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perhaps, it would have been the wiser course to have said nothing. The concluding part, in which the leading qualities of the deceased are brought into review, may here be quoted; though rather for the quaintness of the last thought, than on account of any extraordinary merit in the lines themselves:

"While powers of mind almost of boundless range,
Complete in kind—as various in their change;

While Eloquence, Wit, Poesy and Mirth,

That humbler harmonist of Care on earth

Survive within our souls ;-while lives our sense
Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence ;

Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man,
And broke the die-in moulding SHERIDAN !"

Such is the extravagance of the last two lines, and their forced connexion, if they can be said to connect at all with the former part of the encomium, that we are rather disposed to be pleased than offended on learning the source from whence the conceit was derived. Lord Byron, however, must have been in a very dull humour, or not over-zealous in the work which he

undertook, when he had recourse to Ariosto for an illustration with which to wind up his panegyric. Yet so it is, that the whole of this fine compliment, in which one man, and he none of the best, is praised, at the expense of the species, is literally translated from the Italian romancer, whose words are, "Natura il fece, e poi ruppi la stampa."

No poet has availed himself more of the remarkable incidents and scenery which he has had the fortune to meet with in his travels than Lord Byron; and it is observable how the successive pieces published by him, take their imagery and characters from the localities by which the author was last surrounded. Few countries could afford a richer variety of matter for such a genius to work upon than Switzerland; and during his residence there he failed not to store his mind with an ample stock of original conceptions and combinations, drawn from the sublime and beautiful objects continually presented to his view.

It was here that he wrote, and caused to be published, his most pathetic poem, "The Prisoner of Chillon;" which, without any avowed or obvious

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reason, he called a fable. The Chateau de Chillon, we are informed by the noble author, is situated between Clarens and Villeneuve; which last is one extremity of the Lake of Geneva. On its left, are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are the heights of Meillerie, and the range of Alps above Bovinet and St. Gingo. Near it, on a hill behind, is a torrent; below it, and washing its walls, the lake has been fathomed to the depth of eight hundred feet of French measure: within it is a range of dungeons, in which the early reformers, and subsequently pri soners of state, were confined. Across one of the vaults is a beam, black with age, on which, it is said, the condemned persons were executed. In the cells are seven pillars, or rather eight, one being half merged in the wall: on some of these are rings for the fetters and fettered, and in the pavement the steps of Bonnivard have left their traces. Of this celebrated patriot, to whom Geneva is so much indebted for its independence, the following particulars are related.

Francis de Bonnivard, son of Louis de Bonnivard,

originally of Seyssel, and Lord of Lunes, was born in 1496. He studied at Turin; and in 1510, John Ame de Bonnivard, his uncle, resigned to him the priory of St. Victor, near Geneva. When the Reformation began, and set thinking men upon enquiry, Bonnivard became the great advocate of liberty, and sacrificed every thing for the establishment of it at Geneva, of which republic he wrote the history. In 1519, the Duke of Savoy having entered the Genevan territory, Bonnivard retired to Friburg; but he was betrayed by two men who accompanied him, and the prince sent him to prison, where he remained two years. This, however, did not abate his zeal; and in 1530 he fell again into the hands of the Duke of Savoy, who confined him in the castle of Chillon, where he continued till 1536, when he was released by the Bernese. He had now the pleasure of seeing Geneva free and reformed; after which he spent the remainder of his days in peace, and died full of age and honour in 1570. Such is the story of Bonnivard, in honour of whom Lord Byron wrote this sonnet, prefixed to the poem of the prisoner of Chillon :

BONNIVARD.

"Eternal Spirit of the chainless mind!

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart-
The heart which love of thee alone can bind ;
And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd-

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom-
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,

And thy sad floor an altar-for 'twas trod,
Until his very steps have left a trace

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard!-may none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God."

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Yet the history of Bonnivard, highly interesting as it might have been made, forms no part of the poem which the genius of Lord Byron produced upon the gloomy citadel where that illustrious man was so long imprisoned. The narrative, however, which is uncommonly well imagined, and most affectingly told, pourtrays just such an event as may well be supposed to have happened in those turbulent days, when Bonnivard and his compatriots succeeded in breaking the yoke of tyranny.