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My pangs can be but brief; but thine would be
Eternal, if repulsed from heaven for me.

Too much already hast thou deign'd
To one of Adam's race!

Our doom is sorrow: not to us alone,

But to the spirits who have not disdain'd

To love us, cometh anguish with disgrace.

The first who taught us knowledge hath been hurl'd

From his once archangelic throne

Into some unknown world:

And thou, Azaziel! No

Thou shalt not suffer woe

For me. Away! nor weep!

Thou canst not weep; but yet

May'st suffer more, not weeping: then forget

Her, whom the surges of the all-strangling deep
Can bring no pang like this. Fly! fly!

Being gone, 't will be less difficult to die.

Japh. Oh say not so!

Father! and thou, archangel, thou!

Surely celestial mercy lurks below

That pure severe serenity of brow:

Let them not meet this sea without a shore.
Save in our ark, or let me be no more!
Noah. Peace, child of passion, peace

If not within thy heart, yet with thy tongue
Do God no wrong!

Live as he wills it—die, when he ordains,
A righteous death, unlike the seed of Cain's.
Cease, or be sorrowful in silence; cease
To weary Heaven's ear with thy selfish plaint.
Wouldst thou have God commit a sin for thee?
Such would it be

To alter his intent

For a mere mortal sorrow. Be a man!

And bear what Adam's race must bear, and can.
Japh. Ay, father! but when they are gone,
And we are all alone,

Floating upon the azure desert, and

The depth beneath us hides our own dear land,
And dearer, silent friends and brethren, all
Buried in its immeasurable breast,

Who, who, our tears, our shrieks, shall then command?
Can we in desolation's peace have rest?

Oh God! be thou a God, and spare

Yet while 'tis time!

Renew not Adam's fall:

Mankind were then but twain,

But they are numerous now as are the waves

And the tremendous rain,

[graves,

Whose drops shall be less thick than would their Were graves permitted to the seed of Cain.

Noah. Silence, vain boy! each word of thine's a crime.

Angel! forgive this stripling's fond despair.

Raph. Seraphs these mortals speak in passion:
Ye!

Who are, or should be, passionless and pure,
May now return with me.
Sam.

It may not be:
We have chosen, and will endure.

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Proclaim's earth's last of summer days hath shone !
The clouds return into the hues of night,

Save where their brazen-colour'd edges streak
The verge where brighter morns were wont to break.
Noah. And lo! yon flash of light,

The distant thunder's harbinger, appears!
It cometh! hence, away!

Leave to the elements their evil prey!
lience to where our all-hallow'd ark uprears
Its safe and wreckless sides!
Japh. Oh, father, stay!

Leave not my Anah to the swallowing tides !
Noah. Must we not leave all life to such? Begone!

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How darest thou look on that prophetic sky,
And seek to save what all things now condemn,
In overwhelming unison

With just Jehovah's wrath!
Juph. Can rage and justice join in the same path?
Noah. Blasphemer! darest thou murmur even now?
Raph. Patriarch, be still a father! smooth thy brow:
Thy son, despite his folly, shall not sink:
He knows not what he says, yet shall not drink
With sobs the salt foam of the swelling waters;
But be, when passion passeth, good as thou,
Nor perish like heaven's children with man's
daughters.
[unite

Aho. The tempest cometh; heaven and earth
For the annihilation of all life.
Unequal is the strife

Between our strength and the Eternal Might!
Sam. But ours is with thee: we will bear ye far
To some untroubled star,

Where thou and Anah shalt partake our lot:

And if thou dost not weep for thy lost earth, Our forfeit heaven shall also be forgot. [birth! Anah. Oh my dear father's tents, my place of And mountains, land, and woods! when ye are not, Who shall dry up my tears?

Aza.

Thy spirit-lord.
Fear not; though we are shut from heaven,
Yet much is ours, whence we can not be driven.

Raph. Rebel! thy words are wicked as thy deeds
Shall henceforth be but weak: the flaming sword,
Which chased the first-born out of Paradise,
Still flashes in the angelic hands.

R

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Enter Mortals, flying for refuge.

Chorus of Mortals.

The heavens and earth are mingling-God! oh God!
What have we done? Yet spare!

Hark! even the forest beasts howl forth their prayer!
The dragon crawls from out his den,
To herd, in terror, innocent with men ;
And the birds scream their agony through air.
Yet, yet, Jehovah! yet withdraw thy rod
Of wrath, and pity thine own world's despair!
Hear not Man only but all Nature plead !
Raph. Farewell, thou earth! ye wretched sons of
clay,

I cannot, must not, aid you.

'Tis decreed ! [Exit RAPHAEL.

Japh. Some clouds sweep on as vultures for their

prey,

While others, fix'd as rocks, await the word
At which their wrathful vials shall be pour'd.
No azure more shall robe the firmament,

Nor spangled stars be glorious: Death hath risen:
In the sun's place a pale and ghastly glare
Hath wound itself around the dying air.1

Aza. Come, Anah ! quit this chaos-founded prison,
To which the elements again repair,
To turn it into what it was: beneath

The shelter of these wings thou shalt be safe,
As was the eagle's nestling once within
Its mother's-Let the coming chaos chafe
With all its elements! Heed not their din!

A brighter world than this, where thou shalt breathe
Ethereal life, will we explore:

These darken'd clouds are not the only skies.

[AZAZIEL and SAMIASA fly off and disappear

with ANAH and AHOLIBAMAH.

Japh. They are gone! They have disappear'd amidst the roar

Of the forsaken world; and never more,
Whether they live, or die with all earth's life,
Now near its last, can aught restore

Anah unto these eyes.

2

Chorus of Mortals.

Oh son of Noah! mercy on thy kind!
What! wilt thou leave us all-all-all behind?
While safe amidst the elemental strife,
Thou sitt'st within thy guarded ark?

A Mother (offering her infant to JAPHET). Oh let this child embark !

I brought him forth in woe,

But thought it joy

To see him to my bosom clinging so.
Why was he born?

[In his description of the deluge, which is a varied and recurring master-piece,- (we hear it foretold, and we see it come,) Lord Byron appears to us to have had an eye to Poussin's celebrated picture, with the sky hanging like a weight of lead upon the waters, the sun quenched and lurid, the rocks and trees upon them gloomily watching their fate,

What hath he done My unwean'd son

PART I.

To move Jehovah's wrath or scorn?
What is there in this milk of mine, that death
Should stir all heaven and earth up to destroy
My boy,

And roll the waters o'er his placid breath?
Save him, thou seed of Seth!

Or cursed be- with him who made

Thee and thy race, for which we are betray'd! Japh. Peace! 'tis no hour for curses, but for prayer. Chorus of Mortals.

For prayer!!!
And where

Shall prayer ascend,

When the swoln clouds unto the mountains bend
And burst,

And gushing oceans every barrier rend,
Until the very deserts know no thirst?
Accursed

Be he who made thee and thy sire!

We deem our curses vain; we must expire;

But as we know the worst,

Why should our hymn be raised, our knees be bent Before the implacable Omnipotent,

Since we must fall the same?

If he hath made earth, let it be his shame,

To make a world for torture.-Lo! they come, The loathsome waters, in their rage!

And with their roar make wholesome Nature dumb!
The forest's trees (coeval with the hour
When Paradise upsprung,

Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for her dower,
Or Adam his first hymn of slavery sung),

So massy, vast, yet green in their old age,

Are overtopp'd,

Their summer blossoms by the surges lopp'd, Which rise, and rise, and rise.

Vainly we look up to the lowering skies

They meet the seas,

And shut out God from our beseeching eyes.
In thine allotted ocean-tent;
Fly, son of Noah, fly! and take thine ease

And view, all floating o'er the element,
The corpses of the world of thy young days:
Then to Jehovah raise

Thy song of praise !

A Mortal. Blessed are the dead

Who die in the Lord!

And though the waters be o'er earth outspread, Yet, as his word,

Be the decree adored!

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He gave me life
The breath which is his own:

And though these eyes should be for ever shut,
Nor longer this weak voice before his throne
Be heard in supplicating tone,

Still blessed be the Lord,

For what is past,

For that which is:

For all are his,

From first to last

and a few figures struggling vainly with the overwhelming waves.― JEFFREY.]

[The despair of the mortal lovers for the loss of their mortal mistresses is well and pathetically expressed. — JEFFREY.]

Time-space-eternity-life-death

The vast known and immeasurable unknown.

He made, and can unmake;

And shall I, for a little gasp of breath,

Blaspheme and groan?

No; let me die, as I have lived, in faith,

Nor quiver, though the universe may quake!

Chorus of Mortals.

Where shall we fly?

Not to the mountains high;

For now their torrents rush, with double roar, To meet the ocean, which, advancing still, Already grasps each drowning hill,

Nor leaves an unsearch'd cave.

Enter a Woman.

Woman. Oh, save me, save!

Our valley is no more:

My father and my father's tent,

My brethren and my brethren's herds,

The pleasant trees that o'er our noonday bent

![This poem carries with it the peculiar impress of the writer's genius. It displays great vigour, and even a severity of style, throughout; which is another proof, if proof were needed, that elevation of writing is to be obtained only by a rind regard to simplicity. It may be perused without shockng the feelings of the sensitive, or furnishing an object for the discriminating morality of the Lord Chancellor. Lord Byron has evidently endeavoured to sustain the interest of this poem, by depicting natural but deep drawn thoughts, in all their freshness and intensity, with as little fictitious aid as possible. Nothing is circumlocutory: there is no going about and about to enter at length upon his object, but he impetuously rushes into it at once. All over the poem there is a tloom cast suitable to the subject: an ominous fearful hue, like that which Poussin has flung over his inimitable picture of the Deluge. We see much evil, but we dread more. All is Gut of earthly keeping, as the events of the time are out of the course of nature. Man's wickedness, the perturbed creation, fear-struck mortals, demons passing to and fro in the earth, an overshadowing solemnity, and unearthly loves, form together the materials. That it has faults is obvious: prosale passages, and too much tedious soliloquising: but there is the vigour and force of Byron to fling into the scale against these: there is much of the sublime in description, and the beautiful in poetry. Prejudice, or ignorance, or both, may condemn it; but, while true poetical feeling exists amongst us, it will be pronounced not unworthy of its distinguished author.-CAMPBELL.

It appears that this is but the first part of a poem ; but it is likewise a poem, and a fine one too, within itself. We confess that we see little or nothing objectionable in it, either as to theological orthodoxy, or general human feeling. It is solemn, lofty, fearful, wild, tumultuous, and shadowed all over with the darkness of a dreadful disaster. Of the angels who love the daughters of men we see little, and know less -- and not too much of the love and passion of the fair lost mortals. The inconsolable despair preceding and accompanying an incomprehensible catastrophe pervades the whole composition; and its expression is made sublime by the noble strain of poetry in which it is said or sung. - WILSON.

This "Mystery" has more poetry and music in it than any of Lord Byron's dramatic writings since "Manfred ; and has also the peculiar merit of throwing us back, in a great degree, to the strange and preternatural time of which it professes to treat. It is truly, and in every sense of the word, a meeting of Heaven and Earth: " angels are seen ascending and descending, and the windows of the sky are opened to deluge the face of nature. We have an impassioned picture of the strong and devoted attachment inspired into the daughters of men by angel forms, and have placed before us the emphatic picture of "woman wailing for her demon lover." There is a like conflict of the passions as of the elements all wild, chaotic, uncontrollable, fatal; but there is a discordant harmony in all this a keeping in the colouring and the time. In handling the unpolished page, we look upon the world before the Flood, and gaze upon a doubtful blank, with only a few straggling figures, part human and part divine; while, in the expression of the former, we read the fancies,

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ethereal and lawless, that lifted the eye of beauty to the skies, and, in the latter, the human passions that " drew an gels down to earth." JEFFREY.

Among all the wonderful excellences of Milton, nothing surpasses the pure and undisturbed idealism with which he has drawn our first parents, so completely human as to excite our most ardent sympathies, yet so far distinct from the common race of men as manifestly to belong to a higher and uncorrupted state of being. In like manner, his Paradise is formed of the universal productions of nature-the flowers, the fruits, the trees, the waters, the cool breezes, the soft and sunny slopes, the majestic hills that skirt the scene; yet the whole is of an earlier, a more prolific, a more luxuriant vegetation: it fully comes up to our notion of what the earth might have been before it was "cursed of its Creator." This is the more remarkable, as Milton himself sometimes destroys, or at least mars, the general effect of his picture, by the introduction of incongruous thoughts or images. The poet's passions are, on occasions, too strong for his imagination, drag him down to earth, and, for the sake of some ill-timed allusion to some of those circumstances, which had taken possession of his mighty mind, he runs the hazard of breaking the solemn enchantment with which he has spell-bound our captive senses. Perhaps, of later writers, Lord Byron alone has caught the true tone, in his short drama called "Heaven and Earth." Here, notwithstanding that we cannot but admit the great and manifold delinquencies against correct taste, particularly some perfectly ludicrous metrical whimsies, yet all is in keeping - all is strange, poetic, oriental; the lyric abruptness, the prodigal accumulation of images in one part, and the rude simplicity in others above all, the general tone of description as to natural objects, and of language and feeling in the scarcely mortal beings which come forth upon the scene, seem to throw us upward into the age of men before their lives were shortened to the narrow span of three-score years and ten, and when all that walked the earth were not born of woman. MILMAN.

The Mystery of "Heaven and Earth" is conceived in the best style of the greatest masters of poetry and painting. It is not unworthy of Dante, and of the mighty artist to whom we have alluded. As a picture of the last deluge, it is incomparably grand and awful. The characters, too, are invested with great dignity and grace. Nothing can be more imposing and fascinating than the haughty,and imperious, and passionate beauty of the daughter of Cain; nor any thing more venerable than the mild but inflexible dignity of the patriarch Noah. We trust that no one will be found with feelings so obtuse, with taste so perverted, or with malignity so undisguised, as to mar the beauties of pictures like these, by imputing to their author the cool profession of those sentiments which he exhibits as extorted from perishing mortals, in their last instant of despair and death. Such a poem as this, if read aright, is calculated, by its lofty passion and sublime conceptions, to exalt the mind and to purify the heart beyond the power of many a sober homily. It will remain an imperishable monument of the transcendent talents of its author; whom it has raised, in our estimation, to a higher pitch of pre-eminence than he ever before attained. M. Mag.]

Sardanapalus :

A TRAGEDY.'

ΤΟ

THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE

A STRANGER PRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGE

OF A LITERARY VASSAL TO HIS LIEGE LORD, THE FIRST OF EXISTING WRITERS, WHO HAS CREATED THE LITERATURE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY,

AND ILLUSTRATED THAT OF EUROPE.

THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTION WHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO INSCRIBE TO HIM

IS ENTITLED

SARDANAPALUS. 2

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January 13, 1821. Sketched the outline and Dram. Pers. of an intended tragedy of Sardanapalus, which I have for some time meditated. Took the names from Diodorus Siculus, (I know the history of Sardanapalus, and have known it since I was twelve years old,) and read over a passage in the ninth volume of Mitford's Greece, where he rather vindicates the memory of this last of the Assyrians. Carried Teresa the Italian translation of Grillparzer's Sappho. She quarrelled with me, because I said that love was not the loftiest theme for a tragedy; and, having the advantage of her native language, and natural female eloquence, she overcame my fewer arguments. I believe she was right. I must put more love into Sardanapalus' than I intended."

"May 25. I have completed four acts. I have made Sardanapalus brave, (though voluptuous, as history represents him,) and also as amiable as my poor powers could render him. I have strictly preserved all the unities hitherto, and mean to continue them in the fifth, if possible; but NOT for the stage."

"May 30. By this post I send you the tragedy. You will remark that the unities are all strictly preserved. The scene passes in the same hall always the time, a summer's night, about nine hours or less; though it begins before sunset, and ends after sunrise. It is not for the stage, any more than the other was intended for it; and I shall take better care this time that they don't get hold on 't."

"July 14. I trust that Sardanapalus' will not be mistaken for a political play; which was so far from my intention, that I thought of nothing but Asiatic history. My object

He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature; but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion, which, not very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilised parts of it. But "nous avons changé tout cela," and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far from conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach his regular, or even irregular, predecessors; he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formation of a structure, however feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules whatsoever. Where he has failed, the failure is in the architect,—and not in the art. 4

has been to dramatise, like the Greeks (a modest phrase, striking passages of history and mythology. You will find all this very unlike Shakspeare; and so much the better in one sense, for I look upon him to be the worst of models, though the most extraordinary of writers. It has been my object to be as simple and severe as Alfieri, and I have broken down the poetry as nearly as I could to common language, The hardship is that, in these times, one can neither speak of kings nor queens without suspicion of politics or personalities. I intended neither."

July 22. Print away, and publish. I think they must own that I have more styles than one. Sardanapalus ' is, however, almost a comic character: but, for that matter, so is Richard the Third. Mind the unities, which are my great object of research. I am glad Gifford likes it as for the million, you see I have carefully consulted any thing but the taste of the day for extravagant coups de théâtre." Sardanapalus was published in December, 1821, and was received with very great approbation.]

["Well knowing myself and my labours, in my old age, I could not but reflect with gratitude and diffidence on the ex pressions contained in this dedication, nor interpret them but as the generous tribute of a superior genius, no less original in the choice than inexhaustible in the materials of his subjects." GOETHE.]

[“ Sardanapalus" originally appeared in the same volume with" The Two Foscari."]

["In this preface," (says Mr. Jeffrey)" Lord Byron renews his protest against looking upon any of his plays as having been composed with the most remote view to the stage;' and, at the same time, testifies in behalf of the unities, as essential to the existence of the drama-according to what was till lately, the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilised parts of it. We do not think these opinions very consistent; and we think that

DRAMATIS PERSONE.'

MEN.

Sardanapalus.

SABDANAPALUS, King of Nineveh and Assyria, ÿc.
ARBACES, the Mede who aspired to the Throne.
BELESES, a Chaldean and Soothsayer.
SALEMENES, the King's Brother-in-law.
ALTADA, an Assyrian Officer of the Palace.

PANIA.

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either of them could possibly find favour with a person whose genius had a truly dramatic character. We should as sou expect an orator to compose a speech altogether unfit to poken. A drama is not merely a dialogue, but an action; and necessarily supposes that something is to pass before the eyes of assembled spectators. Whatever is peculiar to its written part, should derive its peculiarity from this consider

its style should be an accompaniment to action, and should be calculated to excite the emotions, and keep alive the attention, of gazing multitudes. If an author does not bear this continually in his mind, and does not write in the steal presence of an eager and diversified assemblage, he may be a poet perhaps, but assuredly he will never be a dramatist. If Lord Byron really does not wish to impregnate his elaborate scenes with the living part of the drama - if he has no bankering after stage-effect-if he is not haunted with the visible presentiment of the persons he has created if, in setting down a vehement invective, he does not fancy the tone in which Mr. Kean would deliver it, and anticipate the ng applauses of the pit, then he may be sure that neither Eis feelings nor his genius are in unison with the stage at all. Why, then, should he affect the form, without the power of tragedy? Didactic reasoning and eloquent description will not compensate, in a play, for a dearth of dramatic spirit and invention: and, besides, sterling sense and poetry, as such, ought to stand by themselves, without the unmeaning mockery of a dramatis persone. As to Lord Byron pretending to set up the unities at this time of day, as the law of literature throughout the world,' it is mere caprice and contradiction. He, if ever man was, is a law to himself a chartered libertee; and now, when he is tired of this unbridled license, he wants to do penance within the unities! English dramatic poetry soars above the unities, just as the imagination does. The only pretence for insisting on them is, that we suppose the stage itself to be, actually and really, the very spot on which a Even action is performed; and, if so, this space cannot be removed to another. But the supposition is manifestly quite contrary to truth and experience."- Edin. Rev. vol. xxxvi. The reader may be pleased to compare the above with the following passage from Dr. Johnson :

Whether Shakspeare knew the unities, and rejected them by design, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible to decide and useless to inquire. We may reasonably suppose, that when he rose to notice, he did not at the counsels and admonitions of scholars and critics; and that he at last deliberately persisted in a practice which he might have begun by chance. As nothing is essential to the fable but unity of action, and as the unities of time and place arise evidently from false assumptions, and, by circumscribing the extent of the drama, lessen its variety, I cannot think it much to be lamented that they were not known by him, or not observed: nor, if such another poet could arise, should Ivery vehemently reproach him, that his first act passed at Venice, and his next in Cyprus. Such violations of rules merely positive become the comprehensive genius of Shakspeare, and such censures are suitable to the minute and dender criticism of Voltaire:

Non usque adeo permiscuit imis
Longus summa dies, ut non, si voce Metelli
Serventur leges, malint a Cæsare tolli.'

ACT I.

SCENE 1.

A Hall in the Palace.

Salemenes (solus). He hath wrong'd his queen, but still he is her lord;

He hath wrong'd my sister, still he is my brother;
He hath wrong'd his people, still he is their sovereign,
And I must be his friend as well as subject:
He must not perish thus. I will not see
The blood of Nimrod and Semiramis
Sink in the earth, and thirteen hundred years
Of empire ending like a shepherd's tale;
He must be roused. In his effeminate heart
There is a careless courage which corruption
Has not all quench'd, and latent energies,
Repress'd by circumstance, but not destroy'd —

Yet, when I speak thus slightly of dramatic rules, I cannot but recollect how much wit and learning may be produced against me; before such authorities I am afraid to stand, not that I think the present question one of those that are to be decided by mere authority, but because it is to be suspected, that these precepts have not been so easily received, but for far better reasons than I have yet been able to find. The result of my inquiries, in which it would be ludicrous to boast of impartiality, is, that the unities of time and place are not essential to a just drama; that though they may sometimes conduce to pleasure, they are always to be sacrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and instruction; and that a play written with nice observation of critical rules, is to be contemplated as an elaborate curiosity, as the product of superfluous and ostentatious art, by which is shown rather what is possible than what is necessary. He that without diminution of any other excellence shall preserve all the unities unbroken, deserves the like applause with the architect, who shall display all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without any deduction from its strength: but the principal beauty of a citadel is to exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces of a play are to copy nature and instruct life." - Preface to Shakspeare.]

In this tragedy it has been my intention to follow the account of Diodorus Siculus; reducing it, however, to such dramatic regularity as I best could, and trying to approach the unities. I therefore suppose the rebellion to explode and succeed in one day by a sudden conspiracy, instead of the long war of the history.

2 [Sardanapalus is, beyond all doubt, a work of great beauty and power; and though the heroine has many traits in common with the Medoras and Gulnares of Lord Byron's undramatic poetry, the hero must be allowed to be a new character in his hands. He has, indeed, the scorn of war, and glory, and priestcraft, and regular morality, which distinguishes the rest of his lordship's favourites; but he has no misanthropy, and very little pride — and may be regarded, on the whole, as one of the most truly good-humoured, amiable, and respectable voluptuaries to whom we have ever been presented. In this conception of his character, the author has very wisely followed nature and fancy rather than history. His Sardanapalus is not an effeminate, worn-out debauchee, with shattered nerves and exhausted senses, the slave of indolence and vicious habits; but a sanguine votary of pleasure, a princely epicure, indulging, revelling in boundless luxury while he can, but with a soul so inured to voluptuousness, so saturated with delights, that pain and danger, when they come uncalled for, give him neither concern nor dread; and he goes forth from the banquet to the battle, as to a dance or measure, attired by the Graces, and with youth, joy, and love for his guides. He dallies with Bellona as bridegroom-for his sport and pastime; and the spear or fan, the shield or shining mirror, become his hands equally well. He enjoys life, in short, and triumphs in death and whether in prosperous or adverse circumstances, his soul smiles out superior to evil. JEFFREY.

The Sardanapalus of Lord Byron is pretty nearly such a person as the Sardanapalus of history may be supposed to have been. Young, thoughtless, spoiled by flattery and unbounded self-indulgence, but with a temper naturally amiable, and abilities of a superior order, he affects to undervalue the

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