Leaving a blank- to be fill'd up hereafter. Ye who sit Brooding from day to day, from day to day [Considered as poems, we confess that "Sardanapalus" and "The Two Foscari" appear to us to be rather heavy, verbose, and inelegant- deficient in the passion and energy which belongs to Lord Byron's other writings and still more in the richness of imagery, the originality of thought, and the sweetness of versification for which he used to be distinguished. They are for the most part solemn, prolix, and ostentatious — lengthened out by large preparations for catastrophes that never arrive, and tantalising us with slight specimens and glimpses of a higher interest scattered thinly up and down many weary pages of pompous declamation. Along with the concentrated pathos and homestruck sentiments of his former poetry, the noble author seems also we cannot imagine why — to have discarded the spirited and melodious versification in which they were embodied, and to have formed to himself a measure equally remote from the spring and vigour of his former compositions, and from the softness and inflexibility of the ancient masters of the drama. There are some sweet lines, and many of great weight and energy; but the general march of the verse is cumbrous and unmusical. His lines do not vibrate like polished lances, at once strong and light, in the hands of his persons, but are wielded like clumsy batons in a bloodless affray. Instead of the graceful familiarity and idiomatical melodies of Shakspeare, it is apt, too, to fall into clumsy prose, in its approaches to the easy and colloquial style; and, in the loftier passages, is occasionally deformed by low and common images that harmonise but ill with the general solemnity of the diction. — JEFFREY.] THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED; A DRAMA. (1) (1) [This drama was begun at Pisa in 1821, but was not published till January, 1824. Mr. Medwin says, - "On my calling on Lord Byron one morning, he produced the 'Deformed Transformed.' Handing it to Shelley, as he was in the habit of doing his daily compositions, he said Shelley, I have been writing a Faustish kind of drama tell me what you think of it.' After reading it attentively, Shelley returned it. Well,' said Lord B. how do you like it ?' 'Least,' replied he, ' of any thing I ever saw of yours. It is a bad imitation of Faust,' and besides, there are two entire lines of Southey's in it.' Lord Byron changed colour immediately, and asked hastily,' what lines?' Shelley repeated, They are in the poem into the fire. And water shall see thee, And fear thee, and flee thee.' Curse of Kehama.' His Lordship instantly threw the He seemed to feel no chagrin at seeing it consume at least his countenance betrayed none, and his conversation became 6 more gay and lively than usual. Whether it was hatred of Southey, or respect for Shelley's opinion, which made him commit the act that I considered a sort of suicide, was always doubtful to me. I was never more surprised than to see, two years afterwards, The Deformed Transformed' announced (supposing it to have perished at Pisa); but it seems that he must have had another copy of the manuscript, or that he had re-written it perhaps, without changing a word, except omitting the Kehama lines. His memory was remarkably retentive of his own writings. I believe he could have quoted almost every line he ever wrote." Mrs. Shelley, whose copy of "The Deformed Transformed" lies before us, has written as follows on the fly-leaf : – "This had long been a favourite subject with Lord Byron. I think that he mentioned it also in Switzerland. I copied it-he sending a portion of it at a time, as it was finished, to me. At this time he had a great horror of its being said that he plagiarised, or that he studied for ideas, and wrote with difficulty. Thus, he gave Shelley Aikin's edition of the British Poets, that it might not be found in his house by some English lounger, and reported home: thus, too, he always dated when he began and when he ended a poem, to prove hereafter how quickly it was done. I do not think that he altered a line in this drama after he had once written it down. He composed and corrected in his mind. I do not know how he meant to finish it; but he said himself that the whole conduct of the story was already conceived. It was at this time that a brutal paragraph alluding to his lameness appeared, which he repeated to me; lest I should hear it first from some one else. No action of Lord Byron's life -scarce a line he has written - but was influenced by his personal defect.”— E.] THIS production is founded partly on the story of a novel called "The Three Brothers," (1) published many years ago, from which M. G. Lewis's "Wood Demon" was also taken-and partly on the "Faust" of the great Goethe. The present publication contains the two first Parts only, and the opening chorus of the third. The rest may perhaps appear hereafter. (1) [The " Three Brothers" is a romance, published in 1803, the work of a Joshua Pickersgill, junior. It is one of those high-flown histories, in which "terror petrific or annihilative" (we use Mr. P.'s own phraseology) waylays us at every page. The present story is that of a misshapen youth, who acquires beauty and strength by a compact with the enemy of mankind. The tenure by which he holds these gifts is bloodshed, to be perpetrated on some occasion not yet disclosed, for the drama is unfinished. In some points of character and situation he is not wholly unlike the "Black Dwarf" of Mucklestane Moor, and we could almost suspect that the painter of that personage had condescended †, like Lord Byron, to adopt a thought from the forgotten legend of the "Three Brothers."— CROLY.] * ["The Black Dwarf' I have read with great pleasure, and perfectly understand now why my sister and aunt are so very positive in the very erroneous persuasion that they must have been written by me. If you knew me as well as they do, you would have fallen, perhaps, into the same mistake."- Lord Byron to Mr. M.] ["The ideal being who is here presented as residing in solitude, and haunted by a consciousness of his own deformity, and a suspicion of his being generally subjected to the scorn of his fellow-men, is not altogether imaginary. An individual existed many years since, under the author's observation, which suggested such a character. This poor unfortunate man's name was David Ritchie, a native of Tweed-dale. He was the son of a labourer in the slate-quarries of Strobo, and must have been born in the misshapen form which he exhibited, though he sometimes imputed it to ill usage when in infancy. He was a brushmaker at Edinburgh, and had wandered to several places, working at his trade, from all which he was chased by the disagreeable attention which his hideous singularity of form and face attracted wherever he came."- SIR WALTER SCOTT.] |