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As to the other human dramatis persona, Messieurs the Chamois Hunter, the abbot of St. Maurice, Manuel and Herman, they have no pretensions to character, or poetical existence. The part they perform is scarcely more important than that assigned to the all-potent and mysterious Arimanes, which consists in the following imperial-decree.

Nemesis. Great Arimanes, doth thy will avouch
The wishes of this mortal?

Arimanes. YEA!!

Wholly destitute as the poem is of dramatic merit, our readers will not however imagine that it bears no marks of the master-hand of the poet. Criticism would be thrown away on the present production taken as a whole, but there are passages of considerable beauty. Take for example three of the songs of the spirits of earth and air, whom Manfred summons to appear before him.

Voice of the SECOND SPIRIT,

• Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains,
They crowned him long ago

On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow.

Around his waist are forests braced,

The Avalanche in his hand;
But ere it fall, that thundering ball
Must pause for my command.

The Glacier's cold and restless mass
Moves onward day by day;
But I am he who bids it

Or with its ice delay.

pass,

I am the spirit of the place,

Could make the mountain bow

And quiver to his cavern'd base-
And what with me would'st Thou?

Voice of the THIRD SPIRIT.
In the blue depth of the waters,
Where the wave hath no strife,
Where the wind is a stranger,
And the sea-snake hath life,
Where the Mermaid is decking
Her green hair with shells;
Like the storm on the surface
Came the sound of thy spells;
O'er my calm Hall of Coral
The deep echo roll'd-
To the Spirit of Ocean

Thy wishes unfold!

FOURTH SPIRIT.

Where the slumbering earthquake

Lies pillow'd on fire,

And the lakes of bitumen
Rise boilingly higher;
Where the roots of the Andes
Strike deep in the earth,
As their summits to heaven
Shoot soaringly forth;

I have quitted my birth-place,

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Thy bidding to bide

Thy spell hath subdued me,

Thy will be my guide!' pp. 10-12.

The reader will be surprised at the introduction in this scene, of the Incantation' printed with "the Prisoners of Chillon; the more so, as it will puzzle him to discover who is the performer of the Curse, as well as who is its subject, and for what purpose his Lordship has chosen to insert it in this place. The following soliloquy is one of the best passages in the poem.

The stars are forth, the moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains.Beautiful!
I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face

Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,'

I learn'd the language of another world./
I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering, upon such a night
I stood within the Coloseum's wall,

'Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome;
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watchdog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cæsars' palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bow-shot-where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night amidst
A grove which springs through levell'd battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth

L

But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, wit
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!

While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls,
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.

And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity

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Of rugged desolation, and filled up,
As 'twere, anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old!-
The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns. pp. 68, 69.

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Manfred, like Alp, is warned by a phantom, of his dissolution on the morrow; and is accordingly prepared for the demons who punctually wait upon him, to claim their right and title to him as their subject. He denies, however, their power to summon him, and begs leave to die alone.' The spirit who first makes his appearance, finding him contumacious, calls in his attendant brethren, but Manfred still sets them at defiance; and the infernal messenger begins to hold parley with him in the following style.

• SPIRIT.

Reluctant mortal!
Is this the Magian who would so pervade
The world invisible, and make himself
Almost our equal?-Can it be that thou
Art thus in love with life? the very life
Which made thee wretched!

MAN.
Thou false fiend, thou liest!
My life is in its last hour, that I know,
Nor would redeem a moment of that hour;
I do not combat against death, but thee
And thy surrounding angels; my past power
Was purchased by no compact with thy crew,
But by superior science-penance-daring-
And length of watching strength of mind and skill
In knowledge of our fathers-when the earth
Saw men and spirits walking side by side,
And gave ye no supremacy: I stand
Upon my strength I do defy deny
Spurn back, and scorn ye!

SPIRIT.

Have made thee

MAN.

But thy many crimes

What are they to such as thee?
Must crimes be punished but by other crimes,
And greater criminals?-Back to thy hell!
Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel;
Thou never shalt possess me, that I know:
What I have done is done; I bear within
A torture which could nothing gain from thine:
The mind which is immortal makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts

Is its own origin of ill and end

And its own place and time-its innate sense,
When stripp'd of this mortality, derives
VOL. VIII. N.S.
F

No colour from the fleeting things without;
But is absorb'd in sufferance and in joy,
Born from the knowledge of his own desert.

Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt me;
I have not been thy dupe nor am thy prey-
But was my own destroyer, and will be
My own hereafter.-Back, ye baffled fiends!
The hand of death is on me-but not yours!

[The Demon's disappear.
ABBOT. Alas! how pale thou art-thy lips are white-
And thy breast heaves-and in thy gasping throat
The accents rattle-Give thy prayers to heaven-
Pray-albeit but in thought, but die not thus.
MAN. 'Tis over-my dull eyes can fix thee not;
But all things swim around me, and the earth
Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well-
Give me thy hand.

Аввот.

[MANFRED expires. Cold-cold-even to the heart

But yet one prayer-alas! how fares it with thee?—
He's gone-his soul hath ta'en its earthless flight-

Whither? I dread to think-but he is gone.' pp. 73–75. We acquit the noble Author of any design to burlesque the awful realities which he brings upon the scene; but, to make use of a very homely expression, the poet, in these passages is playing with edge tools. Manfred tells the abbot, in another part,

• I shall not choose a mortab

To be my mediator.'

Does this infer the Author's conviction of the necessity of a mediator not a mortal? We hope that it does: but these are not subjects for a dramatic poem. Upon the whole, this manuscript was scarcely worth being transmitted froin the Continent: it will not raise Lord Byron's reputation.

Art. VII. Pastoral Letters on Nonconformity. Addressed to a young Member of a Society of Protestant Dissenters, 12mo. pp. xvi. 126. Price 3s. 6d. Black and Son, 1817.

THERE are two extremes against which it is equally

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necessary to guard in all matters of religious controversy, and especially in those to which these Pastoral Letters' refer. The one is, that esprit du corps,' that vehemence of party spirit which magnifies the most trifling points of difference, into legitimate grounds of separation; the other is, that false candour, which would represent questions of vital importance, as doubtful or indifferent. Time was, when the danger lay almost exclusively on the side of the former of these extremes, and when good men, men of sound wisdom and exemplary

piety, were induced by various circumstances to place an undue stress on matters in themselves unimportant and trifling, contending either for or against them with all the zeal and earnestness that usually attach to polemical discusssions. But in the present day, the danger lies, we appreliend, chiefly on the other side, since it is evident that questions so deeply interesting as those which relate to the order, the constitution, and the goverumeut of the Christian Church, are treated by many persons as matters of speculation on which it is of little importance to decide. The work before us, is admirably adapted, so far as it goes, to guard against both these extremes, and is therefore peculiarly fitted to the present state of the Christian Church. It breathes all that spirit of love and universal benevolence, by which the present period is happily distinguished; combined with that inflexible adherence to essential principles, which truth must ever demand.

A-disposition has lately prevailed, not only among members of the Establishment, but even among many who are accustomed to worship with Protestant Dissenters, to condemn altogether any discussion of these topics, in what spirit soever that discussion may be conducted, as uncalled for and highly injudicious in the present day. Is this a moment,' say they, in which to revive the controversy, when the best men on either side are in the frequent habit of meeting and co-operating together in support of religious institutions? Is it not most ill-judged at such an auspicious season to provoke hostilities, and induce alienation of mind among the most zealous 'defenders of our common faith? No: let us rather forget our little differences, intent upon prosecuting the great work in which we are unitedly engaged.'

We will yield to none in our attachment to peace and Christian union; yet we do conceive that even these blessings are too dearly purchased, if they are obtained by the unhallowed compromise or abandonment of any part of revealed truth. There are indeed times, and places, in which a strict neutrality should be kept, and in which it should be as slightly remembered as possible, that such distinctions exist as those of Churchman and Dissenter. Whatever may be the violations of neutrality on the part of members of the Establishment, we should exceedingly regret that any case should occur, and we do not believe it has occurred, in which a Dissenter meeting with his brethren of the endowed sect, for a common purpose, And, on neutral ground, should commence an assault by obtruding his peculiar ténets, or boasting of the greater purity and excellence of his mode of worship. But when each party retires to its own post, bearing, it may he hoped, some portion *1 that hallowed feeling which pervaded the assembly, that

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