chaos of boiling thoughts, and indigested conceptions, working together in endless confusion, and rendered worse by a proud contempt of all order and authority.

To the arbitrary decisions of a mind so disturbed in itself, what sober understanding can be disposed to pay attention on questions that require patient investigation and an impartial judgment? Yet the noble author of Childe Harold, in this third Canto, while professing enmity to his own kind, and affinity only with lakes and rocks, presumes to enter into the affairs of nations, and to pass sentence upon the counsels of empires.

In addition to this political excrescence, is another deformity of a still fouler description; and that is the bold avowal of infidelity, with an eulogy upon the great champions of Scepticism. Of Voltaire, who is evidently a favourite of the noble lord, it is said that he was

"Most unstable in wishes, but in mind]

A wit as various-gay, grave, sage, or wild,-
Historian, bard, philosopher combined:

He multiplied himself among mankind,

The Proteus of their talents; but his own

Breathed most in ridicule-which, as the wind,

Blew where it listed, laying all things prone

Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne.”

To render this encomiastic description more characteristic of the object, and more offensive to good manners, the noble lord has here applied one of the sublimest figures in the gospel, to the man who spent his whole life in endeavouring to root out the principles of all religion from the minds of men. In the same spirit Gibbon the historian partakes of the author's praises, for having "sapped a solemn creed with solemn sneer;" and it is for this also that Lord Byron puts in his own claim to immortality, though, while boasting of his mental independence, he makes the dreadful confession that he knew not how to direct his steps aright; for which, however, he assigns this cogent reason,

"Untaught in youth my heart to tame,
My springs of life were poisoned."

CHAPTER XIV.

Marloe and Lord Byron compared.-Account of the dramatic Poem of "Manfred."-Origin and tendency of that Piece.-Ferrara.-The "Lament of Tasso."

WERE we disposed to select a parallel to Lord Byron from among our old English writers, we know not one so exactly suited in all points to our purpose, as Christopher Marloe, the contemporary of Shakspeare; and who is thus characterised by Michael Drayton :

"Next Marloe, bathed in Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunary things
That your first poets had; his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear:
For that fine madness still he did retain

Which rightly should possess a poet's brain."

To the most daring scepticism and licentiousness of principles, were added in him a fertile genius and great originality of conception; but he delighted in drawing characters which, for the honour of human nature, it is to be hoped had rarely if ever any prototypes; and though Marloe was himself a professed unbeliever to the widest extent, he encumbered his pieces with all the dreadful machinery of superstitious credulity. But his main power lay in representing villany; and in doing this, no one ever exceeded him; for all the personages of his dramas, upon whom he has heaped the load of guilt, are criminal without any motive except that of vice, and this deadly innate obliquity of mind they retain without compunction or repentance to the last moment of existence. It is, therefore, not to be wondered that the works of Marloe should have long since sunk into oblivion'; for where no moral end is answered by such representations, the effect must be mischievous. reproach which Eschylus, according to Aristophanes, brings against Euripides, is that he exhibited the vilest characters in his pieces. "What," said the great tragedian,

The

am I the inventor of those personages?"-"No," answers Eschylus, "their ad

ON POETIC CHARACTERS.

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ventures were known long before; but a poet, whose business it is to instruct mankind, ought not to choose for his subjects, historical adventures the recital of which may have a pernicious influence."

But if this be wrong in regard to the exhibition of real events, and the delineation of characters that have actually lived in the world; how much more improper is it to imagine new scenes of iniquity, and to bring before the public, either on the stage, or in print, creatures whose sole pleasure is wickedness? Such, however, are the dramatic personages of Marloe, and such are the prominent ones in the poems of Lord Byron. After carrying the idea of human depravity to a depth of degradation as far as imagination seemed capable of going, the noble author resolved to make another effort, and to embody a being that should outdo all his former doings. It is curious that he should have been tempted to this strange trial of his creative powers, by the sublime scenery which excited his astonishment among the icy mountains of Switzerland; and that the contemplation of objects calculated to raise the mind to noble thoughts, should have inspired him with the notion of forming a hideous