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ART. S. Manfred, a Dramatic Poem. By Lord Byron. New-York, VAN WINKLE & WILEY. 24mo. pp. 70.

W

E are willing, to any reasonable extent, to bear with every man's infirmity. But, as it has been tritely said, there is a point beyond which patience ceases to be a virtue ;--and, absolutely, on casting our eye on the advertisement of this pamphlet, we could hardly forbear exclaiming, with Colman's poor persecuted French apothecary,-Begar, here Monsieur Tonson come again! Never was there a more desperate case of the cacoethes scribendi, impaumendi, et edendi, than lord Byron's, and the worst of it is that his lordship can only write in one strain, and on one subject, and unfortunately neither of them happens to be of the most agreeable kind. There is but one portrait in all his pictures, and that one is lined from himself. Other characters may be introduced into his pieces, but this always stands forth from the canvass, and however the disposition of the figures may be varied, the colour and the shading are forever the same. We do not attribute this perpetual monotony to any original defect of talent in his lordship, but to a mental malady which has poisoned his affections, and is preying on his powers.

It is but justice to ourselves to declare that against lord Byron personally we can have no feelings of hostility. If we have ever been compelled to consider him in his private capacity, it is because he has so indissolubly blended his individual with his literary being, and has so gratuitously admitted the public into a confidence which they did not covet, and do not prize. As a man, we can say that we sincerely pity him. The pathetic description given by- the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviewers of his unhappy temper has really touched our sympathies. We cannot, indeed, well conceive what there is so particularly malignant in the destiny of this wayward youth. Nature, education, and fortune conspired to crown him with their gifts. Wealth, learning, accomplishments, rank, genius, and beauty, rendered him the idol and the envy of the fashionable world on his very entrance into society. If he have slighted all these boons-if, he have lavished on unworthy objects all these liberal endow ments,-if, in a few short years, he have exhausted all the means or sources of delight, though we see much for him to deplore and repent, we see no reason why he should presume to murmur or repine.

But still we cannot withhold our commiseration even for his self-inflicted griefs, or fancied desolation. We will not exclude him from our charity, although he have none for his fellow-men. We will not become his accusers, if he will but consent to veil his shame. But we cannot look upon him as worthy of a tenderer feeling than is due to that wretchedness which ever flows from guilt. The will not confirm him in a miserable delusion. We will not lead him to imagine that he has monopolized all the sufferings, nor all the sensibilities of his species-nor will we encourage him in the belief that mankind are like to derive much pleasure or profit, from the periodical detail of his doleful experiences. God knows we have all calamities enough of our own to struggle with, and were each sufferer, in this vale of tears,' to reveal and reiterate his woes, life itself would be consumed in condolence. It would soon become a serious strife who should be deemed supreme in wretchedness.' But were we to award the palm of so unenviable a distinction, it should be, not to the supine hypochondriac, but to The brave man struggling in the storms of fate.

Happily, however, common politeness interdicts the indulgence of an eternal querulousness. We would, therefore, earnestly recommend it to lord Byron, even though he may be wounded past surgery,' to leave off whining,

As a poet, lord Byron has decided merit, and faults-enough to sink a navy. His merit consists in the strength and truth of his descriptions of natural scenery, the tact with which he sciects from a multitude of external objects those best calculated for effect, and the fidelity with which he interprets the mute language of inanimate nature,—and in masterly delineations of the passions, which discover no less knowledge of the human heart, than graphical skill. Sadness always leads us to commune with ourselves. and to seek for the silent sympathies of the material world. Deep sorrow, if it be not the best casuist, fails not to induce profound reflection. No man was ever brought intimately acquainted with himself, except in the school of adversity. Lord Byron has been, in some respects, an apt pupil. He has caught, not indoed 'courage from hope,' but resoluon from despair.' He dares to look on the worst that can befall him,-nay, he

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almost dares defy it. Ashamed of that weakness of nerves to which he owes his misfortunes, he affects to wrap himself in stern indifference. To avert injury he becomes the aggressor. Having relinquished the pursuit of virtue as unattainable, he underrates its value, and questions its existence. He attempts to destroy moral distinctions, or labours to make the worse appear the better reason.' To this moody madness' we ascribe some of lord Byron's characteristic excellencies, and most of his peculiar faults. Those are incidental and superinduced, these are radical and connate with his conceptions.

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mais l'ètre de fixer nos regards sur les peintures dégoûtantes qui nous en retracent la difformité? Le moyen le plus certain pour le faire haïr, est d'offrir, avec tous ses charmes, la brillante image de la virtu.' Very different has been the course of lord Byron. He has never attempted to excite reverence for piety, or emulation of virtue. The courage he has lauded,-and it is the only good quality he has imparted to most of the actors in his plots, has ever been displayed in spurningman and braving the majesty of heaven. He seems to have forgotten that the authors of fiction are bound to inculcate truth, and that the object of the fine arts The defects of his lordship's poetry is the imitation of natural and the proare such as admit of no other extenua- duction of moral beauty. Instead of ention, than might be pleaded by the per- deavouring to add to the number of innopetrators of the crimes, on which his lord- cent delights, and to increase the sum of ship loves so dearly to descant. In fact, we human happiness, he has only toiled to think them less susceptible of palliation. add ideal to actual distresses, and to We can forgive something to the frailty shroud all the sunny prospects of life in which sinks under temptation, but what a dismal night. No enthusiast ever excuse can we find for one who in his sought the to Kahov, with greater dilicalmest hours, and in the most tranquil gence or zeal than lord Byron has disretirement, will feast with a carnivorous covered in the search of the to Kaxor and appetite on the vilest and most degrading to Ausxpo Manfred is the most atrocious contemplations, and find an unnatural hero that lord Byron's prolific muse has enjoyment in embalming in all the odours yet produced. We have said that lord of song, the most loathsome recrements Byron has painted from himself. We of mortality! Such is the elegant amusedo not mean to impute to his lordship ment of lord Byron. Never has his lord- either the overt acts he has charged upon ship found a hero worthy of his lyre, the offspring of his fancy, or even the whose exploits had not rendered him, premeditation of similar enormities. But in the eye of justice and the law, equally we have a right to ascribe to his lordship worthy of the gibbet. Nor does he hold sentiments expressed by himself, entirely up these monsters as examples to deter,' analagous to those he has avowedly asthough he may not design them as 'pat sunned. In 'Childe Harold,' we may disterns to imitate.' He uniformly repre- cover the stamina of all his lordship's sents their vices as the consequences of heroes. They are precisely what Childe an intellectual greatness which had ele- Harold' would have been in their situavated them above the thoughts and fears tion. Since, then, Childe Harold' is perof common men; and seems to resolve fectly understood to be lord Byron, and the idea of perfect grandeur of soul into a as all his Giaours, Corsairs, &c. are but magnanimous contempt of all statutes duplicates of Childe Harold,' and as it is and sanctions human and divine. Whata ever inference others may draw from his fables, he leaves us in no doubt in regard to his own opinions. But even had lord Byron intended to excite a detestation of vice, which it is evident he did not, he has not employed the proper means to attain his end. As it has been weil observed by Madame de Genlis, to hate evil we need only learn to love good; and though we cannot escape the knowledge of the existence of wickedness, we are not obliged continually to dress it out in all the array of circumstance. 'S'il est necessaire,' says this excellent writer, 'de savoir que le vice existe, peut-il jaVOL. I. NO. V.

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geometrical axiom that things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, we have a right to consider lord Byron as speaking in the person of these imaginary ruffians. At least it is fair to conclude that his lordship must in some measure approve what he is so assiduous in promulgating. We will waive, how

ever, our remarks on the character of Manfred till we have made him better known to our readers.

As there is little intricacy in the story of this Dramatic Poem, we shall, as far as possible, make it explain itself. It opens in an imposing manner. The cur tain rises, and discovers 'MANFRED alone 2Y

-scene, a Gothic gallery-Time, Midnight.'

Manfred is communing with himself. Man. The lamp must be replenish'd, but even

then

It will not burn so long as I must watch:
My slumbers-if I slumber-are not sleep,
But a continuance of enduring thought,
Which then I can resist not: in my heart
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close
To look within; and yet I live, and bear
The aspect and the form of breathing men.
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 essayed, 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 failen before me---
But this avail'd not :---Good, or evil, life,
Powers, passions, all I see in other beings,
Have been to me as rain unto the sands,
Since that all-nameless bour. 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.---

The task he speaks of is no smail one, -for though it be an easy thing enough 'to call spirits from the vasty deep,' yet it is not often that they will come, when we do call for them.' Manfred, however, was a potent enchanter, and at his summons, his familiars, after much demuring, at last attend. There are seven of these spirits who obey the invocationthe cloud spirit, the mountain spirit, the water spirit, the fire spirit, the storm spirit, the spirit of darkness, and the spirit of the ruling star of Manfred's destiny, which star is indeed typical of his genius, being

The burning wreck of a demolish'd world, A wandering hell in the eternal space. All these spirits have something to say for themselves, which we have not room to copy, and the omission of which is no great loss. We at length ascertain the object of this extraordinary convocation, the spirits putting a very natural interroga

tory,-

What wouldst thou with us, son of mortals--say?

Man. Forgetfulness----

First Spi. Of what---of whomi---and why ? Man. Of that which is within me; read it there--

Ye know it, and I cannot utter it.

The sprites, however, cannot grant him this boon. Still he continues to demand oblivion, self-oblivion,' till satisfied at

last, that he cannot obtain this blessing at their hand, he finally requests that they will appear to him in their accustomed forms,' but they not being accustomed to wear any forms, find a difliculty in complying even with this innocent desire. They offer, however, to appear in any shape he may choose.

Man, I have no choice; there is no form on

earth Hideous or beautiful to me. Who is most powerful of

ye,

Let him, take such aspect

As unto him may seem most fitting --Come! Seventh Spi. (Appearing in the shape of a beautiful female figure.) Behold!

Man. Oh God! if it be thus, and thou Art not a madness and a mockery,

I yet might be most happy.I will clasp thee, And we again will be- [The figure vanishes. My heart is crush'd!

[Manfred falls senseless.

After this a voice utters a long incantation, which concludes with the following denouncement.

And on thy head I pour the vial
Which doth devote thee to this trial;
Nor to slumber, nor to die,
Shall be in thy destiny;

Though thy death shall still seem near
To thy wish, but as a fear

Lo! the speil now works around thee,
And the clankless chain hath bound thee;
O'er thy heart and brain together
Hath the word been pass'd-now wither!

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A bodiless enjoyment-born and dying
With the blest tone which made me!

Here, after a short soliloquy, he invokes the 'Witch of the Alps,' who appears at his request. To this beautiful spirit,' he makes a very gallant speech. A dialogue ensues between them. Manfred complains of his disappointment, in discovering the impotency of his subordinate spi

A Chamois Hunter enters here. Manfred, without observing him, continues his audible meditations, till he has firmly made up his determination to throw himself from the mountain's summit into the yawning vale. At this instant the hunter forcibly interposes, and they quietly descended the declivity together, with From them what they could not bestow, and now

commendable caution.

The second act introduces us to the hunter's cottage amongst the Bernese Alps. The hunter offers wine to Manfred.

Come, pledge me fairly.
Man. Away, away! there's blood upon the
brim!

Will it then never-never sink in the earth?
C. Hun. What dost thou mean? thy senses
wander from thee.

Man. I say 'tis blood-my blood! the pure

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For brutes of burden, not for birds of prey;
Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine,-
I am not of thine order.

On the hunter's urging his maturer age,
Manfred proceeds:

Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine
Have made my days and nights imperishable,
Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore,
Innumerable atoms; and one desert,

Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,
But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks,
Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness.
The hunter pronounces him mad, and
asks,

What is it

That thou dost see, or think thou look'st upon?
Man. Myself, and thee-a peasant of the
Alps---

Thy humble virtues, hospitable home,
And spirit patient, pious, proud and free;
Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts;
Thy days of health, and nights of sleep; thy toils,
By danger dignified, yet guiltless; hopes
Of cheerful old age and a quiet grave,
With cross and garland over its green turf,
And thy grandchildren's love for epitaph;
This do I see---and then I look within...
It matters not---my soul was scorch'd already!
Manfred, having quitted the hut, is
next seen in a low valley of the Alps.

rits.

I search no further.

I have sought

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same;

My pang shall find a voice. From my youth
upwards

My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men,
Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes;,
The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers,
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh,
Nor midst the creatures of clay that girded me
Was there but one who-but of her anon
I said, with men, and with the thought of men,
I held but slight communion; but instead,
My joy was in the Wilderness, to breathe
The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's

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song.

These were my pastimes, and to be alone;
For if the beings, of whom I was one,—
Hating to be so,-cross'd me in my path,
I felt my self degraded back to them,
And was all clay again. And then I dived,
In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death,
Searching its cause in its effect; and drew
From wither'd bones, and skulls, and heap'd up
dust,

Conclusions most forbidden. Then I pass'd
The nights of years in sciences untaught,
Save in the old-time; and with time and toil,
And terrible ordeal, and such penance
As in itself hath power upon the air,
And spirits that do compass air and earth,
Space, and the peopled infinite, I made
Mine eyes familiar with eternity,
Such as, before me, did the Magi, and
He who from out their fountain dwellings raised
Eros and Anteros, at Gadara,

As I do thee-and with my knowledge grew
The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy
Of this most bright intelligence, until-
Witch Proceed.

Man Oh I but thus prolonged my words,
Boasting these idle attributes, because

As I approach the core of my heart's grief-
But to my task. I have not named to thee
Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being,
With whom I wore the chain of human ties;
If I had such, they seem'd not such to me-
Yet there was one-

Witch. Spare not thyself-proceed.

Man. She was like me in lineaments-her
eyes,

Her bair, her features, all, to the very tone
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine;
But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty;
She had the same lone thoughts and wander-
ings,

The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the universe; nor these
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,
Pity, and smiles, and tears-which I had not;
And tenderness-but that I had for her;
Humility--and that I never had.

Nem. I was detained repairing shattered

thrones,

Marrying fools, restoring dynasties,
Avenging men upon their enemies,

And making them repent their own revenge;
Goading the wise to madness; from the dull
Shaping out oracles to rule the world
Afresh, for they were waxing out of date,
And mortals dared to ponder for themselves,
To weigh kings in the balance, and to speak
Of freedom, the forbidden fruit. Away!
We have outstaid the hour---mount we our clouds!
[Exeunt.

We are now admitted into the hall of Arimanes, a very powerful and pestilent spirit, to whom all the rest are subservient. Here all these incorporeal agents are congregated. Manfred intrudes into

Her faults were mine---her virtues were her the assembly. He is reproved for his

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I saw-and could not stanch it.

The Witch promises him, if he will swear fealty to her, she will aid a wish he now expresses as all that remains to him -to raise the dead. He contemns the proposition, and dismisses her. Another monologue concludes this scene.

We are again obliged to climb the Jungfrau mountain. The Destinies are convening by moonlight on its summit. They successively inform us of their several employments. That of the second Destiny has a political allusion, which will be easily understood.

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The third Destiny has been wrecking a vessel, from which she had suffered only one to escape,

And he was a subject well worthy my care;
A traitor on land, and a pirate at sea---
But I have saved him to wreak further havoc
for me!

The first of these Fatal Sisters now relates her pastime,-which consisted in desolating a city by the plague. Nemesis next enters, and gives the following account of her evening's recreation; which has a bearing at least as palpable, as the one already pointed out.

rashness, and commanded to worship Arimanes. He refuses. The spirits cry

out

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Have been beyond the dwellers of the earth,
And they have only taught him what we know—
That knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance.

She adds, that he has become the victim of his passions.

Manfred demands the evocation of Astarte from the tomb. Her phantom rises and stands in the midst.' Manfred accosts it. He urges her to speak to him, Look on me!--the grave hath not chang'd thee

more

Than I am chang'd for thee. Thou lovedst me
Too much, as i loved thee: we were not made
To torture thus each other, though it were
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.
The voice which was my music---Speak to me!
For I have call'd on thee in the still night,
Startled the slumbering birds from the hush't
boughs,

And woke the mountain wolves, and made the

caves

Acquainted with thy vainly echoed name,
Which answered me—-

The spectre at last pronounces these solemn words--

Phan. Manfred! To-morrow ends thine carthly ills. Farewell!

one word

To his entreaties to add 6 more,' she only repeats 'farewell, farewell! and utters his name as she disappears.

Manfred is convulsed with agony; but subdues his agitation. On observing his deportment, one of the spirits sayɛ,

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