaken; and of all these things,
One were enough; then wonder not that I
Am what I am, but that I ever was,
Or having been, that I am still on earth.
Abbot. Yet, hear me still
Man.
Old man! I do respect
Thine order, and revere thine years; I deem
Thy purpose pious, but it is in vain :
Think me not churlish; I would spare thy self,
Far more than me, in shunning at this time
All further colloquy—and so― farewell. 2

[Exit MANTREN

Abb. This should have been a noble creature 3: Le Hath all the energy which would have made

A goodly frame of glorious elements.

Had they been wisely mingled; as it is,

It is an awful chaos-light and darkness—

And mind and dust-and passions and pure thoughts,
Mix'd, and contending without end or order,
All dormant or destructive: he will perish,
And yet he must not; I will try once more,
For such are worth redemption; and my duty
Is to dare all things for a righteous end.
I'll follow him- but cautiously, though surely.
[Exit ABBOT.

intellects are, in the present progress of human history, exposed by the eternal recurrence of a deep and discontented scepticis But there is only one who has dared to represent himself as the victim of those nameless and undefinable sufferings. Goethe chose for his doubts and his darkness the terrie disguise of the mysterious Faustus. Schiller, with still greater boldness, planted the same anguish in the restless, haughty, and heroic bosom of Wallenstein. But Byron has sought a external symbol in which to embody the inquietudes of soul. He takes the world, and all that it inherit, for his areca and his spectators; and he displays himself before their gaze, wrestling unceasingly and ineffectually with the demon that torments him. At times, there is something mournful ad depressing in his scepticism; but oftener it is of a tigh and solemn character, approaching to the very verge of a cont faith. Whatever the poet may believe, we, his readers, always feel ourselves too much ennobled and elevated, even by the melancholy, not to be confirmed in our own belief by the very doubts so majestically conceived and uttered. His sceptaIME if it ever approaches to a creed, carries with it its reiltana in its grandeur. There is neither philosophy nor relig those bitter and savage taunts which have been cruelly thr. w out, from many quarters, against those moods of mind wit are involuntary, and will not pass away; the shadow spectres which still haunt his imagination may once have disturbed our own;-through his gloom there are frequent flashes of illumination: - and the sublime sadness which w him is breathed from the mysteries of mortal existence, s always joined with a longing after immortality, and expressed in language that is itself divine,- WILSON.]