Who, born perchance for better things, had set His last ball had been aim'd, but from his breast His life upon a cast which linger'd yet :

He tore the topmost button from his vest,' But now the die was to be thrown, and all

Down the tube dash'd it, levellid, fired, and smiled The chances were in favour of his fall :

As his foe fell; then, like a serpent, coil'd And such a fall! But still he faced the shock, His wounded, weary form, to where the steep Obdurate as a portion of the rock

Look'd desperate as himself along the deep; Whereon he stood, and fix'd his leveli'd gun,

Cast one glance back, and clench'd his hand, and Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun.

shook

His last rage 'gainst the earth which he forsook ; XII.

Then plunged: the rock below received like glass The boat drew nigh, well arm'd, and firm the crew His body crush'd into one gory mass, To act whatever duty bade them do;

With scarce a shred to tell of hunian form, Careless of danger, as the onward wind

Or fragment for the sea-bird or the wor; Is of the leaves it strews, nor looks bebind.

A fair-hair'd scalp, besmear'd with blood and weeds, And yet perhaps they rather wish'd to go

Yet reek'd, the remnant of himself and decds; Against a nation's than a native foe,

Some splinters of his weapons (to the last, And felt that this poor victim of self-will,

As long as hand could hold, he held them fast) Briton no more, had once been Britain's still.

Yet glitter'd, but at distance - hurl'd away They hail'd him to surrender - no reply ;

To rust beneath the dew and dashing spray. Their arms were poised, and glitter'd in the sky.

The rest was nothing - save a life mis-spent, They hail'd again — no answer; yet once more

And soul - but who shall answer whcre it went ? They offer'd quarter louder than before.

'Tis ours to bear, not judge the dead; and they The echoes only, from the rock's rebound,

Who doom to hell, themselves are on the way, Took their last farewell of the dying sound.

Unless these bullies of eternal pains Then flash'd the fint, and blazed the volleying flame,

Are pardon'd their bad hearts for their worse brains. And the smoke rose between them and their aim, While the rock rattled with the bullets' knell, Which peal'd in vain, and flatten'd as they fell;

XIII. Then flew the only answer to be given

The deed was over! All were gone or ta'en, By those who had lost all hope in earth or heaven.

The fugitive, the captive, or the slain. After the first fierce peal, as they pulld nigher,

Chain'd on the deck, where once, a gallant crew, They heard the voice of Christian shout, “Now, fire !” They stood with honour, were the wretched few And ere the word upon the echo died,

Survivors of the skirmish on the isle; Two fell; the rest assail'd the rock's rough side,

But the last rock left no surviving spoil. And, furious at the madness of their foes,

Cold lay they where they fell, and weltering, Disdain'd all further efforts, save to close.

While o'er them flapp'd the sea-birds' dewy wing, But steep the crag, and all without a path,

Now wheeling nearer from the neighbouring surge, Each step opposed a bastion to their wrath,

And screaming high their harsh and hungry dirge : While, placed midst clefts the least accessible,

But calm and careless heaved the wave below, Which Christian's eye was train'd to mark full well,

Eternal with unsympathetic flow; The three maintain'd a strife which must not yield,

Far o'er its face the dolphins sported on, In spots where eagles might have chosen to build.

And sprung the flying fish against the sun, Their every shot told; while the assailant fell,

Till its dried wing relapsed from its brief height, Dash'd on the shingles like the limpet shell ;

To gather moisture for another fight.
But still enough survived, and mounted still,
Scattering their numbers here and there, until

XIV.
Surrounded and commanded, though not nigh

"T was morn; and Neuha, who by dawn of day Enough for seizure, near enough to die,

Swam smoothly forth to catch the rising ray, The desperate trio held aloof their fate

And watch if aught approach'd the amphibious lair But by a thread, like sharks who have gorged the bait; Where lay her lover, saw a sail in air : Yet to the very last they battled well,

It Happ'd, it fill'd, and to the growing gale And not a groan inform'd their foes who fell.

Bent its broad arch: her breath began to fail Christian died last – twice wounded ; and once more With fluttering fear, her heart beat thick and high, Mercy was offer'd when they saw his gore;

While yet a doubt sprung where its course might lie. Too late for life, but not too late to die,

But no! it came not; fast and far away With, though a hostile hand, to close his eye.

The shadow lessen'd as it clear'd the bay. A limb was broken, and he droop'd along

She gazed, and Aung the sea-foam from her eyes, The crag, as doth a falcon rest of young.

To watch as for a rainbow in the skies. The sound revived him, or appcard to wake

On the horizon verged the distant deck, Somne passion which a weakly gesture spike :

Diminish'd, dwindled to a very speck He beckon'd to the foremost, who drew nigii.

Then vanish'd. All was ocean, all was joy! But, as they near'd, he reard his weapon high Down plunged she through the cave to rouse her boy;

I In Thibault's account of Frederic the Second of Prussia, there is a sin zular relation of a young Frenchinan, who with his mistress appeared to be of some rank. He enlisted and deserted at Schweidnitz; and aiter a desperate resistance was retaken, having killed an otlicer, who attempted to seize liim alter he was wounded, by tlie discharrs of his musket loaded with a bulton ot' his uniform. Some circunstances on

his court-martial raised a great interest amongst his judges, who wished to discover his real situation in life, which he offered to disclose, but to the king only, to whom he requested permission to write. This was refused, and Frederic was filled with the greatest indignation, from bailte curiosity or some other motive, when he understood that his request had been denied.

But grief should be the instructor of the wise ;
Sorrow is knowledge : they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.
Philosophy and science, and the springs
Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world,
I have essay'd, and in my mind there is
A power to make these subject to itself-
But they avail not: I have done men good,
And I have met with good even among men-
But this avail'd not : I have had my foes,
And none have baffled, many fallen before me —
But this avail'd not :- Good, or evil, life,
Powers, passions, all I see in other beinys,

Have been to me as rain unto the sands,
Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread,
And feel the curse to have no natural fear,
Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes,
Or lurking love of something on the earth. -
Now to my task.

Mysterious Agency!
Ye spirits of the unbounded Universe !!
Whom I have sought in darkness and in light-
Ye, who do compass earth about, and dwell
In subtler essence — ye, to whom the tops
Of mountains inaccessible are haunts, o
And earth's and ocean's caves familiar things -
I call upon ye by the written charm

not publish it (if it ever is published) without giving me muses and suffers from the beginning to the end. His disprevious notice. I have really and truly no notion whether tresses are the same at the opening of the scene and at its it is good or bad ; and as this was not the case with the closing, and the temper in which they are borne is the same. principal of my former publications, I am, therefore, inclined A hunter and a priest, and some domestics, are indeed intro. to rank it very humbly. You will submit it to Mr. Gifford, duced, but they have no connection with the passions or and to whomsoever you please besides. The thing, you will sufferings on which the interest depends; and Manfred is see at a glimpse, could never be attempted or thought of for substantially alone throughout the whole piece. He holds the stage; I much doubt if for publication even. It is too no communion but with the memory of the Being he had much in my old style ; but I composed it actually with a horror loved ; and the immortal Spirits whom he evokes to reproach of the stage, and with a view to render the thought of it with his misery, and their inability to relieve it. These unimpracticable, knowing the zeal of my friends that I should earthly beings approach nearer to the character of persons of try that for which I have an invincible repugnance, viz. a the drama – but still they are but choral accompaniments to representation. I certainly am a deril of a mannerist, and the performance; and Manfred is, in reality, the only actor must leave off ; but what could I do? Without exertion of and sufferer on the scene. To delineate his character in. some kind, I should have sunk under my imagination and deed - to render conceivable his feelings — is plainly the reality."

whole scope and design of the poem; and the conception and

execution are, in this respect, equally admirable. It is a March 25. — " With regard to the Witch Drama,' I repeat,

grand and terrific vision of a being invested with superhuman that I have not an idea if it is good or bad. ir bad, it must, on no account, be risked in publication ; if good, it is at your

attributes, in order that he may be capable of more than be

man sufferings, and be sustained under them by more than service. I value it at three hundred guineas, or less, if you

human force and pride. To ohject to the improbability of like it. Perhaps, if published, the best way will be to add it to

the fiction, is to mistake the end and aim of the author. your winter volume, and not publish separately. The price

Probabilities, we apprehend, did not enter at all into his conwill show you I don't pique myself upon it so speak out.

sideration ; his object was, to produce effect - to exalt and You may put it into the tire, if you like, and Gifford don't

dilate the character through whom he was to interest or appal like."

us – and to raise our conception of it, by all the helps that April 9. — " As for Manfred,' the two first acts are the could be derived from the majesty of nature, or the dread of best ; the third so so; but I was blown with the first and superstition. It is enough, therefore, if the situation in which second heats. You may call it' a Poem,' for it is no Drama, he has placed him is conceivable, and if the supposition of its and I do not choose to have it called by so d– a name - a reality enhances our emotions and kindles our imagination ; • Poem in dialogue,' or — Pantomime, if you will; any thing – for it is Manfred only that we are required to fear, to pity but a green-room synonyme; and this is your motto - or admire. If we can once conceire of him as a real existence,

and enter into the depth and the height of his pride and his * There are more things in hearen and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"

sorrows, we may deal as we please with the means that hare

been used to furnish us with this impression, or to enable us The Third Act was re-written before publication; as to the

to attain to this conception. We may regard them but as particulars of which, the reader is referred to a subsequent

types, or metaphors, or allegories ; but he is the thing to be note. To avoid overloading the margin, we may give here the

expressed, and the feeling and the intellect of which all these most important paragraphs of the two ablest critiques that

are but shadows." – JEFFREY. immediately followed the appearance of Manfred : –

" In this very extraordinary poem, Lord Byron has pursued

the saine course as in the third canto of Childe Harold, and " In Manfred, we recognise at once the gloom and potency

put out his strength upon the same objects. The action is of that soul thich burned and blasted apduled upon itself, in

laid among the mountains of the Alps - the characters are Hirotd, and Conrad. and Lara — and which comes again in

all, more or less, formed and swayed by the operations of the this pleće, more in sorrow_than in anger - more proud, per

magnificent scenery around them, and every page of the poem baps, and more awful than ever-Dut with the fiercer traits of its misanthropy subdued, as it were, and queuched in the

teems with imagery and passion, though, at the same time,

the mind of the poet is often overborne, as it were, by the gloom of a deeper despondency. Manfred does not, like Conrad and Lara wreak the anguish of his burning heart in

strength and novelty of its own conceptions; and thus the

composition, as a whole, is liable to many and fatal objections. the dangers and daring of desperate and predatory war – nor

But there is a still more novel exhibition of Lord Byron's seek to drown bitter thoughts in the tumult of perpetual con

powers in this remarkable drama. He has here burst into tention; nor yet, like Harold, does he sweep over the peopled

the world of spirits ; and, in the wild delight with which the scenes of the earth with high disdain and arersion, and make

elements of nature seem to have inspired him, he has enhis survey of the business, and pleasures, and studies of man an occasion for taunts and sarcasms, and the food of an un

deavoured to embody and call up before him their ministering measurable spleen. He is fixed-by the genius of the poet in

agents, and to employ these wild personifications, as he forthe majestic solitudes of the central ps – where, from his merly employed the feelings and passions of man. We are

not prepared to say, that, in this daring attempt, he has comyouth us, he has lived in proud but calin seclusion from the

pletely succeeded." We are inclined to think, that the plan ways of men, conversing only with the magnificent forms and

he has conceived, and the principal character which he has aspects of nature by which he is surrounded, and with the

wished to delineate, would require a fuller developement than Spirits of the Elements over whom he has acquired dominion,

is here given to them; and, accordingly, a sense of imperfecby the secret and unhallowed studies of sorcery and magic.

tion, incompleteness, and confusion accompanies the mind He is averse, indeed, from mankind, and scorns the low and

throughout the perusal of the poem, owing either to some frivolous nature to which he belongs ; but he cherishes no

failure on the part of the poet, or to the inherent mystery of animosity or hostility to that feeble race. Their concerns excite no interest - their pursuits no sympathy — their jors

the subject. But though, on that account, it is didicult to

comprehend distinctly the drift of the composition, it unquespo envy. It is irksome and vexatious for him to be crossed by

tionably exhibits many noble delineations of mountain scethem in his melancholy musings, - but he treats them with

nery, - many impressive and terrible pictures of passion, gentleness and pity; and, except when stung to impatience

- and many wild and awful visions of imaginary horror." by too importunate an intrusion, is kind and considerate to the comforts of all around him. – This piece is properly en

PROFESSOR Wilson.] titled a dramatic poem – for it is merely poetica, and is not

Ç“ Eternal Agency ! at all a drama or play in the modern acceptation of the term.

Ye spirits of the inmortal Universe!" - MS.) It has no action, no plot, and no characters; Manfred merely [" or inaccessible mountains are the haunts.” — M9.)

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