Cain. The former does not please me so highly as Sardanapalus. It has the fault of all those violent Venetian stories,-being unnatural and improbable, and therefore, in spite of all your fine management of them, appealing but remotely to one's sympathies. But Cain is wonderful-terrible-never to be forgotten. If I am not mistaken, it will sink deep into the world's heart; and while many will shudder at its blasphemy, all must fall prostrate before its grandeur. Talk of Æschylus and his Prometheus !—here is the true spirit both of the Poet-and the Devil." « February 9th, 1822. « Do not take it into your head, my dear B., that the tide is at all turning against you in England. Till I see some symptoms of people forgetting you a little, I will not believe that you lose ground. As it is, 'te veniente die, te, decedente,'-nothing is hardly talked of but you'; and though good people sometimes bless themselves when they mention you, it is plain that even they think much more about you than, for the good of their souls, they ought. Cain, to be sure, has made a sensation; and, grand as it is, I regret, for many reasons, you ever wrote it. For myself, I would not give up the poetry of religion for all the wisest results that philosophy will ever arrive at. Particular sects and creeds are fair game enough for those who are anxious enough about their neighbours to meddle with them; but our faith in the Future is a treasure not so lightly to be parted with; and the dream of immortality (if philosophers will have it a dream) is one that, let us hope, we shall carry into our last sleep with us.» * * * It is to this sentence Lord Byron refers at the conclusion of his letter, March 4. « I have written to the Longmans to try the ground, for I do not think Galignani the man for you. The only thing he can do is what we can do, ourselves, without him,—and that is, employ an English bookseller. Paris, indeed, might be convenient for such refugee works as are set down in the Index Expurgatorius of London; and if you have any political catamarans to explode, this is your place. But, pray, let them be only political ones. Boldness, and even licence, in politics, does good,actual, present good; but, in religion, it profits neither here nor hereafter; and, for myself, such a horror have I of both extremes on this subject, that I know not which I hate most, the bold, damning bigot, or the bold, annihilating infidel. 'Furiosa res est in tenebris impetus;' —and much as we are in the dark, even the wisest of us, upon these matters, a little modesty, in unbelief as well as belief, best becomes us. You will easily guess that, in all this, I am thinking not so much of you, as of a friend and, at present, companion of yours, whose influence over your mind (knowing you as I do, and knowing what Lady B. ought to have found out, that you are a person the most tractable to those who live with you that, perhaps, ever existed) I own I dread and deprecate most earnestly."" The 'This passage having been shown by Lord Byron to Mr Shelley, the latter wrote, in consequence, a letter to a gentleman with whom I was then in habits of intimacy, of which the following is an extract. zeal and openness with which Shelley always professed his unbelief render any scruple that might otherwise be felt in giving publicity to such avowals unnecessary; besides which, the testimony of so near and clear an observer to the state of Lord Byron's mind upon religious subjects is of far too much importance to my object to be, from any over-fastidiousness, suppressed. We have here, too, strikingly exemplified,—and in strong contrast, I must say, to the line taken by Mr Hunt in similar March 16th, 1822. " With respect to our Religious Polemics, I must try to set you right upon one or two points. In the first place, I do not identify you with the blasphemies of Cain no more than I do myself with the impieties of my Mokanna, all I wish and implore is that you, who are such a powerful manufacturer of these thunderbolts, would not chuse subjects that make it necessary to launch them. In the next place, were you even a decided atheist, I could not (except, perhaps, for the decision which is always unwise) blame you. I could only pity, --knowing from experience how dreary are the doubts with which even the bright, poetic view I am myself inclined to take of mankind and their destiny, is now and then clouded. I look upon Cuvier's book to be a circumstances, the good-breeding, gentle temper and modesty for which Shelley was so remarkable, and of the latter of which qualities in particular the undeserved compliment to myself affords a strong illustration, as showing how little this true poet had yet learned to know his own place. « Lord Byron has read me one or two letters of Moore to him, in which Moore speaks with great kindness of me; and of course I cannot but feel flattered by the approbation of a man, my inferiority to whom I am proud to acknowledge. Amongst other things, however, Moore, after giving Lord B. much good advice about public opinion, etc., seems to deprecate my influence on his mind on the subject of religion, and to attribute the tone assumed in Cain to my suggestions. Moore cautions him against any influence on this particular with the most friendly zeal, and it is plain that his motive springs from a desire of benefiting Lord B. without degrading me. I think you know Moore. Pray assure him that I have not the smallest influence over Lord Byron in this particular;—if I had, I certainly should employ it to eradicate from his great mind the delusions of Christianity, which, in spite of his reason, seem perpetually to recur, and to lay in ambush for the hours of sickness and distress. Cain was conceived many years ago, and begun before I saw him last year at Ravenna. How happy should I not be to attribute to myself, however indirectly, any participation in that immortal work!» most desolating one in the conclusions to which it may lead some minds. But the young, the simple, all those whose hearts one would like to keep unwithered, trouble their heads but little about Cuvier. You, however, have embodied him in poetry which every one reads; and, like the wind, blowing where you list,' carry this deadly chill, mixed up with your own fragrance, into hearts that should be visited only by the latter. This is what I regret, and what with all my influence I would deprecate a repetition of. Now, do you understand me? 6 « As to your solemn peroration, the truth is, my dear Moore, etc. etc.' meaning neither more nor less than that I give into the cant of the world, it only proves, alas! the melancholy fact, that you and I are hundreds of miles asunder. Could you hear me speak my opinions instead of coldly reading them, I flatter myself there is still enough of honesty and fun in this face to remind you that your friend Tom Moore,-whatever else he may be,—is no Canter.>> LETTER CCCCLXXXIV. TO MK MURRAY. " Pisa, March 6th, 1822. « You will long ago have received a letter from me (or should), declaring my opinion of the treatment you have met with about the recent publication. I think it disgraceful to those who have persecuted you. I make peace with you, though our war was for other reasons than this same controversy. I have written to Moore by this post to forward to you the tragedy of Werner.' I shall not make or propose any present bargain about it or the new Mystéry till we see if they succeed. If they don't sell (which is not unlikely), you sha'n't pay; and I suppose this is fair play, if you chuse to risk it. « Bartolini, the celebrated sculptor, wrote to me to desire to take my bust: I consented, on condition that he also took that of the Countess Guiccioli. He has taken both, and I think it will be allowed that hers is beautiful. I shall make you a present of them both, to show that I don't bear malice, and as a compensation for the trouble and squabble you had about Thorwaldsen's. Of my own I can hardly speak, except that it is thought very like what I now am, which is different from what I was, of course, since you saw me. sculptor is a famous one; and as it was done by his own particular request, will be done well, probably. The « What is to be done about ** and his Commentary ? He will die, if he is not published; he will be damned, if he is; but that he don't mind. We must publish him. « All the row about me has no otherwise affected me than by the attack upon yourself, which is ungenerous in Church and State: but as all violence must in time have its proportionate reaction, you will do better by and by. « Yours very truly, << You will have had enough of my letters by this time ---yet one word in answer to your present missive. You are quite wrong in thinking that your advice' had of ، |