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first drooped under the effects of protracted imprisonment, more bitter to one bred a warrior and a huntsman, The sickness and pining of the other, a youth of a milder and more affectionate character, is feelingly described.

.. VIII.

'But he, the favourite and the flower,
Most cherish'd since his natal hour,
His mother's image in fair face,
The infant love of all his race,
His martyred father's dearest thought,
My latest care, for whom I sought
To hoard my life, that his might be
Less wretched now, and one day free;
He, too, who yet had held untired
A spirit natural or inspired—

He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was withered on the stalk away.'

The effects of the survivor's sorrow succeed. At first, furious and frantic at feeling himself the only being in this black spot, and every link burst which bound him to humanity, he gradually falls into the stupor of despair and of apathy, the loss of sensation, of light, air, and even of darkness.

I had no thought, no feeling-none-
Among the stones I stood a stone,

And was, scarce conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank and bleak and gray.
There were no stars, no earth, no time,
No check, no change, no good, no crime;
But silence, and a stirless breath,
Which neither was of life or death,

A sea of stagnant idleness,

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!"

The effects produced on the mind of the captive, by the casual visit of a bird, and by the view of the lake from the loop-hole of his prison, are next described. An extract from the latter shall form our last specimen of the poem.

'I heard the torrents leap and gush

O'er channell❜d rock and broken bush:
I saw the white-wall'd distant town,
And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle,
Which in my very face did smile,

The only one in view;

A small green isle, it seem'd no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
But in it there were three tall trees,

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And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,

And by it there were waters flowing,

And on it there were young flowers growing,
Of gentle breath and hue.'

Freedom at length comes when the captive of Chillon, reconciled to his prison, had learned to consider it as a hermitage all his own,' and had become friends with the very shackles which he wore.

It will readily be allowed that this singular poem is more powerful than pleasing. The dungeon of Bonnivard is, like that of Ugolino, a subject too dismal for even the power of the painter or poet to counteract its horrors. It is the more disagreeable, as affording human hope no anchor to rest upon, and describing the sufferer, though a man of talents and virtues, as altogether inert and powerless under his accumulated sufferings. Yet as a picture, however gloomy the covering, it may rival any which Lord Byron has drawn, nor is it possible to read it without a sinking of the heart, corresponding with that which he describes the victim to have suffered.

We have said that Lord Byron occasionally, though without concealing his own original features, assumes the manner and style of his contemporaries. Of these we have more than one instance in the present collection. It is impossible to read the Prisoner of Chillon without finding several passages-that last quoted, for example, which strongly reminds us of Wordsworth. There is another, called Churchill's Grave,' for which Southey seems to afford the model, not in his epic strains, but in his English eclogues, in which moral truths are expressed, to use the poet's own language, in an almost colloquial plainness of language,' and an air of quaint and original expression, assumed to render the sentiment at once impressive and piquant. The grave of Churchill, however, might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance between their history and character. The satire of Churchill flowed with a more profuse, though not a more embittered stream; while, on the other hand, he cannot be compared to Lord Byron in point of tenderness or imagination. But both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise, The writings of both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill regulated generosity of mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness. In the flower of his age Churchill died in a foreign

land, here we trust the parallel will cease, and that the subject of our criticism will long survive to honour his own.

Two other pieces in this miscellany recall to our mind the wild, unbridled, and fiery imagination of Coleridge. To this poet's high poetical genius we have always paid deference; though not uniformly perhaps, he has, too frequently for his own popularity, wandered into the wild and mystic, and left the reader at a loss accurately to determine his meaning. Perhaps in that called the Spell' the resemblance may be fanciful, but we cannot allow it to be so in the singular poem called Darkness,' well entitled

'A dream which is not all a dream.'

In this case our author has abandoned the art, so peculiarly his own, of showing the reader where his purpose tends, and has contented himself with presenting a mass of powerful ideas unarranged, and the meaning of which we certainly confess ourselves not always able to attain. A succession of terrible images is placed before us flitting and mixing, and disengaging themselves as in the dream of a feverish man-Chimeras dire, to whose existence the mind refuses credit, which confound and weary the ordinary reader, and baffle the comprehension even of those more accustomed to the flights of a poetic muse. The subject is the progress of utter darkness, until it becomes, in Shakspeare's phrase, the 'burier of the dead,' and the assemblage of terrific ideas which the poet has placed before us, only fail in exciting our terror from the extravagance of the plan. These mystical prolusions do indeed produce upon us the effect described in Henry Mur's lines quoted in Southey's Omniana

A lecture strange he seem'd to read to me;

And though I did not rightly understand
His meaning, yet I deemed it to be
Some goodly thing.'

But the feeling of reverence which we entertain for that which is difficult of comprehension, gives way to weariness whenever we begin to suspect that it cannot be distinctly comprehended by

any one.

To speak plainly, the framing of such phantasms is a dangerous employment for the exalted and teeming imagination of such a poet as Lord Byron, whose Pegasus has ever required rather a bridle than a spur. The waste of boundless space into which they lead the poet, the neglect of precision which such themes may render habitual, make them, in respect to poetry, what mysticism is to religion. The meaning of the poet as he ascends upon cloudy wing becomes the shadow only of a thought, and having cluded the comprehension others, necessarily ends

by escaping from that of the author himself. The strength of poetical conception, and beauty of diction, bestowed upon such prolusions, is as much thrown away as the colours of a painter, could he take a cloud of mist, or a wreath of smoke for his

canvass.

Omitting one or two compositions of less interest we cannot but notice the 'Dream,' which, if we do not misconstrue it, has a covert and mysterious relation to the tale of Childe Harold. It is written with the same power of poetry, nor have we here to complain of obscurity in the mode of narrating the vision, though we pretend not to the skill or information necessary to its interpretation. It is difficult, however, to mistake who or what is meant in the conclusion, and more especially as the tone too well agrees with similar passages in the continuation of Childe Harold.

The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,

The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compass'd round
With Hatred and Contention.

he lived

Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains: with the stars

And the quick Spirit of the Universe

He held his dialogues; and they did teach

To him the magic of their mysteries;

To him the book of Night was opened wide,

And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd

A marvel and a secret-Be it so.'-pp. 44, 45.

The reader is requested to contrast these lines with the stern and solemn passage in which Childe Harold seems to bid a long and lasting farewell to social intercourse, and, with exceptions so cautiously restricted and guarded as to be almost none, brands the mass of humanity whom he leaves behind him as false and treacherous.

CXIII.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow'd
To its idolatries a patient knee,-

Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles,-nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo; in the crowd

They could not deem me one of such; I stood

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud

Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could

Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

CXIV.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me,-
But let us part fair foes; I do believe,

Though I have found them not, that there may be

Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave

Snares for the failing: I would also deem

O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve;
That two, or one, are almost what they seem,—

That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.'—pp. 61, 62. Though the last of these stanzas has something in it mystic and enigmatical, yet with the passage already quoted from the Dream,' and some other poems which are already before the public, they remove the scrupulous delicacy with which otherwise we would have avoided allusion to the mental sufferings of the noble poet. But to uncover a wound is to demand a surgeon's hand to tent it. With kinder feelings to Lord Byron in person and reputation no one could approach him than ourselves: we owe it to the pleasure which he has bestowed upon us, and to the honour he has done to our literature. We have paid our warmest tribute to his talents-it is their due. We will touch on the uses for which he was invested with them-it is our duty; and happy, most happy, should we be, if, in discharging it, we could render this distinguished author a real service. We do not assume the office of harsh censors; we are entitled at no time to do so towards genius, least of all in its hour of adversity; and we are prepared to make full allowance for the natural effect of misfortune upon a bold and haughty spirit.

When the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knee of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, the Thing of Courage
As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize,
And, with an accent tuned in the self-same key,
Returns to chiding fortune.'-

But this mode of defiance may last too long, and hurry him who indulges it into further evils; and to this point our observations tend. The advice ought not to be contemned on account of the obscurity of those by whom it is given:-the roughest fisherman is an useful pilot when a gallant vessel is near the breakers; the meanest shepherd may be a sure guide over a pathless heath, and the admonition which is given in well meant kindness should not be despised, even were it tendered with a frankness which may resemble a want of courtesy.

If the conclusion of Lord Byron's literary career were to be such as these mournful verses have anticipated-if this darkness of the spirit, this scepticism concerning the existence of worth, of friendship, of sincerity, were really and permanently to sink like a gulf between this distinguished poet and society, another name

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