Part 18 (1/2)

Night after night for years He hath pursued long vigils in this tower Without a witness--I have been within it-- So have we all been ofttimes; but from it, Or its contents, it were iht His studies tend to--To be sure there is One chamber where none enter--

Count Manfred was, as noithin his tower: How occupied--we know not--but with his--her--who he seementation of the horror, the poet leaves the deed which was done in that unapproachable chaht, that within it lie the relics or the ashes of the ”one without a tomb”

CHAPTER xxxIII

State of Byron in Switzerland--He goes to Venice--The fourth Canto of ”Childe Harold”--Rumination on his own Condition--Beppo--Lament of Tasso--Curious Example of Byron's metaphysical Love

The situation of Lord Byron in Switzerland was comfortless He found that ”the montain palaces of Nature” afforded no asylum to a haunted heart; he was ill at ease with hih of wrong to justify his misanthropy

Some expectation that his lady would repent of her part in the separation probably induced hihfare of the travelling English, whom he affected to shun

If it were so, he was disappointed, and, his hopes being frustrated, he broke up the establish some of the celebrated scenes and places in the north of Italy he passed on to Venice, where he do his residence at Venice Lord Byron avoided as much as possible any intercourse with his countryree necessary, and it was natural in the state of his reat public interest by his talents; the stories connected with his domestic troubles had also increased his notoriety, and in such circumstances he could not but shrink from the inquisition of mere curiosity But there was an insolence in the tone hich he declares his ”utter abhorrence of any contact with the travelling English,” that can neither be commended for its spirit, nor palliated by any treatment he had suffered Like Coriolanus he may have banished his country, but he had not, like the Rogressor in the feuds with his literary adversaries; and there was a serious accusation against his morals, or at least his manners, in the circumstances under which Lady Byron withdrew frohout life to for save in his poetical powers

A life in Venice is enius carries with him everywhere a charm, which secures to him both variety and enjoyment Lord Byron had scarcely taken up his abode in Venice, when he began the fourth canto of Childe Harold, which he published early in the following year, and dedicated to his indefatigable friend Mr Hobhouse by an epistle dated on the anniversary of his e, ”the most unfortunate day,” as he says, ”of his past existence”

In this canto he has indulged his excursivebeyond even the wide licence he took in the three preceding parts; but it bears the ih not superior in poetical energy, it is yet a higher work than any of the of a more resolved and masculine spirit pervades the reflections, and endows, as it were, with thought and enthusiass described Of the s, I ae: the transcripts from the tablets of the author's bosoard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrihtly, if at all, separated fro in his own person The fact is, that I had beco a line, which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese, in Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted and iined that I had drawn a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and the disappoint, so far crushed my efforts in the coether--and have done so”

This confession, though it ives a pathetic ees in which the poet speaks of his own feelings That his mind was jarred, and out of joint, there is too much reason to believe; but he had in so the dis passage, though breathing the sweet and enerous vein of nationality than is often ht have been ues--and in strange eyes Have es bring surprise, Nor is it harsh to make or hard to find A country with--aye, or without mankind

Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Not without cause; and should I leave behind Th' inviolate island of the sage and free, And seek me out a home by a remoter sea?

Perhaps I lov'd it well, and should I lay My ashes in a soil which is not mine, My spirit shall resume it--if weree; if too fond and far These aspirations in their hope incline-- If ht, and dull oblivion bar

My name from out the temple where the dead Are honour'd by the nations--let it be, And light the laurels on a loftier head, And be the Spartan's epitaph on me: ”Sparta had many a worthier son than he”; Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted--they have tornfrom such a seed

It will strike the reader as reh the poet, in the course of this canto, takes occasion to allude to Dante and Tasso, in whose destinies there was a shadowy likeness of his own, the ruht have been expected, especially when it is considered how s the basis and substratum of the sentiments he ascribed to others It has also more than once surprised me that he has so seldom alluded to Alfieri, whom of all poets, both in character and conduct, he most resembled; with this difference, however, that Alfieri was possessed of affections equally intense and durable, whereas the caprice of Byron made him uncertain in his partialities, or as the same in effect, made his friends set less value on them than perhaps they were entitled to

Before Childe Harold was finished, an incident occurred which suggested to Byron a poem of a very different kind to any he had yet atte for the exact truth of the anecdote, I have been told, that he one day received by the mail a copy of Whistlecraft's prospectus and specimen of an intended national work; and, an Beppo, which he finished at a sitting The facility hich he coular as it may seeaiety, stronger than even his grave works have of his frowardness, commonly believed to have been--I think, unjustly--the predominant mood of his character

The Ode to Venice is also to be nu his conant effusion, full of his peculiar lurid fire, and rich in a variety of ies

But there is a still finer poeh written, I believe, before he reached Venice--The Lament of Tasso: and I am led to notice it the es affords an illustration of the opinion which I have early maintained--that Lord Byron's extraordinary pretensions to the influence of love was but a metaphysical conception of the passion