All, except Lor., answer,

Yes.

Chief of the Ten. Heaven's peace be with him!
Mur. Signors, your pardon : this is mockery.
Juggle no more with that poor remnant, which,
A moment since, while yet it had a soul,

(A soul by whom you have increased your empire,
And made your power as proud as was his glory,)
You banish'd from his palace, and tore down
From his high place, with such relentless coldness;
And now, when he can neither know these honours,
Nor would accept them if he could, you, signors,
Purpose with idle and superfluous pomp,
To make a pageant over what you trampled.
A princely funeral will be your reproach,
And not his honour.

Chief of the Ten.

Lady, we revoke not

Our purposes so readily. Mar.

I know it,

As far as touches torturing the living.

I thought the dead had been beyond even you, Though (some, no doubt) consign'd to powers which

may

Resemble that you exercise on earth.

Leave him to me; you would have done so for
His dregs of life, which you have kindly shorten'd:
It is my last of duties, and may prove
A dreary comfort in my desolation.

[By a decree of the Council, the trappings of supreme power of which the Doge had divested himself while living, were restored to him when dead; and he was interred, with dical magnificence, in the church of the Minorites, the new Doge attending as a mourner. - See DARU.]

2 The Venetians appear to have had a particular turn for breaking the hearts of their Doges. The following is another instance of the kind in the Doge Marco Barbarigo: he was succeeded by his brother Agostino Barbarigo, whose chief merit is here mentioned. "Le doge, blessé de trouver constamment un contradicteur et un censeur si amer dans son frère, lui dit un jour en plein conseil: Messire Augustin, vous faites tout votre possible pour håter ma mort; vous vous flattez de me succéder; mais, si les autres vous connaissent aussi-bien que je vous connais, ils n'auront garde de vous élire.' Là-dessus il se leva, ému de colère, rentra dans son appartement, et mourut quelques jours après. Ce frère, contre lequel il s'était emporté, fut précisément le successeur qu'on lui donna C'était un mérite dont on aimait à tenir compte; surtout à un parent, de s'être mis en opposition avec le chef de la république."-DARU, Hist. de Venise, vol. ii. p. 533.

3" L'ha pagata." An historical fact. See Hist. de Venise, par P. Daru, t. ii. p. 411.-[Here the original MS. ends. The two lines which follow were added by Mr. Gifford. In the margin of the MS. Lord Byron has written," If the last line should appear obscure to those who do not recollect the historical fact, mentioned in the first act, of Loredano's in. scription in his book of Doge Foscari, debtor for the deaths of my father and uncle,' you may add the following lines to the conclusion of the last act :

Chief of the Ten. For what has he repaid thee?

Though his possessions have been all consumed
In the state's service, I have still my dowry,
Which shall be consecrated to his rites,
And those of

[She stops with agitation.
Chief of the Ten. Best retain it for your children.
Mar. Ay, they are fatherless, I thank you.
Chief of the Ten.

We

Cannot comply with your request. His relics
Shall be exposed with wonted pomp, and follow'd
Unto their home by the new Doge, not clad

As Doge, but simply as a senator.

Mar. I have heard of murderers, who have interr'd Their victims; but ne'er heard, until this hour, Of so much splendour in hypocrisy

O'er those they slew. 2 I've heard of widows' tears-
Alas! I have shed some-always thanks to you!
I've heard of heirs in sables-you have left none
To the deceased, so you would act the part

Of such. Well, sirs, your will be done! as one day
I trust, Heaven's will be done too!
Chief of the Ten.

Know you, lady,

For my father's

And father's brother's death by his son's and own! Ask Gifford about this."-E.]

[Considered as poems, we confess that "Sardanapalus" and "The Two Foscari" appear to us to be rather heavy, verbose, and inelegant deficient in the passion and energy which belongs to Lord Byron's other writings-and still more in the richness of imagery, the originality of thought, and the sweetness of versification for which he used to be distinguished They are for the most part solemn, prolix, and ostentatious-lengthened out by large preparations for catastrophes that never arrive, and tantalising us with slight specimens and glimpses of a higher interest scattered thinly up and down many weary pages of pompous declamation. Along with the concentrated pathos and homestruck sentiments of his former poetry, the noble author seems also we cannot imagine why to have discarded the spirited and melodious versification in which they were embodied, and to have formed to himself a measure equally remote from the spring and vigour of his former compositions, and from the softness and inflexibility of the ancient masters of the drama. There are some sweet lines, and many of great weight and energy; but the general march of the verse is cumbrous and unmusical. His lines do not vibrate like polished lances, at once strong and light, in the hands of his persons, but are wielded like clumsy batons in a bloodless affray. Instead of the graceful familiarity and idiomatical melodies of Shakspeare, it is apt, too, to fall into clumsy prose, in its approaches to the easy and colloquial style; and, in the loftier passages, is occasionally deformed by low and common images that harmonise but ill with the general solemnity of the diction.-JEFFREY.]

"On my calling on Lord Byron one morning, he produced the

Deformed Transformed' Handing it to Shelley, he said Shelley, I have been writing a Faustish kind of drama tell me what you think of it. After reading it attentively, Shelley returned it. 'Well,' said Lord B., how do you like it?" 'Least,' replied he, of any thing I ever saw of yours. It is a bad imitation of Faust,' and besides, there are two entire lines of Southey's in it.' Lord Byron changed colour immediately, and asked hastily,' what lines?' Shelley repeated,

And water shall see thee,

And fear thee, and flee thee.'

They are in the Curse of Kehama.' His Lordship instantly threw the poem into the fire. He seemed to feel no chagrin at seeing it consume—at least his countenance betrayed none, and his conversation became more gay and lively than usual. Whether it was hatred of Southey, or respect for Shelley's opinion, which made him commit the act that I considered a sort of suicide, was always doubtful to me. I was never more surprised than to see, two years afterwards, The Deformed Transformed' announced (supposing it to have perished at Pisa); but it seems that he must have had another copy of the manuscript, or that he had re-written it perhaps, without changing a word, except omitting the Kehama lines. His memory was remarkably retentive of his own writings. I be lieve he could have quoted almost every line he ever wrote." Mrs. Shelley, whose copy of "The Deformed Transformed" lies before us, has written as follows on the fly-leaf:

"This had long been a favourite subject with Lord Byron. I think that he mentioned it also in Switzerland. I copied it— he sending a portion of it at a time, as it was finished, to me. At this time he had a great horror of its being said that he plagiarised, or that he studied for ideas, and wrote with difficulty. Thus he gave Shelley Aikin's edition of the British Poets, that it might not be found in his house by some English lounger, and reported home: thus, too, he always dated when he began and when he ended a poem, to prove hereafter how quickly it was done. I do not think that he altered a line in this drama after he had once written it down. He composed and corrected in his mind. I do not know how he meant to finish it; but he said himself, that the whole conduct of the story was already conceived. It was at this time that a brutal paragraph alluding to his lameness appeared, which he re

No action of Lord Byron's life scarce a line he has written but was influenced by his personal defect."]

2 [Published in 1803, the work of a Joshua Pickersgill, jun.] 3 [A clever anonymous critic thus sarcastically opens his notice of this poem:-" The reader has no doubt often heard of the Devil and Dr. Faustus: this is but a new birth of the same unrighteous couple, who are christened, however, by the noble hierophant who presides over the infernal ceremony, Julius Cæsar and Count Arnold. The drama opens with a scene between the latter, who is to all appear. ance a well-disposed young man, of a very deformed persen, and his mother: this good lady, with somewhat less maternal piety about her than adorns the mother-ape in the fable, turas her dutiful incubus of a son out of doors to gather wood. Arnold, upon this, proceeds incontinently to kill himself, by falling, after the manner of Brutus, on his wood-knife: he is, however, piously dissuaded from this guilty act, by -- whom does the reader think? A monk, perhaps, or a methodist preacher? no; - but by the Devil himself, in the shape of a tall black man, who rises, like an African water-god, out of a fountain. To this stranger, after the exchange of a few sinister compliments, Arnold, without more ado, sells his soul, for the privilege of wearing the beautiful form of Achilles. In the midst of all this absurdity, we still, however, recognise the master-mind of our great poet : his bold and beautiful spirit flashes at intervals through the surrounding horrors, into which he has chosen to plunge after Goethe, his magnus Apollo."]

["One of the few pages of Lord Byron's Memoranda,' which related to his early days, was where, in speaking of his own sensitiveness on the subject of his deformed foot, he described the feeling of horror and humiliation that carse over him, when his mother, in one of her fits of passion, called him a lame brat!' It may be questioned, whether thes drama was not indebted for its origin to this single recollec tion."-MOORE.

"Lord Byron's own mother, when in ill humour with him, used to make the deformity in his foot the subject of taunta and reproaches. She would (we quote from a letter written by one of her relations in Scotland) pass from passionate caresses to the repulsion of actual disgust; then devour him with kisses again, and swear his eyes were as beautiful as bus father's." Quar. Rev.]

Arn.
I will: but when I bring it,
Speak to me kindly. Though my brothers are
So beautiful and lusty, and as free

As the free chase they follow, do not spurn me ;
Our milk has been the same.

Bert.
As is the hedgehog's,
Which sucks at midnight from the wholesome dam
Of the young bull, until the milkmaid finds
The nipple next day sore and udder dry. 1
Call not thy brothers brethren! Call me not
Mother; for if I brought thee forth, it was
As foolish hens at times hatch vipers, by
Sitting upon strange eggs. Out, urchin, out!
[Exit BERTHA.

Arn. (solus). Oh mother!- -She is gone, and I Her bidding; wearily but willingly [must do I would fulfil it, could I only hope

A kind word in return. What shall I do?
[ARNOLD begins to cut wood: in doing this he
wounds one of his hands.

My labour for the day is over now.
Accursed be this blood that flows so fast;
For double curses will be my meed now

At home-What home? I have no home, no kin,
No kind- -not made like other creatures, or

To share their sports or pleasures. Must I bleed too
Like them? Oh that each drop which falls to earth
Would rise a snake to sting them, as they have stung
me!

Or that the devil, to whom they liken me,
Would aid his likeness! If I must partake
His form, why not his power? Is it because
I have not his will too? For one kind word
From her who bore me would still reconcile me
Even to this hateful aspect. Let me wash
The wound.

[ARNOLD goes to a spring, and stoops to wash
his hand: he starts back.

They are right; and Nature's mirror shows me,
What she hath made me. I will not look on it
Again, and scarce dare think on 't. Hideous wretch
That I am! The very waters mock me with
My horrid shadow-like a demon placed
Deep in the fountain to scare back the cattle
From drinking therein.

[He pauses.
And shall I live on,
A burden to the earth, myself, and shame
Unto what brought me into life! Thou blood,
Which flowest so freely from a scratch, let me
Try if thou wilt not in a fuller stream
Pour forth my woes for ever with thyself
On earth, to which I will restore at once
This hateful compound of her atoms, and
Resolve back to her elements, and take
The shape of any reptile save myself,

And make a world for myriads of new worms!
This knife! now let me prove if it will sever
This wither'd slip of nature's nightshade-my

1 [This is now generally believed to be a vulgar error; the smallness of the animal's mouth rendering it incapable of the

Vile form-from the creation, as it hath The green bough from the forest.

[ARNOLD places the knife in the ground, with
the point upwards.
Now 'tis set,

And I can fall upon it. Yet one glance
On the fair day, which sees no foul thing like
Myself, and the sweet sun which warm'd me, but
In vain. The birds-how joyously they sing!
So let them, for I would not be lamented:
But let their merriest notes be Arnold's knell;
The fallen leaves my monument; the murmur
Of the near fountain my sole elegy.
Now, knife, stand firmly, as I fain would fall!
[As he rushes to throw himself upon the knife, his
eye is suddenly caught by the fountain, which
seems in motion.

The fountain moves without a wind: but shall
The ripple of a spring change my resolve?
No. Yet it moves again! The waters stir,
Not as with air, but by some subterrane
And rocking power of the internal world.
What's here? A mist! No more?-
[A cloud comes from the fountain.
gazing upon it; it is dispelled, and a tall
black man comes towards him.

Arn. Spirit or man?

Stran.

Say both in one? Arn.

He stands

What would you? Speak!

As man is both, why not

Your form is man's, and yet

You may be devil.
Stran.
So many men are that
Which is so call'd or thought, that you may add me
To which you please, without much wrong to either.
But come you wish to kill yourself; -pursue
Your purpose.

Arn.

You have interrupted me.

Stran. What is that resolution which can e'er Be interrupted? If I be the devil

You deem, a single moment would have made you
Mine, and for ever, by your suicide;
And yet my coming saves you.
Arn.
I said not
You were the demon, but that your approach
Was like one.

But you reject him?

Arn.

If his form could bring me That which redeem'd it—no. Stran.

I have no power To promise that; but you may try, and find it Easier in such a form, or in your own.

Arn. No. I was not born for philosophy, Though I have that about me which has need on't. Let him fleet on.

Stran. Be air, thou hemlock-drinker! [The shadow of Socrates disappears : another rises. Arn. What's here? whose broad brow and whose curly beard

And manly aspect look like Hercules, 3

Save that his jocund eye hath more of Bacchus
Than the sad purger of the infernal world,
Leaning dejected on his club of conquest,
As if he knew the worthlessness of those
For whom he had fought.

Thy Cleopatra's waiting.

Hence, triumvir!

[The shade of Anthony disappears: another rises.

[In one of Lord Byron's MS. Diaries we find the following passage:-" Alcibiades is said to have been successful in all his battles' but what battles? Name them! If you mention Cæsar, or Hannibal, or Napoleon, you at once rush upon Pharsalia, Munda, Alesia, Cannæ, Thrasymene, Trebia, Lodi, Marengo, Jena, Austerlitz, Friedland, Wagram, Moskwa: but it is less easy to pitch upon the victories of Alcibiades; though they may be named too, though not so readily as the Leuctra and Mantinea of Epaminondas, the Marathon of Miltiades, the Salamis of Themistocles, and the Thermopyla of Leonidas. Yet, upon the whole, it may be doubted, whether there be a name of antiquity which comes down with such a general charm as that of Alcibiades. Why? I cannot answer. Who can?"]

If there be atoms of him left, or even
Of the more solid gold that form'd his urn.
Arn. Who was this glory of mankind?
Stran.

The shame

lap!

[The shade of Demetrius Poliorcetes vanishes: another rises. I'll fit you still, Fear not, my hunchback: if the shadows of That which existed please not your nice taste, I'll animate the ideal marble, till

Your soul be reconciled to her new garment.
Arn. Content! I will fix here.
Stran.

I must commend
Your choice. The godlike son of the sea-goddess,
The unshorn boy of Peleus, with his locks
As beautiful and clear as the amber waves
Of rich Pactolus, roll'd o'er sands of gold,
Soften'd by intervening crystal, and
Rippled like flowing waters by the wind,

All vow'd to Sperchius as they were-behold them!
And him--as he stood by Polixena,

With sanction'd and with soften'd love, before
The altar, gazing on his Trojan bride,

With some remorse within for Hector slain
And Priam weeping, mingled with deep passion
For the sweet downcast virgin, whose young hand
Trembled in his who slew her brother. So
He stood i' the temple! Look upon him as
Greece look'd her last upon her best, the instant
Ere Paris' arrow flew.

As if I were his soul, whose form shall soon Envelope mine.

Stran. You have done well. The greatest Deformity should only barter with

The extremest beauty, if the proverb 's true
Of mortals, that extremes meet.
Arn.

I am impatient. Stran.

Come! Be quick!

As a youthful beauty

but his soul was all virtue, and from within him came such divine and pathetic things, as pierced the heart, and drew tears from the hearers."-PLATO.]

3 ["His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck A sun and moon; which kept their course, and lighted The little O, the earth.

His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm

Crested the world: his voice was propertied As all the tuned spheres," &c. - SHAKSPEARE.] 4["The beauty and mien of Demetrius Poliorcetes were so inimitable, that no statuary or painter could hit off a likeness. His countenance had a mixture of grace and dignity, and was at once amiable and awful, and the unsubdued and eager air of youth was blended with the majesty of the hero and the