But why should I repeat it? 't were in vain.
Witch. I know not that; let thy lips utter it.
Man. Well, though it torture me, 'tis but the same;
My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwards
My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men,
Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes;
The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers,
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh,
Nor 'midst the creatures of clay that girded me
Was there but one who--but of her anon.
I said with men, and with the thoughts of men,
I held but slight communion; but instead,
My joy was in the wilderness, to breathe
The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing
Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge
Into the torrent, and to roll along

On the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave
Of river-stream, or ocean, in their flow;
In these my early strength exulted; or
To follow through the night the moving moon,
The stars and their developement; or catch
The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim;
Or to look, list'ning, on the scatter'd leaves,
While autumn winds were at their evening song:
These were my pastimes, and to be alone;
For if the beings, of whom I was one,-
Hating to be so,-cross'd me in my path,
I felt myself degraded back to them,
And was all clay again. And then I dived,
In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death,
Searching its cause in its effect; and drew
From wither'd bones, and skulls, and heap'd-up dust,

passage; and both the apparition and the dialogue are so managed, that the sense of their improbability is swallowed up in that of their beauty; and, without actually believing that such spirits exist or communicate themselves, we feel for the moment as if we stood in their presence." Jeffrey L. E.

(1) The philosopher Jamblicus. The story of the raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in his life by Eunapius. It is well told.-["It is reported of him," says Eunapius, "that while he and his scholars were bathing in the hot baths of Gadara in Syria, a dispute arising concerning the baths, he, smiling, ordered his disciples to ask the inhabitants by what names the two lesser springs, that were nearer and handsomer than the rest, were called. To which the inhabitants replied, that the one was called Eros, and the other Anteros, but for what reason they knew not.' Upon which Jamblicus, sitting by one of the springs, put his hand in the water, and, muttering some few words to himself, called up a fair-complexioned-boy, with gold-coloured locks dangling from his back and breast, so that he looked like one that was washing: and then, going to the other spring, and doing as he had done before, called up another Cupid, with darker and more dishevelled hair: upon which both the Cupids clung about Jamblicus; but he presently sent them back to their proper places. After this, his friends submitted their belief to him in every thing."-L. E.

Conclusions most forbidden. Then I pass'd
The nights of years in sciences untaught,
Save in the old time; and with time and toil,
And terrible ordeal, and such penance
As in itself hath power upon the air,
And spirits that do compass air and earth,
Space, and the peopled infinite, I made
Mine eyes familiar with eternity,
Such as, before me, did the Magi, and

He who from out their fountain-dwellings raised
Eros and Anteros, (1) at Gadara,

As I do thee;-and with my knowledge grew
The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy
Of this most bright intelligence, until-
Witch. Proceed.

Man.
Oh! I but thus prolong'd my words,,
Boasting these idle attributes, because
As I approach the core of my heart's grief—
But to my task. I have not named to thee
Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being,
With whom I wore the chain of human ties;
If I had such, they seem'd not such to me
Yet there was one-

Witch.

Spare not thyself-proceed. Man. She was like me in lineaments-her eyes, Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone Even of her voice, they said were like to mine; But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty; She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind To comprehend the universe: nor these Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, Pity, and smiles, and tears-which I had not; And tenderness-but that I had for her; Humility-and that I never had.

Her faults were mine-her virtues were her ownI loved her, and destroy'd her!

(2) "There has always been, from the first publication of Manfred, a strange misapprehension with respect to it in the public mind. The whole poem has been misunderstood. and the odious supposition, that ascribes the fearful mys tery and remorse of the hero to a foul passion for his sister, is probably one of those coarse imaginations which have grown out of the calumnies and accusations heaped upon the author. How can it have happened, that none of the critics have noticed that the story is derived from the human sacrifices supposed to have been in use among the students of the black art? Human sacrifices were supposed to be among the initiate propitiations of the demons that have their purposes in magic-as well as compacts signed with the blood of the self-sold. There was also a dark Egyptian art, of which the knowledge and the efficars could only be obtained by the noviciate's procuring a velas tary victim-the dearest object to himself, and to whom be also was the dearest; and the primary spring of Byron's tragedy lies, I conceive, in a sacrifice of that kind having been performed, without obtaining that happiness which the votary expected would be found in the knowledge and power purchased at such a price. His sister was sacrificed in vain. The manner of the sacrifice is not divulged, but it is darkly insinuated to have been done amidst the per turbations of something horrible." Galt.-P. E.

Mingling with us and ours,-thou dost forego
The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink'st back
To recreant mortality-Away!

Man. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour-
Bat words are breath-look on me in my sleep,
Or watch my watchings-Come and sit by me!
My solitude is solitude no more,

But peopled with the Furies. I have gnash'd
My teeth in darkness till returning morn,

Then cursed myself till sunset ;-I have pray'd
For madness as a blessing-'t is denied me.
I have affronted death-but in the war
Of elements the waters shrunk from me,
And fatal things pass'd harmless-the cold hand
Of an all-pitiless demon held me back,
Back by a single hair, which would not break.
fantasy, imagination, all

The affluence of my soul-which one day was
A Croesus in creation-I plunged deep,
Bat, like an ebbing wave, it dash'd me back
Into the gulf of my unfathom'd thought.
I plunged amidst mankind-Forgetfulness
I sought in all, save where 'tis to be found,
And that I have to learn-my sciences,
My long-pursued and superhuman art,
Is mortal here-I dwell in my despair-
And live-and live for ever.
Witch.

That I can aid thee. Man.

It may be

To do this, thy power

Mast wake the dead, or lay me low with them.
Do so-in any shape-in any hour—
With any torture-so it be the last.

Witch. That is not in my province; but if thou
Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do
My bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes.

Man. I will not swear-Obey! and whom? the spirits
Whose presence I command, and be the slave
Of those who served me-Never!

Witch.

Is this all? Hast thou no gentler answer?-Yet bethink thee, And pause ere thou rejectest.

Man.

I have said it. Witch. Enough!-I may retire then-say! Man.

Retire! [The WITCH disappears. Man. (alone.) We are the fools of time and terror: days

Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live,
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.
In all the days of this detested yoke-
This vital weight upon the struggling heart,

(1) See antè, p. 257. n.-L. E.

2) The story of Pausanias, king of Sparta (who com panded the Greeks at the battle of Platea, and afterwards perished for an attempt to betray the Lacedæmonians), and Cleonice, is told in Plutarch's life of Cimon, and in the Lacomics of Pausanias the sophist, in his description of Greece.

The following is the passage from Plutarch-"It is related, that when Pausanias was at Byzantium, he cast his eyes upon a young virgin named Cleonice, of a noble family there, and insisted on having her for a mistress. The parents, intimidated by his power, were under the hard necessity of riving up their daughter. The young woman begged that the light might be taken out of his apartments, that she might go to his bed in secrecy and silence. When she entered he was asleep, and she unfortunately stumbled upon the candlestick, and threw it down. The noise waked him suddenly, and he, in his confusion, thinking it was an enemy coming to assassinate him, unsheathed a dagger that lay by him, and plunged it into the virgin's heart. After

Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain,
Or joy that ends in agony or faintness—
In all the days of past and future, for
In life there is no present, we can number
How few-how less than few-wherein the soul
Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back
As from a stream in winter, though the chill
Be but a moment's. I have one resource
Still in my science-I can call the dead,
And ask them what it is we dread to be:
The sternest answer can but be the Grave,
And that is nothing-if they answer not-
The buried prophet answer'd to the Hag
Of Endor; (1) and the Spartan monarch drew
From the Byzantine maid's unsleeping spirit
An answer, and his destiny-he slew
That which he loved, unknowing what he slew,
And died unpardon'd-though he call'd in aid
The Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia roused
The Arcadian evocators to compel

The indignant shadow to depose her wrath,
Or fix her term of vengeance-she replied
In words of dubious import, but fulfill'd. (2)
If I had never lived, that which I love
Had still been living; had I never loved,
That which I love would still be beautiful-
Happy and giving happiness. What is she?
What is she now ?-a sufferer for my sins-
A thing I dare not think upon-or nothing.
Within few hours I shall not call in vain-
Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare:
Until this hour I never shrunk to gaze
On spirit, good or evil-now I tremble,
And feel a strange cold thaw upon my heart;
But I can act even what I most abhor,

And champion human fears.-The night approaches. [Exit.

this, he could never rest. Her image appeared to him every night, and with a menacing tone repeated this heroic verse: Go to the fate which pride and lust prepare.' The allies, highly incensed at this infamous action, joined Cimon to besiege him in Byzantium. But he found means to escape thence; and, as he was still haunted by the spectre, he is said to have applied to a temple at Heraclea, where the manes of the dead were consulted. There he invoked the spirit of Cleonice, and entreated her pardon. She appeared, and told him he would soon be delivered from all his troubles, after his return to Sparta:' in which, it seems, his death was enigmatically foretold. These particulars we have from many historians."-Langhorne's Plutarch, vol. iii. p. 279." Thus we find," adds the translator, "that it was a custom in the Pagan as well as in the Hebrew theology, to conjure up the spirits of the dead; and that the witch of Endor was not the only witch in the world."L. E.

(3) "Came to a morass; Hobhouse dismounted to get

The fretwork of some earthquake-where the clouds
Pause to repose themselves in passing by-

Is sacred to our revels, or our vigils;
Here do I wait my sisters, on our way
To the hall of Arimanes, for to-night

Is our great festival--'t is strange they come not.

A Voice without, singing,

The captive usurper,

Hurl'd down from the throne,
Lay buried in torpor,

Forgotten and lone;

I broke through his slumbers,
I shiver'd his chain,

I leagued him with numbers-
He's tyrant again!

With the blood of a million he'll answer my care,
With a nation's destruction-his flight and despair.

First Des.

Enter NEMESIS.

Say, where hast thou been? 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!(0) [Exeunt

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 moveth-earthquakes rend the world asunder. Beneath his footsteps the volcanos rise;

His shadow is the pestilence; his path The comets herald through the crackling skies; (2) 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.