Mazeppa, when a youth, was taken into the household of John Casimir, the Palatine of Padolia. Here he profited by the means of improvement which were placed within his reach, and not only became highly accomplished in all the martial exercises of the time, but even made such a progress in the study of polite literature as was very remarkable for a person of his age, and the inhabitant of a very dissolute court.

His person and figure were remarkably handsome, and this, added to his other accomplishments, placed him very high in the favor of the ladies of the Palatine's court. Among others, the young wife of a Polish nobleman was smitten with his charms, and the youthful Mazeppa was on his part no less deeply enamoured.

The husband of the lady was a savage old tyrant, whose severity and indifference towards his young and beautiful wife had made her detest him; to love a man of his age would have been impossible. The Polish noble was as jealous as he ought to be, and, having narrowly watched his wife, he discovered her intrigue with Mazeppa. He then, under the pretext of some state business, withdrew himself from his castle, and thus gave the lovers an opportunity of meeting, as they fancied, in perfect security. The old dragon, however, watched his time so well, that, returning in the middle of the night, he found Mazeppa in the chamber of the countess.

The guilty pair attempted no explanation; their crime was too manifest to admit of palliation or excuse. The count, without a moment's hesitation, began to put in practice the scheme which he had long contrived. His servants immediately bound Mazeppa hand and foot, and carried him down to the court-yard. Here there was a horse held by other servants. The animal was one of those young colts who are sometimes taken wild, straggling from the deserts of the Ukraine.

Upon this animal the youth was bound so tightly that he could not move hand nor foot. The gates were then set wide, and the steed urged on with a violent blow. The efforts of Mazeppa to extricate himself from the bonds which held him only added to the rage and terror of the horse, and increased his speed. He bounds madly along the plain with unslacked speed until he reaches his native deserts. The herd, from which accident had separated him, approach as he reaches it; but, terrified at the strange appearance of a man bound upon his back, they gallop off. The animal's strength fails-he sinks-aud dies. Mazeppa also swoons, exhausted with the rapidity of his journey, the

irksomeness of his position, and waut of food,-for the journey has occupied a long period. When he recovers he finds that he is in the cottage of some Cossack peasants, by one of whom he had been found and succoured. His good fortune then begins; his acquirements and his military skill raise him to a high place among the Cossacks; he is at length invested with the command of one of their tribes, and afterwards made Prince of the Ukraine,—a sovereign lord over as bold and numerous, though not so rich a race, as any in Europe.

The poem, from which the necessity of describing its contents has caused us to digress a little, begins with telling of the retreat of Charles XII. after the fight of Pultowa. The monarch has been wounded in the battle, and the flight has exhausted his strength. He reaches a forest, and is surrounded by a few of the friends who remained faithful to him in his losses. He lies down at the foot of a tree, but the pain of his wounds prevents him from enjoying the slumbers in which his weary followers are soon wrapt.

Among these followers is the Count Mazeppa; and the manner in which the rough veteran is said to make the best of the bad fare to which he is reduced shows Lord Byron's power of description and his keen observation in a remarkable point of view. It is soldierlike and unaffected, and brings the whole of the objects it speaks of before the reader's view. Speaking of the count, he says

Mazeppa made

His pillow in an old oak's shade-
Himself as rough, and scarce less old,
The Ukraine's Hetman, calm and bold;
But first, outspent with this long course,
The Cossack prince rubbed down his horse.
And made for him a leafy bed,

And smoothed his fetlocks and his mane,
And slacked his girth, and stripped his rein,

And joyed to see how well he fed ;

For until now he had the dread

His wearied courser might refuse

To browse beneath the midnight dews:

But he was hardy as his lord,

And little cared for bed and board;

But spirited and docile too;

Whate'er was to be done, would do.

Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb,
All Tartar-like he carried him;
Obeyed his voice, and came at call,
And knew him in the midst of all:
Though thousands were around and Night,
Without a star, pursued her flight-
That steed from sunset until dawn

His chief would follow like a fawn.

This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak,
And laid his lance beneath his oak,
Felt if his arms in order good

The long day's march had well withstood-
If still the powder filled the pan,

And flints unloosened kept their lock

His sabre's hilt and scabbard felt,

And whether they had chafed his belt-
And next the venerable man,

From out his haversack and can,

Prepared and spread his slender stock;
And to the monarch and his men

The whole or portion offered then
With far less of inquietude

Than courtiers at a banquet would.

Charles compliments the hetman and his horse, and Mazeppa shortly replies that he has no great cause to be proud of the school in which he learned to ride. This provokes some questions from the king, and Mazeppa prepares to relate his story in the hope of lulling his monarch to sleep.

He then tells the story of his intrigue with the Polish countess-of his detection by her husband-and the vengeance which the latter took upon him. The manner of his journey, when tied to the wild horse's back, is curiously told:

Away, away, my steed and 1,

Upon the pinions of the wind,
All human dwellings left behind;
We sped like meteors through the sky,
When with its crackling sound the night
Is chequered with the northern light:
Town-village-none were on our track,
But a wild plain of far extent,

And bounded by a forest black;

And, save the scarce seen battlement
On distant heights of some strong hold,
Against the Tartars built of old,

No trace of man.'

The verses seem to partake of the wild and rapid course of the steed; and at length they describe so well the subject, that they really produce a sense of pain. Who can read the following extract without feeling that suppressed and ideal agony which proceeds from a frightful dream?

And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain
Upon the courser's bristling mane;
But, suorting still with rage and fear,
He flew upon his far career:
At times I almost thought, indeed,
He must have slackened in his speed;
But no-my bound and slender frame
Was nothing to his angry might,
And merely like a spur became :
Each motion which I made to free
My swoln limbs from their agony

Increased his fury and affright:
I tried my voice-'twas faint and low,
But yet he swerved as from a blow;
And, starting to each accent, sprang
As from a sudden trumpet's clang:
Meantime my cords were wet with gore,

Which, oozing through my limbs, ran o'er ;
And in my tongue the thirst became

A something fierier far than flame.'

Thus do they hurry on, leaving the swift-footed wolves, who would fain have pursued them, far behind. The pain is at length too much to be endured, and Mazeppa swoons upon the horse's back. When he recovers he finds it is night, and that the horse is swimming across a stream, the cold of whose waters has awakened the rider to a consciousness of his misery. The courser's fury was now spent, and he went along faint and feebly. Mazeppa knew he could, at this moment, have directed him whither he pleased; but his bound and helpless condition only made this knowledge the more bitter, since it was in vain. They

then come to the herd of wild horses. Mazeppa's steed looks at them: but his efforts to reach them are in vain; he sinks exhausted upon the ground, and dies. The herd bound off; and Mazeppa is left alone in the desert, without either help or hope:

And there from morn till twilight bound,

I felt the heavy hours toil round,
With just enough of life to see
My last of suns go down on me,
In hopeless certainty of mind.

The sun was sinking-still I lay

Chained to the chill and stiffening steed:

I thought to mingle there our clay;
And my din eyes of death had need
No hope arose of being freed:

I cast my last looks up the sky,

And there between me and the sun

I saw the expecting raven fly,

Who scarce would wait till both should die,
Ere his repast begun.

He flew, and perched, then flew once more,
And each time nearer than before;

I saw his wing through twilight flit,

And once so near me he alit

I could have smote, but lacked the strength;
But the slight motion of my hand,

And feeble scratching of the sand,
The exerted throat's faint struggling noise,
Which scarcely could be called a voice,
Together scared him off at length.

I know no more-my latest dream
Is something of a lovely star

Which fixed my duli eyes from afar,
And went and came with wandering beam
And of the cold, dull, swimming, dense
Sensation of recurring sense,
And then subsiding back to death,
And then again a little breath.
A little thrill, a short suspense,