112

LORD BYRON

MARINO FALIERO.

trial; and the former, after a vain intercession from Angiolina, who candidly admits the enormity of his guilt, and prays only for his life, is led, in his ducal robes, to the place where he was first consecrated a sovereign, and there publicly decapitated by the hands of the executioner.

We can afford but a few specimens of the execution. The following passage, in which the ancient Doge, while urging his gentle spouse to enter more warmly into his resentment, reminds her of the motives that had led him to seek her alliance, (her father's request, and his own desire to afford her orphan helplessness the highest and most unsuspected protection,) though not perfectly dramatic, has great sweetness and dignity; and reminds us, in its rich verbosity, of the moral and mellifluous parts of Massinger.

"Doge. For love, romantic love, which in my youth I knew to be illusion, and ne'er saw

Lasting, but often fatal, it had been

No lure for me, in my most passionate days,
And could not be so now, did such exist.
But such respect, and mildly paid regard
As a true feeling for your welfare, and
A free compliance with all honest wishes;
A kindness to your virtues, watchfulness
Not shown, but shadowing o'er such little failings
As youth is apt in, so as not to check

Rashly, but win you from them ere you knew

You had been won, but thought the change your choice;

A pride not in your beauty, but your conduct

A trust in you - a patriarchal love,

And not a doting homage-friendship, faith--
Such estimation in your eyes as these

Might claim, I hoped for."

"I trusted to the blood of Loredano

Pure in your veins; I trusted to the soul

God gave you to the truths your father taught you—
To

your belief in heaven-to your mild virtues

To your own faith and honour, for my own.—
Where light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities
Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart,
Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I know
"Twere hopeless for humanity to dream
Of honesty in such infected blood,
Although 'twere wed to him it covets most
An incarnation of the poet's god

SPLENDID DESCRIPTION.

113

In all his marble-chisell'd beauty, or

The demi-deity, Alcides, in

His majesty of superhuman manhood,

Would not suffice to bind where virtue is not.'

p. 50—53..

The fourth Act opens with the most poetical and brilliantly written scene in the play-though it is a soliloquy, and altogether alien from the business of the piece. Lioni, a young nobleman, returns home from a splendid assembly, rather out of spirits; and, opening his palace window for air, contrasts the tranquillity of the night scene which lies before him, with the feverish turbulence and glittering enchantments of that which he has just quitted. Nothing can be finer than this picture, in both its compartments. There is a truth and a luxuriance in the description of the route, which mark at once the hand of a master, and raise it to a very high rank as a piece of poetical painting-while the moonlight view from the window is equally grand and beautiful, and reminds us of those magnificent and enchanting lookings forth in Manfred, which have left, we will confess, far deeper traces on our fancy, than any thing in the more elaborate work before us. Lioni says,

I will try
Whether the air will ealm my spirits: 'tis
A goodly night; the cloudy wind which blew
From the Levant hath crept into its cave,
And the broad moon has brighten'd. What a stillness!
[Goes to an open lattice.

And what a contrast with the scene I left,
Where the tall torches' glare, and silver lamps'
More pallid gleam, along the tapestried walls,
Spread over the reluctant gloom which haunts
Those vast and dimly-latticed galleries

A dazzling mass of artificial light,

Which show'd all things, but nothing as they were, &c. -
The music, and the banquet, and the wine-

The garlands, the rose odours, and the flowers

The sparkling eyes and flashing ornaments

The white arms and the raven hair- the braids

And bracelets; swan-like bosoms, and the necklace,
An India in itself, yet dazzling not

The eye like what it circled; the thin robes

Floating like light clouds 'twixt our gaze and heaven;
The many-twinkling feet, so small and sylphlike,
Suggesting the more secret symmetry -

114

LORD BYRON

GENUINE POETRY.

Of the fair forms which terminate so well!

All the delusion of the dizzy scene,

Its false and true enchantments art and nature,
Which swam before my giddy eyes, that drank
The sight of beauty as the parch'd pilgrim's
On Arab sands the false mirage, which offers
A lucid lake to his eluded thirst,

Are gone. Around me are the stars and waters -
Worlds mirror'd in the ocean! goodlier sight
Than torches glared back by a gaudy glass;
And the great element, which is to space
What ocean is to earth, spreads its blue depths,
Soften'd with the first breathings of the spring;
The high moon sails upon her beauteous way,
Serenely smoothing o'er the lofty walls
Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces,
Whose porphyry pillars, and whose costly fronts,
Fraught with the orient spoil of many marbles,
Like altars ranged along the broad canal,
Seem each a trophy of some mighty deed

Rear'd up from out the waters, scarce less strangely
Than those more massy and mysterious giants
Of architecture, those Titanian fabrics,
Which point in Egypt's plains to times that have
No other record! All is gentle nought
Stirs rudely; but, congenial with the night,
Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit.
The tinklings of some vigilant guitars
Of sleepless lovers to a wakeful mistress,
And cautious opening of the casement, showing
That he is not unheard; while her young hand,
Fair as the moonlight of which it seems part,
So delicately white, it trembles in

The act of opening the forbidden lattice,
To let in love through music, makes his heart
Thrill like his lyre-strings at the sight!—the dash
Phosphoric of the oar, or rapid twinkle

Of the far lights of skimming gondolas,
And the responsive voices of the choir
Of boatmen, answering hack with verse for verse;
Some dusky shadow chequering the Rialto;

Some glimmering palace roof, or tapering spire,

Are all the sights and sounds which here pervade

The ocean-born and earth-commanding city."-p. 98 — 101.

and we

We can now afford but one other extract; take it from the grand and prophetic rant of which the unhappy Doge delivers himself at the place of execution. He asks whether he may speak; and is told he

may, but

MISCHIEF OF POETICAL SOPHISTRIES.

117

and against the reasonableness of religion in general; / and there is no answer so much as attempted to the offensive doctrines that are so strenuously inculcated. The Devil and his pupil have the field entirely to themselves and are encountered with nothing but feeble obtestations and unreasoning horrors. Nor is this argumentative blasphemy a mere incidental deformity that arises in the course of an action directed to the common sympathies of our nature. It forms, on the contrary, the great staple of the piece- and occupies, we should think, not less than two-thirds of it; so that it is really difficult to believe that it was written for any other purpose than to inculcate these doctrines or at least to discuss the question upon which they bear. Now, we can certainly have no objection to Lord Byron writing an Essay on the Origin of Evil-and sifting the whole of that vast and perplexing subject with the force and the freedom that would be expected and allowed in a fair philosophical discussion. But we do not think it fair, thus to argue it partially and con amore, in the name of Lucifer and Cain; without the responsibility or the liability to answer that would attach to a philosophical disputant-and in a form which both doubles the danger, if the sentiments are pernicious, and almost precludes his opponents from the possibility of a reply.

Philosophy and Poetry are both very good things in 77 their way; but, in our opinion, they do not go very well together. It is but a poor and pedantic sort of poetry that seeks chiefly to embody metaphysical subtilties and abstract deductions of reason-and a very suspicious philosophy that aims at establishing its doctrines by appeals to the passions and the fancy. Though such arguments, however, are worth little in the schools, it does not follow that their effect is inconsiderable in the world. On the contrary, it is the mischief of all poetical paradoxes, that, from the very limits and end of poetry, which deals only in obvious and glancing views, they are never brought to the fair test of argument. allusion to a doubtful topic will often pass for a definitive conclusion on it; and, when clothed in beautiful

An

118

CAIN'S SACRIFICIAL ADDRESS.

language, may leave the most pernicious impressions behind. In the courts of morality, poets are unexceptionable witnesses: they may give in the evidence, and depose to facts whether good or ill; but we demur to their arbitrary and self-pleasing summings up. They are suspected judges, and not very often safe advocates; where great questions are concerned, and universal principles brought to issue. But we shall not press this

point farther at present.

We shall give but one specimen, and that the least offensive we can find, of the prevailing tone of this extraordinary drama. It is the address (for we cannot call it prayer) with which Cain accompanies the offering of his sheaves on the altar- and directed to be delivered, standing erect.

"Spirit! whate'er or whosoe'er thou art,
Omnipotent, it may be--and, if good,

Shown in the exemption of thy deeds from evil;
Jehovah upon earth! and God in heaven!
And it may be with other names, because
Thine attributes seem many, as thy works:-
If thou must be propitiated with prayers,

'Take them! If thou must be induced with altars,
And soften'd with a sacrifice, receive them!

Two beings here erect them unto thee.

If thou lov'st blood, the shepherd's shrine, which smokes

On my right hand, hath shed it for thy service,

In the first of his flock, whose limbs now reek

In sanguinary incense to thy skies;

Or if the sweet and blooming fruits of earth,
And milder seasons, which the unstained turf

I spread them on now offers in the face

Of the broad sun which ripen'd them, may seem
Good to thee, inasmuch as they have not
Suffer'd in limb or life, and rather form
A sample of thy works, than supplication
To look on ours! If a shrine without victim,
And altar without gore, may win thy favour,
Look on it! and for him who dresseth it,

--

He is such as thou mad'st him; and seeks nothing
Which must be won by kneeling. If he's evil,
Strike him! thou art omnipotent, and may'st,-
For what can he oppose? If he be good,
Strike him, or spare him, as thou wilt! since all
Rests upon thee; and good and evil seem
To have no power themselves, save in thy will;