ply his place below, and to meet all possible requirements of the restored jurisdictions, appoint two new ViceChancellors, one of them, as a mere necessity of the transfer of the Landed Estates Court jurisdiction, to be the present masterly administrator of the affairs of that department, the other, probably, one of the existing judges of the Court of Bankruptcy and Insolvency. The Court of Chancery would thus be put on a sound and rational footing. All its ancient jurisdictions restored to it, with ample provision made for their efficient discharge-and, at its head, a permanent magistrate-a judge of the highest order, and not aspiring to be anything else. With the present Master of the Rolls presiding in the court of intermediate appeal, it is anticipated with confidence that before a term had elapsed that court would be re-instated in the place it held five years ago.

"As to the effect of these changes from the point of view of economic retrenchment, those who are solicitous on that score can make their own calculations. Five judgeships would be struck off (including the giant-waste of the Chancellorship with its costly and fantastic following) and only two would be substituted. In judges' salaries alone. there would ultimately be a saving of 9000l. a year—thus

now

nevertheless, and we sincerely trust. will receive the earnest attention of the present Government. Seven centuries have now elapsed since the English invaded Ireland, and during the whole of that period. no Minister ever had the same favourable opportunity that presents itself to Mr. Disraeli for successfully consolidating the union. with Great Britain. A concurrence of circumstances renders the present moment most opportune for thoroughly accomplishing what no minister has as yet had the sagacity to attempt, namely, the perfecting of the Union. With profound wisdom the Lord Justice observes

"There are two modes of dealing with Irish disaffection, one of which is sure to fail; the other, to succeed, if only it be consistently and resolutely persevered in. The first is alternate bluster and cajolement-today proclaiming that, at all hazards, the integrity of the empire must be maintained; to-morrow, that the wishes of the Irish people must be referred to, which Irish people' the enemies of British connection invariably assume to mean themselves. These things

but add fuel to flame.

“The other mode is steadfast, persistent, uncompromising action. I do not mean physical coercion, but the sort of action which will be most likely, if anything can do it, to supersede the necessity for that ultima ratio. What is wanted is a course of conduct which would show, by acts, not words, that the British mind has settled down immutably in the tenet that an Irish Parliament, under what disguise soever, is not within the possibilities of politics. To remove from time to time, not abruptly or spasmodically, but as occasions naturally present themselves, institutions which keep alive, in the minds even of the well-affected, the idea of separateness, this would be a course of action worth volumes of talk.

"Two relics of the Anti-Union Parliament still linger behind it-the Lord Lieutenancy and the Chancellorship. They are now mere anachronismsutter unrealities. But their existence

keeps fresh the memory of the constitution of which they once formed a part. A precious opportunity now offers for suppressing one of themquietly, naturally, as part of a great reconstruction of all the judicatures of the United Kingdom, as a necessary step towards at once re-invigorating the Irish Chancery, diminishing its cost, and averting the worst evil that menaces the coming Court. That one once gone, the other would not long survive. There would be one Chancellor for the United Kingdom. The Castle' would merge in the Home Office."

These are suggestions worthy of adoption by a true statesman. The present Cabinet is most fortunate in having for its Irish Attorney-General a gentleman so thoroughly competent, in every respect, as Dr. Ball admittedly is. A distinguished equity lawyer himself, there is no man of his day better qualified to

carry out satisfactorily the great and needful changes the Lord Justice has so happily described.

Notwithstanding all the froth and clamour of the miserable Fenian and Republican factions, who constitute the body of the Home-Rule agitation, the population of Ireland is not disaffected. On the contrary, indeed, the Protestants and Roman Catholics of Ireland, in their industry and property, intelligence and independence, are essentially loyal, and desirous of complete Union with Great Britain. Will the present ministers prove equal to the greatness of the occasion, and satisfy the wishes of the country by consolidating the Union? We sincerely hope so, for this is the most effective way in which to extinguish the hopes of the disaffected, and render the vocation of professional agitators profitless.

Act iii., Scene 1.

THE Byronic heroes formed a type which has impressed itself deeply upon our imaginative literature. That embodiment of misanthropy, pride, self-will, contempt of the world, and defiauce of its most cherished laws and opinions, which appeared and re-appeared under various guises throughout Byron's works, at length established itself, by its very persistence, as an almost living reality. It is impossible to say to how many imitations it has given rise; how many prominent characters in poetry, drama, and romance can trace their origin to the same ideal. It is, indeed, but one facet of that polygon, the human mind, that Byron presents to us, but the lesson is so often repeated, and so thoroughly taught, that it is impossible to forget it.

"Manfred " occupies a peculiar position among Byron's works. It is not a drama of complex and varied interest, like "Marino Faleiro " or "Sardanapalus;" not a Scriptural

mystery," like "Cain" or "Heaven and Earth;" it is entirely different from such poetical romances of rapid action as the "Giaour," "Mazeppa," and the "Siege of Corinth," nor is it essentially reflective, like "Childe Harold" or the "Lament of Tasso." Manfred is no wanderer like Harold, no

and the word "man-ignorer," rather than "man-hater," would best describe him.

Notwithstanding its peculiarities of form and treatment, the poem of "Manfred" exhibits the very essence and culmination of the Byronic ideal. The hero has, in the highest degree, those three distinctive characteristics so conspicuous in that ideal -isolation, prideful scorn, and torturing self-reproach. No solitude could be more complete than his, no pride more unbending, no selftorture more agonizing. He is

neither in the world or of it. All through the piece he stands solitary and majestic in his misery.

To be consonant with the character of a being so far removed from ordinary humanity, and with that

intensity of remorse which it is the purpose of the work to portray, the crime of Manfred needed to be something of an exceptionally terrible kind, something whose very nature should involve it in an atmosphere of horror and mystery. A mere act of fraud or violence for material gain, or to satisfy so common a passion as revenge, would not be sufficiently powerful. So abnormal are Manfred's character and surroundings, that we cannot but feel that even in his crimes he must travel beyond the ordinary circle of human iniquity. Accordingly, we find "the core of his heart's grief" to be a species of guilt which sounds the very depths of depravity and moral perversion. It is a question whether such a subject is at all admissible in art, but, granting it to be so, in no way could it be more delicately handled, more skilfully veiled, than in “Manfred.” It looms in the distance like a dark, indefinite cloud, which, though it never wholly disappears, never oppresses the vision by a nearer approach. There is a play of Ford's with a similar motive, and, although many of its passages are of exquisite beauty, they are allied to others in which the coarseness of the seventeenth century serves to enhance the native repulsiveness of the subject. In the "Cenci" we have another variety of the same morbid theme, but the satanic barbarity of the chief offender is so marked as to oppress the mind, and overwhelm the interest of the tragedy.

The "Revolt of Islam" also contains a circumstance of a similar kind, which, however, occupies but a subordinate place.

Fearfully as he has erred, there is, in the intensity of remorse, and the many redeeming qualities of Manfred, something which serves as a degree of palliation, and awakens our pity and regret. We

cannot help exclaiming with the Abbot of St. Maurice

"This should have been a noble creature! "

and feeling convinced that, could we take away the one blot that has blackened his existence, we should have in Manfred a hero of a sublime type. Haughty and man-despising as he is, his aspirations, achievements, and powers are of a nature so lofty as fully to warrant his pride. He is no mere sublimated felon like the “Corsair," and would never stoop in crime, even to mount a throne, like Macbeth, or Richard, for he has a philosophic contempt for all mere worldly honours.

Manfred will well bear comparison. with the principal tragic characters in Shakespeare. The poem is, indeed, the most Shakespearian of all Byron's works, in the same way that "Cain" is the most Miltonic. The hero's soliloquies have all the pensiveness of Hamlet's, but at times the force and fire of Macbeth's, while sometimes his remorse and self-torture rise to a height of grandeur for which we can only find a parallel in Milton or Dante. In his superhuman excess of suffering, he has been compared with the Prometheus of Æschylus, and Satan in "Paradise Lost," and, indeed, Manfred only falls short of these inasmuch as, although raised so high. above the rest of his species, he is still mortal, and suffers as a mortal.

Goethe, remarking upon the work of the English poet, says, "Byron's tragedy, "Manfred," was to me a wonderful phenomenon, and one that closely touched me. This singularly intellectual poet has taken my 'Faustus' to himself, and extracted from it the strongest nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. I cannot enough admire his genius." And, indeed, there is much similarity, as well as contrast, between Manfred and Faust. Each is

each evinces great and rare powers, and a daring ambition to explore the whole field of science. Each has advanced far in the study of those occult and forbidden arts whereby he is enabled to

"Call spirits from the vasty deep," and become a ruler of the invisible; and each has learned by experience, though knowledge is power, it is not necessarily happiness.

The

But then begins the contrast. Manfred stands apart from all those sorcerers who sold themselves to the Evil One from the vulgar motives of worldy gain or pleasure, which, unlike Faust, he regards with contempt. He will own no compact, no superior amongst his spiritual associates; they are his slaves, and not he theirs. No Mephis topheles could possibly have played with Manfred as that "incarnate Sneer" played with Faust. latter, too, is an old man made young again by magic influence, and gifted with prolonged life, as a boon dearly purchased. Manfred, on the contrary, is really young, and would far rather abbreviate than lengthen his existence. Indeed, he is consumed by "a fierce thirst for death," and stricken by what he believes to be the curse of immortality. When he speaks of the long ages he has already lived, as well as of those through which he has still to linger, it is evidently meant only to signify that the years he has passed in such misery have appeared to him so many ages of torment.

In "Manfred " there is none of that worldly wisdom and direct cynicism, or that variety of character and diversity of scene, which we see in "Faust." Both poems, however, agree in showing that the most exalted characters are those that can fall lowest, and that Titanic strength of intellect is compatible

The diction of "Manfred" is cast in a Shakespearian mould. The form of one of its most sublime passages -Manfred's address to the spirit of Astarte is evidently suggested by Horatio's address to the Ghost in "Hamlet," which it surpasses so far as the character and occasion rise above those in Shakespeare's play. To Horatio the apparition of the King of Denmark is comparatively unimportant, to Manfred the shade of Astarte is an object of passionate adoration; accordingly, we find him addressing it in language which cannot be excelled in pathos and poetic beauty :-

"Astarte ! my beloved! speak to me;

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