MANFRED.

Ye mock me, but the power which brought ye here
Hath made you mine. Slaves! scoff not at my will;
The mind, the spirit, the Promethean spark,
The lightning of my being is as bright,
Pervading and far darting as your own,

And shall not yield to yours though coop'd in clay
Answer, or I will teach you what I am.

I then have call'd you from your realms in vain.

This impressive and original scene prepares the reader to wonder why it is that Manfred is so desirous to drink of: Lethe. He has acquired dominion over spirits, and he finds, in the possession of the power, that knowledge has only brought him sorrow. They tell him he is immortal, and what he suffers is as inextinguishable as his own being: why should he desire forgetfulness ?-Has he not committed a great

secret sin? What is it?-He alludes to his sister, and in his subsequent interview with the witch we gather a dreadful meaning concerning her fate. Her blood has been shed, not by his hand nor in punishment, but in the shadow and occultations of some unutterable crime and mystery.

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 own;
Ilov'd her and-destroy'd her—

WITCH.

With thy hand?

MANFRED.

Not with my hand, but heart, which broke her heart.
It gaz'd on mine, and withered. I have shed

Blood, but not hers, and yet her blood was shed ;-
I saw, and could not stanch it.

There is in this little scene, perhaps, the deepest pathos ever expressed; but it is not of its beauty that I am treating; my object in noticing it here is, that it may be considered in connexion with that where Manfred appears with his insatiate thirst of knowledge, and manacled with guilt. It indicates that his sister, Astarte, had been self-sacrificed in the pursuit of their magical knowledge. 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 efficacy could only be obtained by the novitiate's procuring a voluntary victim-the dearest object to himself, and to whom he 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 intimated to have been done amid the perturbations of something horrible.

Night after night for years

He hath pursued long vigils in this tower
Without a witness.-I have been within it-
So have we all been ofttimes; but from it,
Or its contents, it were impossible
To draw conclusions absolute of aught
His studies tend to.-To be sure there is
One chamber where none enter-***
Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower:
How occupied-we know not-but with him,

The sole companion of his wanderings

And watchings-her-whom of all earthly things
That liv'd, the only thing he seem'd to love.

With admirable taste, and in thrilling augmentation of the horror, the poet leaves the deed which

*The sacrifice of Antinous by the emperor Adrian is supposed to have been a sacrifice of that kind. Dion Cassius says, that Adrian, who had applied himself to the study of magic, being deceived by the principles of that black Egyptian art into a belief that he would be rendered immortal by a voluntary human sacrifice to the infernal gods, accepted the offer which Antinous made of himself.

I have somewhere met with a commentary on this to the following effect:

The Christian religion, in the time of Adrian, was rapidly spreading throughout the empire, and the doctrine of gaining eternal life by the expiatory offering was openly preached. The Egyptian priests, who pretended to be in possession of all knowledge, affected to be acquainted with this mystery also. The emperor was, by his taste and his vices, attached to the old religion; but he trembled at the truths disclosed by the revelation; and in this state of apprehension, his thirst of knowledge and his fears led him to consult the priests of Osiris and Isis; and they impressed him with a notion that the infernal deities would be appeased by the sacrifice of a human being dear to him, and who loved him so entirely as to lay down his life for him. Antinous, moved by the anxiety of his imperial master, when all others had refused, consented to sacrifice himself; and it was for this devotion that Adrian caused his memory to be hallowed with religious rites.

was done in that unapproachable chamber undivulged, while we are darkly taught, that within it lie the relics or the ashes of the " one without a tomb."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

State of Byron in Switzerland-He goes to Venice-The fourth Canto of Childe Harold-Rumination on his own Condition-Beppo-La ment of Tasso-Curious Example of Byron's metaphysical Love.

THE situation of Lord Byron in Switzerland was comfortless. He found that "the mountain palaces of Nature" afforded no asylum to a haunted heart; he was ill at ease with himself, even dissatisfied that the world had not done him enough of wrong to justify his misanthropy.

Some expectation that his lady would repent of her part in the separation probably induced him to linger in the vicinity of Geneva, the thoroughfare of the travelling English, whom he affected to shun. If it were so, he was disappointed, and, his hopes being frustrated, he broke up the establishment he had formed there and crossed the Alps. After visiting some of the celebrated scenes and places in the north of Italy he passed on to Venice, where he domiciled himself for a time.

During his residence at Venice Lord Byron avoided as much as possible any intercourse with his countrymen. This was perhaps in some degree necessary, and it was natural in the state of his mind. He had become an object of great public interest by his talents; the stories connected with his domestic troubles had also increased his notoriety, and in such circumstances he could not but shrink from the inquisition of mere curiosity. But there was an inso

lence in the tone with which he declares his "utter abhorrence of any contact with the travelling English," that can neither be commended for its spirit, nor palliated by any treatment he had suffered. Like Coriolanus he may have banished his country, but he had not, like the Roman, received provocation: on the contrary, he had been the aggressor in the feuds with his literary adversaries; and there was a serious accusation against his morals, or at least his manners, in the circumstances under which Lady Byron withdrew from his house. It was, however, his misfortune throughout life to form a wrong estimate of himself in every thing save in his poetical powers.

A life in Venice is more monotonous than in any other great city; but a man of genius carries with him every where a charm, which secures to him both variety and enjoyment. Lord Byron had scarcely taken up his abode in Venice, when he began the fourth canto of Childe Harold, which he published early in the following year, and dedicated to his indefatigable friend Mr. Hobhouse by an epistle dated on the anniversary of his marriage, "the most unfortunate day," as he says, " of his past existence."

In this canto he has indulged his excursive moralizing beyond even the wide license he took in the three preceding parts; but it bears the impression of more reading and observation. Though not superior in poetical energy, it is yet a higher work than any of them, and something of a more resolved and masculine spirit pervades the reflections, and endows, as it were, with thought and enthusiasm the aspect of the things described. Of the merits of the descriptions, as of real things, I am not qualified to judge: the transcripts from the tablets of the author's bosom he has himself assured us are faithful.

"With regard to the conduct of the last canto there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, sepa