are from that very poem from the mouth of Satan; and is there any thing more in that of Lucifer in the mystery? Caiu' is nothing more than a drama, not a piece of argument: if Lucifer and Cain speak as the first rebel and first murderer may be supposed to speak, nearly all the rest of the personages talk also according to their characters; and the stronger passions have ever been permitted to the drama. I have avoided introducing the Deity as in Scripture, though Milton does, and not very wisely either; but have adopted his angel as sent to Cain instead, on purpose to avoid shocking any feelings on the subject, by falling short of what all uninspired men must fall short in, viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of the presence of Jehovah. The old mysteries introduced him liberally enough, and all this I avoided in the new one." An event occurred at Ravenna during his lordship's stay there, which made a deep impression on him, and to which he alludes in the fifth Canto of Don Juan. The military commandant of the place, who, though suspected of being secretly a Carbonaro, was too powerful a man to be arrested, was assassinated opposite to Lord Byron's palace. His lordship had his foot in the stirrup at the usual hour of exercise, when his horse started at the report of a gun: on looking up, Lord Byron perceived a man throw down a carbine and run away at full speed, and another man stretched upon the pavement a few yards from himself; it was the unhappy commandant. A crowd was soon collected, but no one ventured to offer the least assistance. Lord Byron directed his servant to lift up the bleeding body, and carry it into his palace; though it was represented to him that by doing so he would confirm the suspicion, which was already entertained, of his belonging to the same party. Such an apprehension could have no effect on Byron's mind when an act of humanity was to be performed; he assisted in bearing the victim of assassination into the house, and putting him on a bed. He was already dead from several wounds: he ap But it was all a mystery:-here we are, And there we go:-but where? Five bits of lead, Or three, or two, or one, send very far. And is this blood, then, form'd but to be shed? Can every element our elements mar? And air, earth, water, fire,-live, and we dead? We whose minds comprehend all things?-No more But let us to the story as before.»> That a being of such glorious capabiliti should abstractedly, and without an attempt throw the responsibility on a fictitious personag have avowed such startling doubts, was a dari which, whatever might then have been his priva opinion, he ought not to have haza led. « It is difficult, observes Captain Medwin, « judge, from the contradictory nature of his wr tings, what the religious opinions of Lord Byro really were. From the conversations I held wit him, on the whole, I am inclined to think that he were occasionally sceptical, and thought it, a he says in Don Juan, -«A pleasant voyage, perhaps, to float Like Pyrrho, in a sea of speculation,» yet his wavering never amounted to a disbeli in the divine Founder of Christianity. Calling on him one day,» continues the Cap tain, we found him, as was sometimes the case silent, dull, and sombre. At length he said me ver Here is a little book somebody has sent m about christianity, that has made me very uncomfortable; the reasoning seems to strong, the proofs are very staggering. I don think you can answer it, Shelley, at least I am sure I can't, and what is more, I dont wish it.' Speaking of Gibbon, Lord Byron said: 'LB-- thought the question set at rest in the History of the Decline and Fall, but I am not so easily convinced. It is not a matter of volition to unbelieve. Who likes to own that he has been a fool all his life, — to unlearn all that be has been taught in his youth, or can think that some of the best men that ever lived have been fools? I don't know why I am considered an unbeliever. I disowned the other day that I was of Shelley's school in metaphysics, though peared to have breathed his last without a strug-I admired his poetry; not but what he has gle," said his lordship, when afterwards recounting the affair. I never saw a countenance so calm. His adjutant followed the corpse into the house; I remember his lamentation over him: Povero diavolo! non aveva fatta male, anchè ad un cane. The following were the noble writer's poetical reflections (in Don Juan) on viewing the dead body: -« I gazed (as oft I gazed the sime) To try could wrench aught out of death, Which should confirm, or shake, or make a faith; changed his mode of thinking very much since he wrote the notes to Queen Mab, which I was accused of having a hand in. I know, however, that I am considered an infidel. My wife and sister, when they joined parties, sent me prayer-books. There was a Mr Mulock, who went about the continent preaching orthodoxy in politics and religion, a writer of bad sonnets, and a lecturer in worse prose,- he tried to convert me to some new sect of christianity. He was a great anti-materialist, and abused Locke.' On another occasion he said: 'I have just received a letter from a Mr Sheppard, inclosing | that she adores Lord Byron, it is evident that a prayer made for my welfare by his wife a few the exile and poverty of her aged father somedays before her death. The letter states that he times affect her spirits, and throw a shade of has had the misfortune to lose this amiable wo-melancholy on her countenance, which adds to man, who had seen me at Ramsgate, many years the deep interest this lovely woman creates. Her ago, rambling among the cliffs; that she had conversation is lively without being learned; she beea impressed with a sense of my irreligion has read all the best authors of her own and the from the tenor of my works, and had often French language. She often conceals what she prayed fervently for my conversion, particularly knows, from the fear of being thought to know in her last moments. The prayer is beautifully too much, possibly from being aware that Lord written. 1 like devotion in women. She must Byron was not fond of blues. He is certainly have been a divine creature. I pity the man very much attached to her, without being acwho has lost her! I shall write to him by re- tually in love. His description of the Georgioni turn of the courier, to condole with him, and in the Manfrini palace at Venice is meant for the tell him that Mrs S. need not have entertained countess. The beautiful sonnet prefixed to the any concern for my spiritual affairs, for that Prophecy of Dante' was addressed to her.. no man is more of a christian than I am, whatever my writings may have led her and others to suspect.". We have given the above extracts from a sense of justice to the memory of Lord Byron; they are ¦ redeeming and consolatory evidences that his heart was far from being sheathed in unassailable scepticism, and, as such, ought not to be omitted in a preface to his works. In the antumn of 1821, the noble bard re| moved to Pisa, in Tuscany. He took up his residence there in the Lanfranchi palace, and engaged in an intrigue with the beautiful Guiccioli, wife of the count of that name, which connexion, with more than his usual constancy, he maintained for nearly three years, during which period the countess was separated from her husband, on an application from the latter to the Pupe. The following is a sketch of this fair enchantress, as taken at the time the liaison was formed between her and Byron. The countess In twenty-three years of age, though she appears no more than seventeen or eighteen. Unlike most of the Italian women, her complexion is delicately fair. Her eyes, large, dark, and langashing, are shaded by the longest eye-lashes m the world, and her hair, which is ungathered on her heal, plays over her falling shoulders in a profusion of natural ringlets of the darkest barn Her figure is, perhaps, too much embonpoint for her height; but her bust is perfect. Her features want little of possessing a Grecian regularity of outline; and she has the most beaufal mouth and teeth imaginable. It is imposble to see without admiring-to hear the Guiconly speak without being fascinated. Her amasty and gentleness show themselves in every ntonation of her voice, which, and the music of her perfect Italian, give a peculiar charm to nery thing she utters. Grace and elegance seem component parts of her nature. Notwithstanding The annexed lines, written by Byron when he was about to quit Venice to join the countess at Ravenna, will show the state of his feelings at that time. «River that rollest by the ancient walls Where dwells the lady of my love, when she a « What if thy deep and ample stream should be << What do I say-a mirror of my heart? And such as thou art, were my passions long. «Time may have somewhat tamed them, not for ever; Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away «But left long wrecks behind them, and again «The current I behold will beneath «She will look on thee; I have look'd on thee Without the inseparable sigh for her. «Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream; That happy wave repass me in its flow. The wave that bears my tears returns no more: Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep' The Po. «But that which keepeth us apart is not As various as the climates of our birth. « A stranger loves a lady of the land, Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood Is all meridian, as if never fann'd By the bleak wind that chills the polar flood. «My blood is all meridian; were it not, I had not left my clime;-I shall not be, In spite of tortures ne'er to be forgot, A slave again of love, at least of thee. «T is vain to struggle-let me perish young- And then at least my heart can ne'er be moved.» tinued his «Don Juan» to the end of the sixteenth canto. We venture to introduce here the following critical summary of this wonderful production of genius: The poem of Don Juan has all sorts of faults, many of which cannot be defended, and some of which are disgusting; but it has, also, almost every sort of poetical merit: there are in it some of the finest passages Lord Byron ever wrote; there is amazing knowledge of human nature in it; there is exquisite humour; there is freedom, and bound, and vigour of narrative imagery, sentiment, and style, which are admirable; there is a vast fertility of deep, extensive, and original thought; and, at the same time, there is the profusion of a prompt and most richly-stored memory. The invention is lively and poetical; the descriptions are brilliant and glowing, yet not It is impossible to conceive a more unvaried life than Lord Byron led at this period in the society of a few select friends. Billiards, conver-over-wrought, but fresh from nature, and faithful sation, or reading, filled up the intervals till it was time to take the evening drive, ride, and pistol-practice. He dined at half an hour after sun-set, then drove to Count Gamba's, the Countess Guiccioli's father, passed several hours in her society, returned to his palace, and either read or wrote till two or three in the morning; occasionally drinking spirits diluted with water as a medicine, from a dread of a nephritic complaint, to which he was, or fancied himself, subject. to her colours; and the prevalent character of the whole (bating too many dark spots), not dispiriting, though gloomy; not misanthropic, though bitter; and not repulsive to the visions of poetical enthusiasm, though indignant and resentful. The Liberal, of which Hunt was to be the editor, and to which Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley (who had been residing for some time on terms of great intimacy with his lordship) were to contribute. Three numbers of the Liberal were published in London, when, in consequence of the unhappy fate of Mr Shelley (who perished in the Mediterranean by the upsetting of a boat), and of other discouraging circumstances, it was discontinued. " Lord Byron's acquaintance with Leigh Hunt, the late editor of the Examiner, originated in his grateful feeling for the manner in which Mr Hunt stood forward in his justification, at a time when the current of public opinion ran strongly against him. This feeling induced him to invite Mr Hunt While Lord Byron resided at Pisa, a serious to the Lanfranchi palace, where a suite of apartaffray occurred, in which he was personally con-ments were fitted up for him. On his arrival in cerned. Taking his usual ride, with some friends, the spring of 1822, a periodical publication was one of them was violently jostled by a serjeant-projected, under the title of major of hussars, who dashed, at fall speed, through the midst of the party. They pursued and overtook him near the Piaggia gate; but their remonstrances were answered only by abuse and menace, and an attempt, on the part of the guard at the gate, to arrest them. This occasioned a severe scuffle, in which several of Lord Byron's party were wounded, as was also the hussar. The consequence was, that all Lord Byron's servants (who were warmly attached to him, and had shown great ardour in his defence), were banished fro:n Pisa; and with them the Counts Gamba, father and son. Lord Byron was himself advised to leave it; and as the countess accompanied her father, he soon after joined them at Leghorn, and passed six weeks at Monte Nero. His return to Pisa was occasioned by a new persecution of the Counts Gamba. An order was issued for them to leave the Tuscan states in four days; and after their embarkation for Genoa, the countess and Lord Byron openly lived together, at the Lanfranchi palace. It was at Pisa that Byron wrote Werner, a tragedy; the Deformed Transformed, and con Byron attended the funeral of his poet-friend, the following description of which, by a person who was present, is not without interest: 18th August, 1822. — On the occasion of Shelley's melancholy fate, I revisited Pisa, and on the day of my arrival learnt that Lord Byron was gone to the sea-shore, to assist in performing the last offices to his friend. We came to a spot marked by an old and withered trunk of a firtree, and near it, on the beach, stood a solitary hut covered with reeds. The situation was well calculated for a poet's grave. A few weeks before 1 had ridden with him and Lord Byron to this very spot, which I afterwards visited more than once. In front was a magnificent extent of the blue and windless Mediterranean, with the isles of Elba and Guyana, — Lord Byron's yacht at anchor in the offog: on the other side an almost boundless extent of sandy wilderness, uncultivated and uninhabited, here and there interspersed in tufts with underwood curved by the sea-breeze, and stunted by the barren and dry nature of the soil in which it grew. At equal distances along the coast stood high square towers, for the double purpose of guarding the coast from smuggling, and enforcing the quarantine laws. This view was bounded by an immense extent of the Italian Alps, which are here particularly picturesque from their volcanic and manifold appearances, and which being composed of white marble, give their summits the appearance of snow. As a foreground to this picture appeared as extraordinary a group. Lord Byron and Trelawney were seen standing over the burning pile, with some of the soldiers of the guard; and Leigh Hunt, whose feelings and nerves could not carry him through the scene of horror, lying back in the carriage,--the four post-horses ready to drop 'with the intensity of the noon-day sun. The ‚itillness of all around was yet more felt by the shrill scream of a solitary curlew, which, perhaps attracted by the body, wheeled in such narrow circles round the pile, that it might have been struck with the hand, and was so fearless that it could not be driven away. Looking at the corpse, Lord Byron said: -« Why, that old ! black silk handkerchief retains its form better than that human body! Scarcely was the ceremony concluded, when Lord Byron, agitated by the spectacle he had witnessed, tried to dissipate in some degree the impression of it by his favourite recreation. He took off his clothes, therefore, and swam to the yacht, which was riding a few miles distant. The heat of the sun and checked perspiration threw him into a fever which be felt coming on before he left the water, and which became more violent before he reached Pisa. On his return he immediately took a warm bath, and the next morning was perfectly recovered.. «Absos» written after it, and an indignant comment in the same language written under it; also the names of some of Byron's other friends. The laureat, it is said, copied the names and the comment, and, on his return to England, reported the whole circumstances, and hesitated not to conclude Byron of the same principles as his friends. In a poem he subsequently wrote called the « Vision of Judgment," he stigmatized Lord Byron as the father of the Satanic School of Poetry. His lordship, in a note appended to the « Two Foscari,» retorted in a very severe manner, and even permitted himself to ridicule Southey's wife, the sister of Coleridge's wife, they having been at one time « two milliners of Bath.>> The laureate wrote an answer to this note in the Courier newspaper, which, when Byron saw it, enraged him so much that he consulted with his friends whether or not he ought to go to England to answer it personally. In cooler moments, however, he resolved merely to write his « Vision of Judgment,» which was a parody on Southey's, and appeared in one of the numbers of the << Liberal, for which Hunt, the publisher, was prosecuted by the « Constitutional Association,» and found guilty. As some of our readers may be curious to know the rate at which Lord Byron was paid for his productions, we annex the following statement, by Mr Murray, the bookseller, of the sums given by him for the copy-rights of most of his lordship's works: 1,525 1,525 1,050 Верро Don Juan I. II - III. IV. V. Doge of Venice. Sardanapalus, Cain, and Foscari 1,100 Mazeppa Prisoner of Chillon Sundries 525 525 450 15,455l. The enmity between Byron and Southey, the poet-laureate, is as well known as that between Pope and Colley Cibber. Their politics were diametrically opposite, and the noble bard re|garded the bard of royalty as a renegado from |his early principles. It was not, however, so much on account of political principles that the enmity between Byron and Southey was kept up. The peer, in his satire, had handled the epics of the laureate too roughly," and As is the case with many men in affluent cirthis the latter deeply resented. Whilst travelling cumstances, Byron was at times more than geon the continent, Southey observed Shelley's nerous; and again, at other times, what might same in the Album, at Mont Anvert, with be called mean. He once borrowed 5ool. in Total d order to give it to the widow of one who had been his friend; he frequently dined on five Pauls, and once gave his bills to a lady to be examined, because he thought he was cheated. He gave 1000l. for a yacht, which he sold again for 3ool., and refused to give the sailors their jackets. It ought, however, to be observed that generosity was natural to him, and that his avarice, if it can be so termed, was a mere whim or caprice of the moment - a rôle he could not long sustain. He once borrowed 100l. to give to the brother-in-law of Southey, Coleridge, the poet, when the latter was in distress. In his quarrel with the laureate he was provoked to allude to this circumstance, which certainly he ought not to have done. Byron was a great admirer of the Waverley novels, and never travelled without them. They are,» said he to Captain Medwin one day, a library in themselves, -a perfect literary treasure. I could read them once a year with new pleasure. During that morning he had been reading one of Sir Walter's novels, and delivered, according to Medwin, the following criticism. How difficult it is to say any thing new! Who was that voluptuary of antiquity, who offered a reward for a new pleasure? Perhaps all nature and art could not supply a new idea. » think it was an odd fancy; but I was not in the Several years ago, Lord Byron presented his friend, Mr Thomas Moore, with his Memoirs," written by himself, with an understanding that they were not to be published until after his death. Mr Moore, with the consent and at the desire of Lord Byron, sold the manuscript to Mr Murray, the bookseller, for the sum of two thousand guineas. The following statement by Mr Moore, will however show its fate. Without entering into the respective claims of Mr Murray and myself to the property in these memoirs (3 question which now that they are destroyed can be but of little moment to any one), it is sufficient to say that, believing the manuscript still to be mine, I placed it at the disposal of Lord Byron's sister, Mrs Leigh, with the sole reservation of a protest against its total destruction; at least, without previous perusal and consultation among the parties. The majority of the persons present disagreed with this opinion, and it was the only point upon which there did exist any difference between us. The manuscript was accordingly torn and burnt before our eyes, and I immediately paid to Mr Murray, in the presence of the gentlemen assembled, two thousand guineas, with interest, etc., being the amount of what I owed him upon the security of my bond, and for which I now stand indebted to my publishers, Messrs Longman and Co. The anxious and paternal tenderness Lord Byron felt for his daughter, is expressed with unequalled beauty and pathos in the first stanza of the third canto of Childe Harold. What do you think of Ada?» said he to Medwin, looking earnestly at his daughter's miniature, that hung by the side of his writing-table. They tell me she is like me- but she has her mother's eyes. It is very odd that my mother was an only child; -I am an only child; my wife is an only child; and Ada is an only child. It is a singular coincidence; that is the least that can be said of it. I can't help thinking it was destined to be so; and perhaps it is best. I was once anxious for a son; but, after our separation, was glad to have had a daughter; for it would have distressed me too much to have taken him away from Lady Byron, and I could not have trusted her with a son's education. I have no idea of boys being brought up by mothers. I suffered too much from that myself: and then, wandering about the world as I do, I could not take proper care of a child; otherwise I should not have left Allegra, poor little thing! at Ravenna. She has been a great resource to me, though I am not so fond of her as of Ada: and yet I mean to make their for-paid to Mr Murray might be reimbursed me; but tunes equal-there will be enough for them both. I have desired in my will that Allegra shall not marry an Englishman. The Irish and Scotch make better husbands than we do. You will « Since then, the family of Lord Byron have, in a manner highly honourable to themselves, proposed an arrangement, by which the sum thus from feelings and considerations, which it is unnecessary here to explain, I have respectfully, but peremptorily, declined their offer.» One evening, after a dinner party at the Lan |