distinguished strangers and foreigners, whom he ever afterwards continued to esteem.

In this retirement, too, his health was said to have rapidly improved; he had every thing around him calculated to give scope to a genius like his, and to those "fitful moods and fancies" by which he was always so liable to be surprised. He had here even formed habits of regular study and exercise; he had solitude and society at his command; and his mind and manners evidently partook of the beneficial change.

Such, at least, is the opinion of those who there knew him in the zenith of his genius, when engaged in writing the third and fourth cantos of his Childe Harold, and that admirable embodying of "the spirit and the power" of captivity in his Prisoner of Chillon. It seems to have been his object in this exquisitely pathetic and beautiful poem to analyse the nature and effect of solitary confinement upon the human mind. He makes us feel its encroachments hour by hour, and day by day, upon the victim's heart; we breathe another atmosphere ;- the common sun, the air, the sky," become eclipsed from our view, as if, by this intense and fearful vision, the enthusiast of liberty burned to hold up "tyranny" to the everlasting abhorrence of mankind.

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.

66

The subject was doubtless first suggested by the singularly wild and gloomy yet picturesque appearance of the castle from the lake on approaching near the town of Villeneuve. From this point of view Lord Byron most frequently must have beheld it, and there, probably, he conceived the idea of investing it with a fame that will endure when not a stone shall be left uncovered by the surrounding waters.

The style of architecture which the castle exhibits is that of the middle ages; its aspect is gloomy and low, and there is nothing very striking, far less pleasing, about it when divested of its surrounding scenery and associations. It is, in short, a strong, low fortress, built on a rock emerging out of the lake, and only connected with the shore by means of a drawbridge, or rather platform, for the accommodation of its visitors. On one side there rises to view the delightful Clarens, and upon the other is seen the town of Villeneuve. Not far from the latter the river Rhone pours itself into the lake. Almost immediately opposite rise the rocks of Meillerie, a name too celebrated, perhaps, in the romantic descriptions of RousThe scene of his well-known romance is there, the catastrophe of which is laid at a spot nearly adjoining the castle. Beneath its walls are situated the dungeons, excavated in the solid rock, below the level of the waters. In these were buried alive numbers of state prisoners, particularly during the long and sanguinary conflicts between the ancient dukes of Savoy and the citizens of Geneva, the latter of whom were often consigned to captivity.

seau.

The cells now seen there, extensive as they appear,

were once filled with these victims of political strife. In one part is placed a beam of oak, roughly hewn, and blackened by age, formerly used as a block, on which many of those executions, so disgraceful to the times, and for which this castle was so remarkable, repeatedly took place. The large arched vault above is supported by seven pillars, and to some of these iron rings are still fastened, intended for the purpose of restraining the wretched inmates within the limits allotted to them by their gaolers. In the hard pavement are left many traces of the footsteps of the prisoners

Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod:

and doubtless among others by François Bonnivard, one
of the boldest and most persevering assertors of Geneva's
liberties, imprisoned there for a space of six years.
I was the eldest of the three,

And to uphold and cheer the rest
I ought to do and did my best-
And each did well in his degree.

The two younger at length fall victims: the free spirit of the hunter first pines within him, and he dies; next, the youngest and most loved. The passage in which the fate of the last is related is exquisitely beautiful; the most masterly, with one exception, in the entire poem:

But he, the favourite and the flower,
Most cherish'd since his natal hour,
His mother's image in fair face,
The infant love of all his race,
His martyr'd father's dearest thought,
My latest care, for whom I sought
To hoard my life, that his might be
Less wretched now, and one day free;

He, too, who yet had held untired
A spirit natural or inspired—
He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was wither'd on the stalk away.
Oh God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood:-
I've seen it rushing forth in blood,
I've seen it on the breaking ocean
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed
Of Sin delirious with its dread:
But these were horrors-this was woe
Unmix'd with such-but sure and slow:
He faded, and so calm and meek,

So softly worn, so sweetly weak,
So tearless, yet so tender-kind,
And grieved for those he left behind.

After this event the poet supposes Bonnivard to lose all sense of his sorrows in stupor and delirium. When again restored to a consciousness of his lot, he hears near him the note of a bird, and this trivial and natural little incident, with its effect upon the captive's mind, is admirably employed to heighten the beautiful and pathetic picture :

A light broke in upon my brain,—

It was the carol of a bird;

It ceased, and then it came again,

The sweetest song ear ever heard,
And mine was thankful till my eyes
Ran over with the glad surprise,
And they that moment could not see
I was the mate of misery;

But then by dull degrees came back
My senses to their wonted track;

I saw the dungeon walls and floor
Close slowly round me as before,
I saw the glimmer of the sun
Creeping as it before had done,
But through the crevice where it came
That bird was perch'd, as fond and tame,
And tamer than upon the tree;
A lovely bird, with azure wings,
And song that said a thousand things,
And seem'd to say them all for me!

I never saw its like before,

I ne'er shall see its likeness more:
It seem'd like me to want a mate,

But was not half so desolate,
And it was come to love me when
None lived to love me so again,
And cheering from my dungeon's brink,
Had brought me back to feel and think.
I know not if it late were free,

Or broke its cage to perch on mine,

But knowing well captivity,

Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine!
Or if it were, in winged guise,

A visitant from Paradise;

For-Heaven forgive that thought! the while
Which made me both to weep and smile;

I sometimes deem'd that it might be
My brother's soul come down to me;
But then at last away it flew,
And then 'twas mortal-well I knew,
For he would never thus have flown,
And left me twice so doubly lone,-
Lone-as the corse within its shroud,
Lone-as a solitary cloud.

If this be a truly poetical and correct, no less than appalling picture of the sorrows of a captive's heart, the following will be found equally true in point of local and descriptive interest. The traveller, gazing around him