MAZEPPA. THE subject of this poem, which is so wild and improbable that its incidents seem more like the sequence of a troubled dream, than a matter of fact, is founded on the following circumstance. A Polish gentleman, named Mazeppa, was educated as page to John Casimir, at whose court he became imbued with some taste for elegant literature. It would seem that the culture of his morals kept not pace with the improvement of his intellect; for at an early age, he was detected in an intrigue with a lady, whose husband adopted the following singular mode of vengeance. He caused the young offender to be fastened, naked, on the back of a wild Ukraine horse, which bore the helpless rider, half dead with fatigue and hunger, back to its native wilds. Rescued from death by some peasants, the superiority of Mazeppa's knowledge gave him great importance amongst the Cossacks; and his reputation augmenting each day, obliged the Czar to make him prince of the Ukraine. Lord Byron has told the fearful speed of the wild horse with his usual power, and lingered over the love, which terminated so disastrously, with more than his usual tenderness. Mazeppa is himself the relater, when age has blunted the acute remembrance of his sufferings, and furrowed his brow, and stiffened his limbs, and dimmed all but the vision of youth and beauty, which rises in unchanged brightness at the name of Theresa. The artist has portrayed the scene, in which Mazeppa first suspects that his passion is returned, from the lady's indifference as to the result of the game at which they are engaged; whilst she continues to play "As if her will Yet bound her to the place, though not |