Englishman and the poet broke triumphantly, The first idea of the descriptive passages of at times, through the chilling mist in which it this beautiful poem will be easily recognised had been spontaneously enveloped. In Greece, in the following extract from Lord Byron s above all, the contemplation of Actium, Sa- travelling memorandum-book : lamis, Marathon, Thermopylae, and Platæa, Sept. 22, 1816. Left Thun in a boat, subdued the prejudices of him who had gazed which carried us the length of this lake in unmoved, or with disdain, upon fields of more three hours. The lake small, but the banks recent glory. The nobility of manhood ap-fine-rocks down to the water's edge-landed peared to delight this moody visitant; and he at Newhouse. Passed Interlachen-entered accorded, without reluctance, to the shades upon a range of scenes beyond all description of long departed heroes that reverent homage or previous conception. Passed a rock bearwhich, in the strange mixture of envy and ing an inscription-two brothers-one murscorn wherewith the contemplative so oftendered the other-just the place for it. After regard active men, he had refused to the liv-a variety of windings, came to an enormous ing, or to the newly dead. rock-arrived at the foot of the mountain (the But there would be no end of descanting Jungfraw)—glaciers-torrents-one of these on the character of the Pilgrim, nor of the 900 feet visible descent-lodge at the curate's moral reflections which it awakens; we there--set out to see the valley-heard an avalanche fore take leave of Childe Harold in his own fall, like thunder!--glaciers enormous-storm beautiful language: comes on--thunder and lightning, and hail! all in perfection and beautiful. The torrent is in shape, curving over the rock, like the tail of the white horse streaming in the wind --just as might be conceived would be that of the 'Pale Horse,' on which Death is mounted in the Apocalypse. It is neither mist nor water, but a something between both; its immense height gives it a wave, a curve, a spreading here, a condension there--wonderful--indescribable. Alas! we must now say farewell "for ever." Manfred was the first of Lord Byron's dra- "Sept. 23.. Ascent of the Wingren, the matic poems, and, we think, the finest. The Dent d'argent shining like truth on one side, spirit of his genius seems there wrestling with on the other the clouds rose from the opposite the spirit of his nature, the struggle being for valley, curling up perpendicular precipices, the palm of sublimity. Manfred has always ap- like the foam of the ocean of hell during a peared to us one of the most genuine creations spring tide! It was white and sulphury, and of the noble bard's mind. The melancholy is immeasurably deep in appearance. The side more heartfelt: the poet does not here seem we ascended was of course not of so precipito scowl his brows, but they drop under the tous a nature, but on arriving at the summit weight of his thoughts; his intellect, too, is we looked down on the other side upon a boilstrongly at work in it, and the stern haughti- ing sea of cloud, dashing against the crag on ness of the principal character is altogether which we stood. Arrived at the Greenderof an intellectual cast: the conception of this wold; mounted and rode to the higher glacier character is Miltonic. The poet has made-twilight, but distinct--very fine-glacier him worthy to abide amongst those "palaces like a frozen hurricane-starlight beautifulof nature," those "icy halls," "where forms the whole of the day was fine, and, in point and falls the avalanche." Manfred stands up of weather, as the day in which Paradise was against the stupendous scenery of the poem, made. Passed whole woods of withered pines and is as lofty, towering, and grand as the-all withered-trunks stripped, and lifelessmountains: when we picture him in imagina-done by a single winter." tion, he assumes a shape of height and inde- Of Lord Byron's tragedies we shall merely pendent dignity, shining in its own splendour remark, with reference to the particular naamongst the snowy summits which he was ac- ture of their tragic character, that the effect customed to climb. The passion, too, in this of them all is rather grand, terrible, and tercomposition, is fervid and impetuous, but at rific, than mollifying, subduing, or pathetic. the same time deep and full, which is not al-As dramatic poems, they possess much beauty ways the case in Byron's productions; it is and originality. serious and sincere throughout. The music The style and nature of the poem of Don of the language is as solemr and as touching Juan forms a singularly felicitous mixture of as that of the wind coming through the bend- burlesque and pathos, of humorous observa ing ranks of the inaccessible Alpine forests; tion, and the higher elements of poetical com and the mists and vapours rolling down the position. Never was the English language gullies and ravines that yawn horribly on the festooned into more luxurious stanzas than in eye, are not more wild and striking in their ppearance than are the supernatural creations of the poet's fancy, whose magical ageney is of mighty import, but is nevertheless continually surmounted by the high intellecual power, invincible will, and intrepid phisophy of Manfred. Don Juan: like the dolphin sporting in its na tive waves, at every turn, however grotesque displaying a new hue and a new beauty, so the noble author there shows an absolute control over his means, and at every cadence, rhyme, or construction, however whimsical delights us with novel and magical assori” tions. We wish, we heartily wish, that the duction occasioned, Lord Byron observed, in fine poetry which is so richly scattered through a letter to his publisher, “If “Cain' be blasthe sixteen cantos of this most original and phemous, Paradise Lost' is blasphemous, and most astonishing production, had not been mixed up with very much that is equally frivolous as foolish; and sincerely do we regret, that the alloying dross of sensuality should run so freely through the otherwise rich vein of the author's verse. the words of the Oxford gentleman, Evil, be thou my good,' are from that very poem from the mouth of Satan; and is there any thing more in that of Lucifer in the mystery? Cain' is nothing more than a drama, not a piece of argument: if Lucifer and Cain speak Whilst at Venice, Byron displayed a most as the first rebel and first murderer may be noble instance of generosity. The house of a supposed to speak, nearly all the rest of the shoemaker, near his lordship's residence in personages talk also according to their charSt. Samuel, was burnt to the ground, with acters; and the stronger passions have ever every article it contained, and the proprietor been permitted to the drama. I have avoided reduced, with a large family, to the greatest introducing the Deity as in Scripture, though indigence and want. When Lord Byron as-Milton does, and not very wisely either: but certained the afflicting circumstances of that have adopted his angel as sent to Cain instead, calamity, he not only ordered a new and su-on purpose to avoid shocking any feelings on perior habitation to be immediately built for the subject, by falling short of what all uninthe sufferer, the whole expense of which was borne by his lordship, but also presented the unfortunate tradesman with a sum equal in value to the whole of his lost stock in trade and furniture. ร spired men must fall short in, viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of the presence of Jehovah. The old mysteries introduced him liberally enough, and all this I avoided in the new one. Lord Byron avoided, as much as possible, An event occurred at Ravenna during his any intercourse with his countrymen at Ven- lordship's stay there, which made a deep imice; this seems to have been in a great mea- pression on him, and to which he alludes in sure necessary, in order to prevent the intru- the fifth canto of Don Juan. The military sion of impertinent curiosity. In an appendix commandant of the place, who, though susto one of his poems, written with reference to pected of being secretly a Carbonaro, was a book of travels, the author of which dis- too powerful a man to be arrested, was assasclaimed any wish to be introduced to the no- sinated opposite to Lord Byron's palace. His ble lord, he loftily and sarcastically chastises lordship had his foot in the stirrup at the usual the incivility of such a gratuitous declaration, hour of exercise, when his horse started at expresses his "utter abhorrence of any con- the report of a gun: on looking up, Lord By. tact with the travelling English;" and thus ron perceived a man throw down a carbine concludes: "Except Lords Lansdowne, Jer- and run away at full speed, and another man sey, and Lauderdale, Messrs. Scott, Ham-stretched upon the pavement a few yards from mond, Sir Humphrey Davy. the late Mr. himself; it was the unhappy commandant. A Lewis, W. Bankes, M. Hoppner, Thomas crowd was soon collected, but no one ventured Moore, Lord Kinnaird, his brother, Mr. Joy, and Mr. Hobhouse, I do not recollect to have exchanged a word with another Englishman since I left their country, and almost all these I had known before. The others, and God knows there were some hundreds, who bored me with letters or visits, I refused to have any communication with; and shall be proud and happy when that wish becomes mutual." to offer the least assistance. Lord Byron directed his servant to lift up the bleeding body, and carry it into his palace; though it was represented to him that by doing so he would confirm the suspicion, which was already entertained, of his belonging to the same party. Such an apprehension could have no effect on Byron's mind, when an act of humanity was to be performed; he assisted in bearing the After a residence of three years at Venice, victim of assassination into the house, and Lord Byron removed to Ravenna, towards the putting him on a bed. He was already dead close of the year 1819. Here he wrote the from several wounds: "he appeared to have Prophecy of Dante, which exhibited a new breathed his last without a struggle," said his specimen of the astonishing variety of strength lordship, when afterwards recounting the af and expansion of faculties he possessed and fair. "I never saw a countenance so calm. exercised. About the same time he wrote His adjutant followed the corpse into the house; Sardanapalus, a tragedy; Cain, a mystery; I remember his lamentation over him; and Heaven and Earth, a mystery. Though Povero diavolo! non aveva fatta male, anché there are some obvious reasons which render ad un cane. The following were the noble Sardanapalus unfit for the English stage, it is, writer's poetical reflections (in Don Juan) ɔn on the whole, the most splendid specimen viewing the dead bod". which our language affords of that species of tragedy which was the exclusive object of Lord Byron's admiration. Cain is one of the productions which has subjected its noble author to the severest denunciations, on account of the crime of impiety alleged against it; as it seems to have a tendency to call in question the benevolence of Providence. In answer to the loud and general outcry which this pro 6 "I gazed (as oft I gazed the same And there we go:-but where? Five bits of lead And is this blood, then, form'd but to be sheo t We whose minds comprehend all things?-No more: votion in women. She must have been a m But let us to the story as before." vine creature. I pity the man who has los That a being of such glorious capabilities her! I shall write to him by return of the should abstractedly, and without an attempt courier, to condole with him, and tell him that to throw the responsibility on a fictitious per- Mrs. S. need not have entertained any consonage, have avowed such startling doubts, cern for my spiritual affairs, for that no mar. was a daring which, whatever might then have is more of a Christian than I am, whatever been his private opinion, he ought not to have my writings may have led her and others to suspect.' "It is difficult," observes Captain Medwin, We have given the above extracts from a "to judge, from the contradictory nature of sense of justice to the memory of Lord Byhis writings, what the religious opinions of ron; they are redeeming and consolatory eviLord Byron really were From the conver-dences that his heart was far from being sations I held with him, on the whole, I am sheathed in unassailable scepticism, and, as inclined to think, that if he were occasionally such, ought not to be omitted in a preface to sceptical, and thought it, as he says in Don his works. Juan, hazarded. 'A pleasant voyage, perhaps, to float Like Pyrrho, in a sea of speculation,' ૮. 66 In the autumn of 1821, the noble bard removed to Pisa, in Tuscany. He took up his residence there in the Lanfranchi palace, and engaged in an intrigue with the beautiful yet his wavering never amounted to a disbe-Guiccioli, wife of the count of that name, lief in the divine Founder of Christianity. which connexion, with more than his usual Calling on him one day," continues the Captain, we found him, as was sometimes the case, silent, dull, and sombre. At length he said: Here is a little book somebody has sent me about Christianity, that has made me very uncomfortable; the reasoning seems to me very strong, the proofs are very staggering. I don't think you can answer it, Shelley, at least I am sure I can't, and what is more, I don't wish it.' to .. constancy, he maintained for nearly three years, during which period the countess was separated from her husband, on an application from the latter to the Pope. The following is a sketch of this "fair enchantress," as taken at the time the liaison was formed between her and Byron. "The countess is twenty-three years of age, though she appears no more than seventeen or eighteen. Unlike most of the Italian women, her Speaking of Gibbon, Lord Byron said: complexion is delicately fair. Her eyes, L-B thought the question set at rest large, dark, and languishing, are shaded by in the History of the Decline and Fall, but I the longest eyelashes in the world, and her am not so easily convinced. It is not a matter hair, which is ungathered on her head, plays of volition to unbelieve. Who likes to own over her falling shoulders in a profusion of that he has been a fool all his life, to unlearn natural ringlets of the darkest auburn. Her all that he has been taught in his youth, or figure is, perhaps, too much embonpoint for can think that some of the best men that ever her height; but her bust is perfect. Her lived have been fools? I don't know why I am features want little of possessing a Grecian considered an unbeliever. I disowned, the regularity of outline; and she has the most other day, that I was of Shelley's school in beautiful mouth and teeth imaginable. It is metaphysics, though I admired his poetry; impossible to see without admiring--to hear not but what he has changed his mode of the Guiccioli speak without being fascinated. thinking very much since he wrote the notes Her amiability and gentleness show them"Queen Mab," which I was accused of selves in every intonation of her voice, which, having a hand in. I know, however, that and the music of her perfect Italian, gives a am considered an infidel. My wife and sister, peculiar charm to every thing she utters. when they joined parties, sent me prayer-Grace and elegance seem component parts books. There was a Mr. Mulock, who went of her nature. Notwithstanding that she about the continent preaching orthodoxy in adores Lord Byron, it is evident that the expolitics and religion, a writer of bad sonnets, ile and poverty of her aged father sometimes and a lecturer in worse prose, he tried to affect her spirits, and throw a shade of melanconvert me to some new sect of Christianity. choly on her countenance, which adds to the He was a great anti-materialist, and abused deep interest this lovely woman creates. Her Locke.' conversation is lively without being learned; "On another occasion he said: 'I have just she has read all the best authors of her own received a letter from a Mr. Sheppard, in-and the French language. She often conceals closing a prayer made for my welfare by his what she knows, from the fear of being thought wife, a few days before her death. The letter to know too much, possibly from being aware states that he has had the misfortune to lose that Lord Byron was not fond of blues. He this amiable woman, who had seen me at is certainly very much attached to her, withRamsgate, many years ago, rambling among out being actually in love. His description the cliffs; that she had been impressed with a of the Georgioni in the Manfrini palace at sense of my irreligion from the tenor of my Venice, is meant for the countess. The beauworks, and had often prayed fervently for my tiful sonnet prefixed to the Prophecy of conversion, particularly in her last moments. Dante' was addressed to her." The prayer is beautifully written. I like de The annexed lines, written by Byron when ne was about to quit Venice to join the count- or wrote till two or three in the morning; ess at Ravenna, will show the state of his occasionally drinking spirits diluted with wafeelings at that time: ter as a medicine, from a dread of a nephritic complaint, to which he was, or fancied himself, subject. 1 "River 1 that rollest by the ancient walls Where dwells the lady of my love, when she Walks by the brink, and there perchance recalls A faint and fleeting memory of me: "What if thy deep and ample stream should be A mirror of my heart, where she may read The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee, Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed "What do I say-a mirror of my heart? Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? And such as thou art, were my passions long. While Lord Byron resided at Pisa, a seri ous affray occurred, in which he was personally concerned. Taking his usual ride, with some friends, one of them was violently jostled by a serjeant-major of hussars, who dashed, at full speed, through the midst of the party. They pursued and overtook him near the Piaggia gate; but their remonstrances were answered only by abuse and menace, and an attempt, on the part of the guard at the gate, to arrest them. This occasioned a severe scuffle, in which several of Lord Byron's party were wounded, as was also the hussar. The consequence was, that all Lord Byron's ser Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away-vants (who were warmly attached to him, and "But left long wrecks behind them, and again Borne on our old unchanged career, we move; Thou tendest wildly onward to the main, And I to loving one I should not love. "The current I behold will sweep beneath Full of that thought, and from that moment ne'er That happy wave repass me in its flow. had shown great ardour in his defence), were banished from Pisa; and with them the Counts Gamba, father and son. Lord Byron was himself advised to leave it; and as the countess accompanied her father, he soon after joined them at Leghorn, and passed six weeks at Monte Nero. His return to Pisa was occasioned by a new persecution of the Counts Gamba. An order was issued for them to leave the Tuscan states in four days; and after their embarkation for Genoa, the countess and Lord Byron openly lived together, at the Lanfranchi palace. It was at Pisa that Byron wrote "Werner,' a tragedy; the "Deformed Transformed, and continued his "Don Juan" to the end of the sixteenth canto. We venture to introduce here the following critical summary of this wonderful production of genius. The poem of Don Juan has all sorts of faults, many of which cannot be defended, and some of which are disgusting; but it has, Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth, also, almost every sort of poetical merit: there But the distraction of a various lot, As various as the climates of our birth. "A stranger loves a lady of the land, Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood Is all meridian, as if never fann'd By the bleak wind that chills the polar flood. "My blood is all meridian; were it not, I had not left my clime ;-I shall not be, And then at least my heart can ne'er be moved.' It is impossible to conceive a more unvaried life then Lord Byron led at this period in the society of a few select friends. Billiards, conversation, or reading, filled up the intervals till it was time to take the evening-drive, ride, and pistol-practice. are in it some of the finest passages Lord Byron ever wrote; there is amazing knowledge of human naturé in it; there is exquisite humour; there is freedom, and bound, and vigour of narrative, imagery, sentiment, and style, which are admirable; there is a vast fertility of deep, extensive, and original thought; and at the same time, there is the profusion of a prompt and most richly-stored memory. The invention is lively and poetical; the descriptions are brilliant and glowing, yet not overwrought, but fresh from nature, and faithful to her colours; and the prevalent character of the whole, (bating too many dark spots), not dispiriting, though gloomy, not misanthropic, though bitter; and not epulsive to the visions of poetical enthusiasm, though indignant and resentful. Lord Byron's acquaintance with Leign Hunt, the late editor of the Examiner, originated in his grateful feeling for the manner in He dined at half an hour after sunset, then which Mr. Hunt stood forward in his justifi drove to Count Gamba's, the Countess Guic-cation, at a time when the current of public cioli's father, passed several hours in her so-opinion ran strongly against him. This feelciety, returned to his palace, and either read ing induced him to invite Mr. Hunt to the 1 The Po. Lanfranchi palace, where a suite of apartments were fitted up for him. On his arrival in the spring of 1822, a periodical publication riding a few miles distant. The heat of the was projected, under the title of "The Lib- sun and checked perspiration threw him into eral," of which Hunt was to be the editor, a fever, which he felt coming on before he left and to which Lord Byron and Percy Shelley the water, and which became more violent (who had been residing for some time on terms before he reached Pisa. On his return, he of great intimacy with his lordship) were to immediately took a warm bath, and the next contribute. Three numbers of the "Liberal" morning was perfectly recovered." were published in London, when, in conse- The enmity between Byron and Southey, quence of the unhappy fate of Mr. Shelley, the poet-laureate, is as well known as that be(who perished in the Mediterranean by the tween Pope and Colley Cibber. Their poliupsetting of a boat), and of other discouraging tics were diametrically opposite, and the noble circumstances, it was discontinued. bard regarded the bard of royalty as a rene interest: Byron attended the funeral of his poet-gado from his early principles. It was not, friend; the following description of which, however, so much on account of political by a person who was present, is not without principles that the enmity between Byron and Southey was kept up. The peer, in his satire, "18th August, 1822.-On the occasion of had handled the epics of the laureate "too Shelley's melancholy fate, I revisited Pisa, roughly," and this the latter deeply resented. and on the day of my arrival, learnt that Lord Whilst travelling on the continent, Southey Byron was gone to the sea-shore, to assist in observed Shelley's name in the Album, at performing the last offices to his friend. We Mont Anvert, with "Acos" written after it, came to a spot marked by an old and withered and an indignant comment in the same lantrunk of a fir-tree, and near it, on the beach, guage written under it; also the names of some stood a solitary hut covered with reeds. The of Byron's other friends. The laureate, it is situation was well calculated for a poet's grave. said, copied the names and the comment, and, A few weeks before, I had ridden with him on his return to England, reported the whole and Lord Byron to this very spot, which I af- circumstances, and hesitated not to conclude terwards visited more than once. In front Byron of the same principles as his friends. was a magnificent extent of the blue and In a poem he subsequently wrote, called the windless Mediterranean, with the isles of Elba Vision of Judgment," he stigmatized Lord and Guyana,-Lord Byron's yacht at anchor Byron as the father of the "Satanic School n the offing: on the other side an almost of Poetry." His lordship, in a note appended boundless extent of sandy wilderness, uncul- to the "Two Foscari," retorted in a very setivated and uninhabited, here and there inter- vere manner, and even permitted himself to spersed in tufts with underwood curved by ridicule Southey's wife, the sister of Colethe sea-breeze, and stunted by the barren and ridge's wife, they having been at one time dry nature of the soil in which it grew. At" two milliners of Bath." The laureate wrote equal distances along the coast stood high an answer to this note in the Courier newssquare towers, for the double purpose of guard-paper, which, when Byron saw it, enraged ing the coast from smuggling, and enforcing him so much, that he consulted with his friends the quarantine laws. This view was bounded whether or not he ought to go to England to by an immense extent of the Italian Alps, answer it personally. In cooler moments, which are here particularly picturesque from however, he resolved merely to write his their volcanic and manifold appearances, and" Vision of Judgment," which was a parody which, being composed of white marble, give on Southey's, and appeared in one of the numtheir summits the appearance of snow. As a bers of the "Liberal," for which Hunt, the foreground to this picture appeared as extra-publisher, was prosecuted by the "Constituordinary a group. Lord Byron and Trelawney tional Association," and found guilty. were seen standing over the burning pile, with As some of our readers may be curious to some of the soldiers of the guard; and Leigh know the rate at which Lord Byron was paid Hunt, whose feelings and nerves could not for his productions, we annex the following carry him through the scene of horror, lying statement, by Mr. Murray, the bookseller, of back in the carriage, the four post-horses the sums given by him for the copy-rights of ready to drop with the intensity of the noon-most of his lordship's works: day sun. The stillness of all around was yet more felt by the shrill scream of a solitary curlew, which, perhaps attracted by the body, wheeled in such narrow circles round the pile, that it might have been struck with the hand, and was so fearless that it could not be driven away. Looking at the corpse, Lord Byron said: Why, that old black silk handkerchief retains its form better than that human body!' Scarcely was the ceremony concluded, when Lord Byron, agitated by the spectacle he had witnessed, tried to dissipate in some degree the impression of it by his favourite recreation. He took off his clothes, therefore, and swam to the yacht, which was |