The stars are forth, the moon above the tops I learn'd the language of another world. Manuel. Oh what a death is this! that I should live To shake my grey hairs over the last chief Of the house of Sigismund!-And such a death! Alone we know not how-unshrived-untendedWith strange accompaniments and fearful signsI shudder at the sight but must not leave him. Manfred (speaking faintly and slowly.) Old man! 't is not so difficult to die. [MANFRED having said this, expires. Herman. His eyes are fix'd and lifeless.-He is gone. Manuel. Close them-My old hand quivers.-He departsWhither? I dread to think-but he is gone.-P. E. And twines its roots with the imperial hearths, While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls, "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. I see a dusk and awful figure rise, (1) "The opening of this scene is, perhaps, the finest passage in the drama; and its solemn, calm, and ma jestic character throws an air of grandeur over the cata strophe, which was in danger of appearing extravagant, and somewhat too much in the style of the Devil and Dr. Faustus." Wilson.-L. E. (2) "Drove at midnight to see the Coliseum by moun light: but what can I say of the Coliseum? It must be seen; to describe it I should have thought impossible, if had not read Manfred. To see it aright, as the Poet of the North tells us of the fair Melrose, one must see it by the pale moonlight. The stillness of night, the whispering echoes, the moonlight shadows, and the awful grandeur of the impending ruins, form a scene of romantic sublimity, such as Byron alone could describe as it deserves. His description is the very thing itself." Matthews's Diary of a Invalid.-L. E. Man. Thou hast no cause-he shall not harm thee Which made thee wretched! Abbot. What art thou, unknown being? answer!-speak! Sp. The genius of this mortal.-Come! 'tis time. Man. I am prepared for all things, but deny power The which summons me. Who sent thee here? Spirit. Then I must summon up my brethren.— Old man! Spirit. It were in vain: this man is forfeited. Reluctant mortal! Spirit. (1) In the first edition, this line was accidentally left out. On discovering the omission, Lord Byron wrote to Mr. Murray-"You have destroyed the whole effect and moral of the poem, by omitting the last line of Manfred's speaking.-L. E. 2) In June, 1820, Lord Byron thus writes to his publither:-"Enclosed is something which will interest you; to wit, the opinion of the greatest man in Germany-perhaps in Europe upon one of the great men of your advertise. ments (all famous bands,' as Jacob Tonson used to say of his raggamuffins-in short, a critique of Goethe's upon Manfred. There is the original, an English translation, and an Italian one: keep them all in your archives; for the opinions of such a man as Goethe, whether favourable or not, are always interesting--and this is more so, as fa vourable. His Faust I never read, for I don't know German; but Matthew Monk Lewis, in 1816, at Coligny, transtated most of it to me viva voce, and I was naturally much Man. Thou false fiend, thou liest! My life is in its last hour,-that I know, Nor would redeem a moment of that hour; I do not combat against death, but thee And thy surrounding angels; my past power Was purchased by no compact with thy crew, But by superior science-penance daringAnd length of watching-strength of mind--and skill In knowledge of our fathers--when the earth Saw men and spirits walking side by side, And gave ye no supremacy: I stand Upon my strength-I do defy-deny-Spurn back, and scorn ye!Spirit. Have made theeMan. But thy many crimes What are they to such as thee? I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey,- [The Demons disappear. Abbot. Alas! how pale thou art-thy lips are whiteAnd thy breast heaves-and in thy gasping throat The accents rattle-Give thy prayers to HeavenPray-albeit but in thought,-but die not thus. Man. "T is over-my dull eyes can fix thee not; But all things swim around me, and the earth Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee wellGive me thy hand. Abbot. Cold-cold-even to the heartBut yet one prayer-Alas! how fares it with thee? Man. Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die. (1) [MANFRED expires. Abbot. He's gone-his soul hath ta'en its earthless flight Whither? I dread to think-but he is gone. (2) struck with it: but it was the Steinbach and the Jungfrau, and something else, much more than Faustus, that made me write Manfred. The first scene, however, and that of Faustus are very similar." The following is the extract from Goethe's Kunst und Altherthum (i. e. Art and Antiquity) which the above letter enclosed : "Byron's tragedy, Manfred, was to me a wonderful phenomenon, and one that closely touched me. This singularly intellectual poet has taken my Faustus to himself, and extracted from it the strongest nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. He has made use of the impelling principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so that no one of them remains the same; and it is particularly on this account that I cannot enough admire his genius. The whole is in this way so completely formed anew, that it would be an interesting task for the critic to point out, not only the alterations he has made, but their degree of re semblance with, or dissimilarity to, the original: in the course of which, I cannot deny, that the gloomy heat of an unbounded and exuberant despair becomes at last oppressive to us. Yet is the dissatisfaction we feel always connected with esteem and admiration. "We find thus, in this tragedy, the quintessence of the most astonishing talent, born to be its own tormentor. The character of Lord Byron's life and poetry hardly permits a just and equitable appreciation. He has often enough confessed what it is that torments him. He has repeatedly portrayed it; and scarcely any one feels compassion for this intolerable suffering, over which he is ever laboriously ruminating. There are, properly speaking, two females whose phantoms for ever haunt him, and which, in this piece also, perform principal parts-one under the name of Astarte, the other without form or actual presence, and merely a voice. Of the horrid occurrence which took place with the former, the following is related:-When a bold and enterprising young man, he won the affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered the amour, and murdered his wife; but the murderer was the same night found dead in the street, and there was no one on whom any suspicion could be attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and these spirits haunted him all his life after. "This romantic incident is rendered highly probable by innumerable allusions to it in his poems. As, for instance, when, turning his sad contemplations inwards, he applies to himself the fatal history of the king of Sparta. It is as follows:-Pausanias, a Lacedæmonian general, acquires glory by the important victory at Platea, but afterwards forfeits the confidence of his countrymen through his arrogance, obstinacy, and secret intrigues with the enemies of his country. This man draws upon himself the heavy guilt of innocent blood, which attends him to his end; for, while commanding the fleet of the allied Greeks, in the Black Sea, he is inflamed with a violent passion for a Byzantine maiden. After long resistance, he at length ob tains her from her parents, and she is to be delivered up to him at night. She modestly desires the servant to put out the lamp, and, while groping her way in the dark, she overturns it. Pausanias is awakened from his sleep-apprehensive of an attack from murderers, he seizes his sword, and destroys his mistress. The horrid sight never leaves him. Her shade pursues him unceasingly, and he implores for aid in vain from the gods and the exorcising priests. "That poet must have a lacerated heart who selects such a scene from antiquity, appropriates it to himself, and burdens his tragic image with it. The following soliloquy, which is overladen with gloom and a weariness of life, is, by this remark, rendered intelligible. We recommend it as an exercise to all friends of declamation. Hamlet's soliloquy appears improved upon here."-Goethe here subjoins Manfred's soliloquy, beginning "We are the fools of time and terror," in which the allusion to Pausanias occurs. The reader will not be sorry to pass from this German criticism to that of the Edinburgh Review on Manfred:— "This is, undoubtedly, a work of great genius and origi nality. Its worst fault, perhaps, is that it fatigues and overawes us by the uniformity of its terror and solemnity. Another is the painful and offensive nature of the circumstance on which its distress is ultimately founded. The lyrical songs of the Spirits are too long, and not all excellent. There is something of pedantry in them now and then; and even Manfred deals in classical allusions a little too much. If we were to consider it as a proper drama, or even as a finished poem, we should be obliged to add, that it is far too indistinct and unsatisfactory. But this we take to be according to the design and conception of the author. He contemplated but a dim and magnificent • "The grave confidence with which the venerable critic traces the fancies of lus brother poet to real persons and events, making no dif ficulty even of a double murder at Florence to furnish grounds for his theory, affords an amusing instance of the disposition so prevalent throughout Europe, to picture Byron as a man of marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as his poetry. To these exaggerated or wholly false notions of him, the numerous fictions palmed upon the world of his romantic tours and wonderful adventures, in places he never saw, and with persons that never existed, have, no doubt, considerably contributed; and the consequence is, so utterly out of truth and nature are the representations of his life and character long current upon the Continent, that it may be questioned whether the real flesh and blood hero of these pages,-the social, practicalminded, and, with all his faults and eccentricities, English Lord Byron, may not, to the over-exalted imaginations of most of his foreign admirers, appear but an ordinary, unromantic, and prosaic per sonage."-Moore.-L. E. sketch of a subject which did not admit of more accurate 0 thou art fairer than the evening ayre, The catastrophe, too, is bewailed in verses of great elegance and classical beauty— Cut is the branch that might have growne full straight, That sometime grew within this learned man. But these and many other smooth and fanciful verses in this curious old drama prove nothing, we think, against the originality of Manfred; for there is nothing to be found there of the pride, the abstraction, and the heart-rooted misery in which that originality consists. Faustus is a vulgar sorcerer, tempted to sell his soul to the devil for the ordinary price of sensual pleasure, and earthly power and glory; and who shrinks and shudders in agony when the forfeit comes to be exacted. The style, too, of Marlow, though elegant and scholar-like, is weak and childish, compared with the depth and force of much of Lord Byron; and the disgusting buffoonery and low farce of which his piece is principally made up place it more in contrast, than in any terms of comparison, with that of his noble successor. In the tone and pitch of the composition, as well as in the character of the diction in the more solema parts, Manfred reminds us much more of the Prometheus of Eschylus, than of any more modern performance. The tremendous solitude of the principal person-the supernatural beings with whom alone he holds communien-the guilt the firmness-the misery-are all points of resemblance, to which the grandeur of the poetic imagery only gives a more striking effect. The chief differences are, that the subject of the Greek poet was sanctified and exalted by the established belief of his country, and that his terrors are nowhere tempered with the sweetness which breathes from so many passages of his English rival." ¦ Jeffrey.-L. E. On reading this, Lord Byron wrote from Venice :-" Jeffrey = very kind about Manfred, and defends its originality, which I did not know that any body had attacked. As to the germs of it, they may be found in the Journal which I sent to Mrs. Leigh, shortly before 1 left Switzerland. I have the whole scene of Manfred before me, as if it was but yesterday, and could point it out, spot by spot, torrent and all."-L. E. 1 $"Of the Prometheus of Eschylus I was passionately fond as a boy! (it was one of the Greek plays we read thrice a-year at Harrow};! indeed, that and the Medea were the only ones, except the Seven be fore Thebes, which ever much pleased me. The Prometheus, if not exactly in my plan, has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive its influence over all or any thing that I have written. but I deny Marlow and his progeny, and beg that you will do the same."-B. Letters, 1817.-L. E. Ar Ferrara, in the Library, are preserved the original MSS. of Tasso's Gerusalemme and of GuariDi's Pastor Fido, with letters of Tasso, one from Titian to Ariosto, and the inkstand and chair, the tomb and the house of the latter. But, as misfortune has a greater interest for posterity, and little or none for the cotemporary, the cell where Tasso was confined in the hospital of St. Anna attracts a more fixed attention than the residence or the monument of Ariosto There are two -at least it had this effect on me. inscriptions, one on the outer gate, the second over the cell itself, inviting, unnecessarily, the wonder and (1) The original MS. of this poem is dated, "The ApenIt was written in consequence nines, April 20, 1817." of Lord Byron having visited Ferrara, for a single day, In a letter from Rome, he on his way to Florence. says, "The Lament of Tasso, which I sent from Florence, . has, I trust, arrived. I look upon it as a These be good rhymes as Pope's papa said to him when he was a boy." "In a moment of dissatisfaction with himself, or during some melancholy mood, when his soul felt the worthlessness of fame and glory, Lord Byron told the world that his Muse should, for a long season, shroud herself in solitude; and every true lover of genius lamented that her lofty music was to cease. But there was a tide in his spirit obeying the laws of its nature, and not to be conWhen he said that he was to trolled by any human will. be silent, he looked, perhaps, into the inner regions of his soul, and saw there a dim, hard, and cheerless waste, like the sand of the sea-shore; but the ebbed waves of passion in due course returned, and the scene was restored to its former beauty and magnificence,-its foam, its splendours, and its thunder. The mind of a mighty poet cannot submit even to chains of its own imposing: when it feels most enslaved, even then, perhaps, is it about to become most free; and one sudden flash may raise it from the darkness of its despondency up to the pure air of untroubled confidence. It required, therefore, but small knowledge of human nature, to assure ourselves that the obligation under which Lord Byron had laid himself could not bind, and that the potent spirit within him would laugh to scorn whatever dared to curb the frenzy of its own inspirations. "It was not long, therefore, till he again came forth in his perfect strength, and exercised that dominion over our spi. rits which is truly a power too noble to be possessed without being wielded. Though all his heroes are of one family, yet are they a noble band of brothers, whose countenances and whose souls are strongly distinguished by peculiar characteristics. Each personage, as he advances before us, reminds us of some other being, whose looks, thoughts, words, and deeds had troubled us by their wild and perturbed grandeur. But though all the same, yet are they all strangely different. We hail each successive existence with a profounder sympathy; and we are lost in wonder, in fear, and in sorrow, at the infinitely-varied struggles, the endless and agonising modifications of the human passions, as they drive along through every gate and avenue of the soul, darkening or brightening, elevating or laying prostrate. "From such agitating and terrific pictures, it is delightful to turn to those compositions in which Lord Byron has allowed his soul to sink down into gentler and more ordinary feelings. Many beautiful and pathetic strains have flowed from his heart, of which the tenderness is as touching as the grandeur of his nobler works is agitating and sublime. To those, indeed, who looked deeply into his poetry, there never was at any time a want of pathos; but it was a pathos so subduing and so profound, that even the poet himself neemed afraid of being delivered up unto it ; nay, he seemed ashamed of being overcome by emotions, which the gloomy the indignation of the spectator. Ferrara is much decayed, and depopulated: the castle still exists entire; and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon. (1) THE LAMENT OF TASSO. 1. LONG years! It tries the thrilling frame to bear, pride of his intellect often vainly strove to scorn; and be "But there is one poem in which he has almost wholly laid aside all remembrance of the darker and stormier passions; in which the tone of his spirit and his voice at once is changed, and where he who seemed to care only for agonies, and remorse, and despair, and death, and insanity, in all their most appalling forms, shows that he has a heart that can feed on the purest sympathies of our nature, and deliver itself up to the sorrows, the sadness, and the melancholy of humbler souls. The Prisoner of Chillon is a poem over which Infancy has shed its first mysterious tears for sorrows so alien to its own happy innocence,-over which the gentle, pure, and pious soul of Woman has brooded with ineffable, and yearning, and bursting tenderness of affection, and over which old Age, almost loosened from this world, has bowed his hoary head in delighted approbation of that fraternal love, whose beauty and simplicity fling a radiance over the earth he is about to leave, and exhibit our fallen nature in near approximation to the glories of its ultimate destiny. The Lament possesses much of the tenderness and pathos of the Prisoner of Chillon. Lord Byron has not delivered himself unto any one wild and fearful vision of the imprisoned Tasso,-he has not dared to allow himself to rush forward with headlong passion into the horrors of his dungeon, and to describe, as he could fearfully have done, the conflict and agony of his uttermost despair, but he shows us the poet sitting in his cell, and singing there-a low, melancholy, wailing lament, sometimes, indeed, bordering on utter wretchedness, but oftener partaking of a settled grief, occasionally subdued into mourn ful resignation, cheered by delightful remembrances, and elevated by the confident hope of an immortal fame. His is the gathered grief of many years, over which his soul has brooded, till she has in some measure lost the power of misery; and this soliloquy is one which we can believe he might have uttered to himself any morning, or noon, or night of his solitude, as he seemed to be half communing with own heart, and half addressing the ear of that human nature from which he was shut out, but of which he felt the continual and abiding presence within his imagination.' Wilson.-L. E. (2) Tasso's biographer, the Abate Serassi, has left it without doubt, that the first cause of the poet's punishment was his desire to be occasionally, or altogether, free from his servitude at the court of Alfonso. In 1575, Tasso resolved to visit Rome, and enjoy the indulgence of the ju bilee; and this error," says the Abate, "increasing the suspicion already entertained, that he was in search of another service, was the origin of his misfortunes. On his return to Ferrara, the Duke refused to admit him to an audience, and he was repulsed from the houses of all the dependants of the court; and not one of the promises which the Cardinal Albano had obtained for him were carried into And the mind's canker in its savage mood, And I can banquet like a beast of prey, Which is my lair, and-it may be-my grave. (1) How Salem's shrine was won, and how adored. II. But this is o'er-my pleasant task is done;-(2) effect. Then it was that Tasso-after having suffered these hardships for some time, seeing himself constantly discountenanced by the Duke and the Princesses, abandoned by his friends, and derided by his enemies-could no longer contain himself within the bounds of moderation, but, giving vent to his choler, publicly broke forth into the most injurious expressions imaginable, both against the Duke and all the house of Este, cursing his past service, and retracting all the praises he had ever given in his verses to those princes, or to any individual connected with them, declaring that they were all a gang of poltroons, ingrates, and scoundrels (poltroni, ingrati, e ribaldi). For this offence he was arrested, conducted to the hospital of St. Anna, and confined in a solitary cell as a madman." Serassi, Vita del Tasso.-L. E. (1) In the hospital of St. Anna, at Ferrara, they show a cell, over the door of which is the following inscription: -Rispettate, O posteri, la celebrità di questa stanza, dove Torquato Tasso, infermo più di tristezza che delirio, ditenuto dimorò anni vii. mesi ii., scrisse verse e prose, e fu rimesso in libertà ad instanza della città di Bergamo, nel giorno vi. Luglio, 1586.'--The dungeon is below the groundfloor of the hospital, and the light penetrates through its grated window from a small yard, which seems to have been common to other cells. It is nine paces long, between five and six wide, and about seven feet high. The bedstead, so they tell, has been carried off piecemeal, and the door half cut away by the devotion of those whom the verse and prose' of the prisoner have brought to Ferrara. The poet With this last bruise upon a broken reed. Nor cause for such: they call'd me mad-and why? I was indeed delirious in my heart The wretched are the faithful; 'tis their fate But ours is fathomless, and hath no shore. III. Above me, hark! the long and maniac cry Is wound up to the lust of doing ill: (4) was carried into effect at the intercession of Don Vincenzo Gonzago, Prince of Mantua." Hobhouse.-L. E. (2) "The opening lines bring the poet before us at once, as if the door of the dungeon was thrown open. From this bitter complaint, how nobly the unconquered bard rises into calm, and serene, and dignified exultation over the beauty of that young creation, his soul's child,' the Gerusalemme Liberata. The exultation of conscious genius then dies away, and we behold him, 'bound between distraction and disease,' no longer in an inspired mood, but sunk into the lowest prostration of human misery. There is something terrible in this transition from divine rapture to degraded agony." Wilson.-L. E. (3) In a letter to his friend Scipio Gonzaga, shortly after his confinement, Tasso exclaims,-"Ah, wretched me! I had designed to write, besides two epic poems of most noble ar gument, four tragedies, of which I had formed the plan. I had schemed, too, many works in prose, on subjects the most lofty, and most useful to human life; 1 had designed to write philosophy with eloquence, in such a manner that there might remain of me an eternal memory in the world. Alas! I had expected to close my life with glory and renown; but now, oppressed by the burden of so many calamities, I have lost every prospect of reputation and of honour. The fear of perpetual imprisonment increases my melancholy; the indignities which I suffer augment it; and the squalor of my beard, my hair, and habit, the sordidness and filth, exceedingly annoy me. Sure am I that, if sur, who so little has corresponded to my attachment-if she saw me in such a state, and in such affliction-she would have some compassion on me." Opere, t. x. p. 387.-L. E. (4) "For nearly the first year of his confinement Tasso endured all the horrors of a solitary cell, and was under the care of a gaoler whose chief virtue, although he was a poet and a man of letters, was a cruel obedience to the |