him to seek intercourse with the Prince of the Air, witches, demons, destinies, spirits, and all the tribes of immaterial existences. From them he tries to discover those secrets into which his reason cannot penetrate. He commands them to tell him the mystery of the grave. The only being he ever loved has by his means been des troyed. Is all her beauty gone for ever-annihilated-and with it has her spirit faded into nonentity? or is she lost, miserably lost, and suffering the punishment brought on her by his own sin? We believe, that by carrying in the mind a knowledge of this one horrid event and along with that, those ideas of Manfred's character, which, by the extracts we have given, better than any words of our own, the reader may be enabled to acquire the conduct of the drama, though certainly imperfectly and obscurely managed, may be understood, as well as its chief end and object.

At the opening of the drama, we find Manfred alone, at midnight, in a Gothic gallery of his castle, in possession of a mighty spell, by which he can master the seven spirits of Earth, Ocean, Air, Night, the Mountains, the Winds, and the Star of his nativity. These spirits all appear before him, and tell him their names and employment. The Mountain Spirit thus speaks:

"Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains,

They crowned him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow.

Around his waist are forests braced,

The Avalanche in his hand;
But ere it fall, that thundering ball
Must pause for my command.
The Glacier's cold and restless mass
Moves onward day by day;
But I am he who bids it pass,
Or with its ice delay.

I am the spirit of the place,

Could make the mountain bow

And quiver to its caverned base

And what with me wouldst Thou ?"

language of his supernatural beings, which is, upon the whole, very wild and spirit-like. From these Powers he requests that they will wring out, from the hidden realms, forgetfulness and self-oblivion. This, we find, is beyond their power. He then says,

"I hear

Your voices, sweet and melancholy sounds,
As music on the waters and I see

The steady aspect of a clear large star,
But nothing more."

The spirit of this star (the star of his nativity) appears in the shape of a beautiful female figure; and Manfred exclaims,

"Oh God! if it be thus, and Thou Art not a madness and a mockery, I yet might be most happy-I will clasp thee,

And we again will be-[ The figure vanishes.] My heart is crushed.

[Manfred falls senseless."

A voice is then heard singing an incantation and a curse,-stanzas which were published in the noble Lord's last volume, and full of a wild and unearthly energy.

In the second scene, Manfred is standing alone on a cliff on the mighty mountain Jungfrau, at sunrise; and this is part of his morning soliloquy. -My mother earth! And thou fresh-breaking Day, and you, ye

"Man.

Mountains, Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye. And thou, the bright eye of the universe, That openest over all, and unto all Art a delight-thou shin'st not on my heart. And you, ye Crags, upon whose extreme

edge

energy,

"I am the Rider of the Wind,

The Stirrer of the Storm;

The hurricane I left behind

Is yet with lightning warm.

To speed to thee o'er shore and sea I swept upon the blast; The fleet I met sailed well, and yet "Twill sink ere night be past." These may be considered fair specimens of the general character of the

This barrenness of spirit, and to be
My own soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased
To justify my deeds unto myself-
The last infirmity of evil. Ay,
Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister,
[An eagle passes.
Whose happy flight is highest into heaven,
Well may'st thou swoop so near me—I
should be

Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone

He is then, when standing on the toppling cliff, seized with an irresistible desire to fling himself over, but a chamois-hunter very opportunely comes in, and by force prevents him from effecting his purpose." This intervention is, we think, altogether absurd. They descend from the cliff quietly together; and so the scene, very dully and unnaturally, comes to a conclusion. It has been remarked of suicides, that if they are hindered from committing the crime in the very mode which they have determined upon, the strong desire of death may continue upon them, and yet the miserable beings have no power to adopt a different scheme of destruction. If, therefore, Manfred had been suddenly forced away from cliff and precipice, we can suppose that he might, in another scene, have forborne his suicidal intentions; but it seems most unnatural, that he shall continue to descend cautiously the very rocks over which he had a moment before determined to fling himself, accept of assistance from the chamois-hunter, and exhibit every symptom of a person afraid of losing his footing, and tumbling down the crags. Besides, Manfred was not an ordinary character; and this extreme irresolution, after he had worked him self up to frenzy, is wholly inconsistent with his nature. VOL. I.

The first scene of the second act is in the chamois-hunter's cottage, and with the exception of the few lines formerly quoted, and some others, it incredibly dull and spiritless; and the is very unlike Lord Byron, for it is chamois-hunter, contrary to truth, nature, and reason, is a heavy, stupid, elderly man, without any conversational talents. The following lines, however, may redeem even a worse scene than this. Manfred speaks. "Think'st thou existence doth depend on

time?

It doth but actions are our epochs. Mine Have made my days and nights imperishable,

Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore, Innumerable atoms; and one desert, Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,

But nothing rests, save carcases and wrecks, Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness."

Scene second gives us Manfred's first interview with the Witch of the Alps, and he pours out his soul to her in a strain of very wild and impassioned poetry. Her appearance is described in a style different from the rest of the poem, and nothing can be' more beautiful.

f

"Man. Beautiful Spirit! with thy hair of light

And dazzling eyes of glory, in whose form
The charms of Earth's least-mortal daugh-
To an unearthly stature, in an essence
Of purer elements; while the hues of
youth-

Carnation'd like a sleeping infant's cheek,
Rock'd by the beating of her mother's heart,
Or the rose-tints which summer's twilight

leaves

Upon the lofty glacier's virgin snow,
The blush of earth embracing with her

heaven- ཅིན

Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame The beauties of the sunbow which bends

o'er thee.

In scene third, which is again on the summit of the Jungfrau moun tain, Manfred does not appear at all, but it is wholly occupied by the Destinies and Nemesis. These very awful abstractions exult together over the miseries and madness of the world; and one of them sings either a triumphal song upon Buonaparte's return from Elba, and the bloody field of Waterloo or a prophetic strain on his destined escape from St Helena, and the rivers of blood which are yet to overflow France.-His Lordship's imagination seems to be possessed by this throne-shattering emperor. The following passage is a specimen of the song in which the Destinies express themselves.

and bright;

And here on snows, where never human foot
Of common mortal trod, we nightly tread,
And leave no traces; o'er the savage sea,
The glassy ocean of the mountain ice,
We skim its rugged breakers, which put on
The aspect of a tumbling tempest's foam,
Frozen in a moment a dead whirlpool's
image;

And this most steep fantastic pinnacle,
The fretwork of some earthquake-where
the clouds

Pause to repose themselves in passing by
Is sacred to our revels, or our vigils.'

Nemesis utters a higher strain.
Nem. "I was detained repairing shattered
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 outstaid the hour-mount we our
clouds ?"

In scene fourth, we are introduced into the hall of Arimanes, Prince of Earth and Air, who is sitting, surrounded by the Spirits, on his throne, a globe of fire. The seven spirits chant a wild song in his praise-the Destinies and Nemesis join in the glorification; and meanwhile Manfred enters, unappalled by the threatening visages of this dread assemblage. Nemesis asks,

Uncharnel?

"Whom wouldst thou

Man. One without a tomb-call up Astartè."

At the invocation of a spirit, her phantom rises and stands in the midst

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.
This punishment for both-that thou wilt be
Say that thou loath'st me not that I do bear
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 called on thee in the still night, Startled the slumbering birds from the hushed boughs,

And woke the mountain wolves, and made the caves

Acquainted with thy vainly echoed name, Which answered me; many things answered me

Spirits and men-but thou wert silent all. Yet speak to me! I have outwatched the stars, And gazed o'er Heaven in vain in search of

thee!

Speak to me! I have wandered 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 Astartè. Manfred! Man. Say on, say on; I live but in the sound; it is thy voice! Phan. Manfred! To-morrow ends thine earthly ills;

Farewell!

soul from ruin, religion-and the promise of redemption. This salvation Manfred is too far gone in anguish, sin, and insanity, to dare or wish to accept-and the Abbot leaves him in sullen and hopeless resignation to his doom. The conclusion of their colloquy is most impressive.

Man.Look on me! there is an order

Of mortals on the earth, who do become Old in their youth, and die ere middle age, Without the violence of warlike death, Some perishing of pleaure--some of studySome worn with toil-some of mere weari

ness

Some of disease and some insanity-
And some of withered, or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are numbered 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. [Exit Manfred." The final catastrophe is now at hand, for the hour of his dissolution, foretold by the phantom of Astartè, is come: he is in his solitary tower at midnight, with the Abbot, when the spirits commissioned by Arimanes come to demand his soul. The opening of this scene is perhaps the finest de scriptive passage in the drama; and its solemn, calm, and majestic character throws an air of grandeur over the catastrophe, which was in danger of appearing extravagant, and somewhat too much in the style of the Devil and Dr Faustus. Manfred is sitting alone in the interior of the tower.

"Manfred alone.

The stars are forth, the moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains-Beautiful!
I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,
I learned the language of another world.
I do remember me, that in my youth
When I was wandering, upon such a night,

I stood within the Coloseum's wall,
'Midst the chief relics of Almighty Rome;-
The trees which grew along the broken

arches

Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the

stars

Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cæsars' palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly
Of distant sentinels, the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bow-shot--where the Cæsars
dwelt,

And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst

A grove which springs through levelled battlements,

Arid twines its roots with the imperial hearths,

Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;
But the gladiators' bloody circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!
While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustine
halls,

Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.-
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon,upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,
As 'twere, anew the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old!—
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still

rule

Our spirits from their urns.

"Twas such a night! "Tis strange that I recall it at this time; But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight,

Even at the moment when they should array Themselves in pensive order."

The Spirits enter; and while they are threatening to tear him to pieces, Manfred meets them with taunts and mockery, and suddenly falls back and expires in the arms of the Abbot.

We had intended making some observations upon this extraordinary production, but, to be intelligible,

we could not confine them within the

limits which necessity imposes. On some other occasion we may enter at length into the philosophy of the subject; but we have given such an account as will enable our readers to character. comprehend its general

One remark we must make on the versification. Though generally flowing, vigorous, and sonorous, it is too often slovenly and careless to a great degree; and there are in the very finest passages, so many violations of the plainest rules of blank verse, that we suspect Lord Byron has a very imperfect knowledge of that finest of all music, and has yet much to learn before his language can be well adapted to dramatic compositions.

Reviewers, "respecting the geography and natural history of the great desert of Africa, amounts to very little, and that little not very accurate."-A large portion of this article is occupied with the travels of Sidi Hamet, Riley's mas→ ter, who remained for a fortnight in Mr Willshire's house, and who, besides entertaining them with an account of his expeditions to Tombuctoo, introduced them to the knowledge of a country to the south-east of it, wholly new to Europeans, containing the city of Wassanah, situated on the Niger, above sixty days_journey from Tombuctoo, and twice its size. Upon the authority of the same traveller, the Reviewers proceed to offer some speculations regarding the course of the Niger. There is a strong presumption, they think, that the Niger, or Nile of the Negroes, has two courses, one from west to east, by Silla and Tombuctoo; the other from east to west, through Wangara, Ghana, and Kassina. This Sidi Hamet is altogether a very respectable sort of person. "Your friend." (Mr Willshire) said he to Riley at parting, "has fed me with milk and honey, and I will always in future do what is in my power to redeem Christians from slavery;" a promise which, to a certain extent, he is known to have since performed. We have met with a gentleman belonging to the Surprise of Glasgow, to which the Reviewers allude, who gratefully acknowledges the personal kindness he received from Sidi Hamet in the deserts of Africa.

THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. No 32. 1. An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, wrecked on the western coast of Africa, in the month of August 1815, &c. By JAMES RILEY, late Master and Supercargo. The sufferings which Riley and his crew endured, at the time of their shipwreck and afterward, while they remained in captivity among the Arabs, were so severe, that the Reviewers would have felt inclined to withhold their belief from some parts of the narrative, if they had not been satisfied with regard to the writer's general veracity, from the well authenticated documents which they possess. Nothing can place in a stronger light the miserable condition to which these unfortunate men had been reduced, than the following extract from the narrative itself:- "At the instance of Mr Willshire," (the British vice-consul at Mogadore, by whom they were ransomed), "I was weighed,' says Riley," and fell short of ninety pounds, though my usual weight, for the last ten years, had been over two hundred and forty pounds; the weight of my companions was less than I dare to mention, for I apprehend it would not be believed, that the bodies of men, retaining the vital spark, should not weigh forty pounds!" This extraordinary emaciation was effected in about two months, the period which intervened from their shipwreck until they arrived at Mogadore, where every comfort was most humanely provided for them by the gentleman whom we have just mentioned. Were we not so positively assured by the Reviewers of Mr Riley's veracity, there are one or two points which might excuse a little scepticism; on one occasion, we read of an immediate interposition of Divine Providence in behalf of the desponding sufferers; and at another time, Riley, in a comfortable dream, saw a young man, who spoke to him in his own language, assuring him that he should again embrace his beloved wife and children, and whose features he afterwards recognised in Mr Willshire."The addition which Mr Riley has afforded to our information," say the

2. Ambrosian Manuscripts.-The Reviewers begin by discouraging the too sanguine expectations that have been entertained of the researches of antiquaries, in bringing to light the precious relics of Greek and Roman literature; and they then endeavour to account for the imperfect and mutilated state in which some of the ancient authors have come down to us. "The truth, after all," they say, that of the Latin writers not many have perished whose loss we need greatly regret." The discoveries recently made by M. Angiolo Mai, professor of the oriental languages in the Ambrosian library at Milan, consist of

is,