Art. V. The Siege of
pp. 90.
IF F Lord Byron can produce nothing better than Tales of
this description, we care not how many of these we get
from him. But with regard to the public, who are apt to
mistake the recurrence of obvious traits of style, and simila-
rity of sentiment, for the sameness of impoverished genius, and
to grow, in consequence, fastidious, and at length unjust,
towards the productions of their favourite, we fear that his
Lordship will gain little reputation by such publications. It is
requisite that an Author should, on every fresh appearance, ex-
ceed himself, in order to keep pace with the expectations of
the public. Still each successive poem will be inquired for
with eagerness, and it may be a matter of indifference to his
Lordship, what the many may think of their purchase.

Corinth, a Poem. Parisina, a Poem, Svo.
Price 5s. 6d. Murray, 1816.

We profess ourselves pleased to obtain productions like these from Lord Byron, provided he can do nothing better: and the repetition of similar publications, at uncertain intervals, would seem to betray in the Author a consciousness of not being able to achieve greater things. When, by a series of such performances as these, a writer has shewed us all he can do, we begin to be let into the secret of what he cannot accomplish, and this discovery must tend to lower the estimate of his genius, drawn from the promise of his first production. We do not scruple however to pronounce "the Siege of Co"rinth," one of the most successful of his Lordship's efforts. The first ten stanzas are, indeed, tame, common-place, and wordy;, the structure of many of the sentences is involved, and the rhymes are not infrequently absolutely Hudibrastic. The character of the whole is feebleness, and we are led to conclude, either that these stanzas were supplied at the Printing office, or that Lord Byron purposely framed them of this unpretending description, in order to give more striking effect to the exquisite passage which they serve to produce.

"Tis midnight on the mountain's brown
The cold, round moon shines deeply down;
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly, spiritually bright;
Who ever gazed upon them shining
And turned to earth without repining,
Nor wished for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal ray?
The waves on either shore lay there
Calm, clear, and azure as the air;

And scarce their foam the pebbles shook,
But murmur'd meekly as the brook.
The winds were pillow'd on the waves;
The banners drooped along their staves,
And, as they fell around them furling,
Above them shone the crescent curling;
And that deep silence was unbroke,
Save where the watch his signal spoke,
Save where the steed neigh d oft and shrill,
And echo answered from the hill,
And the wide hum of that wild host
Rustled like leaves from coast to coast,
As rose the Muezzin's voice in air
In midnight call to wonted prayer;
It rose, that chaunted mournful strain,
Like some lone spirit's o'er the plain :
'Twas musical, but sadly sweet,

Such as when winds and harp-strings meet,
And take a long unmeasur'd tone,
To mortal minstrelsy unknown.
It seemed to those within the wall
A cry prophetic of their fall:
It struck even the besieger's ear
With something ominous and drear,
And undefined and sudden thrill,
Which makes the heart a moment still,
Then beat with quicker pulse, ashamed
Of that strange sense it's silence framed,
Such as a sudden passing bell

Wakes, though but for a stranger's knell.' Stanza xi.

The poem ought to commence with these lines: what precedes them may be gathered from the sequel. Alp, a renegade, the convert of revenge,' is leading on the Turkish host against Corinth; a breach has been effected in the walls, and the morrow is fixed for taking the town by storm. The classic scenery of the tale adds considerably to the beauty and interest of the poem: the description of the snow-clad summit of Delphi, is particularly fine. The renegade, unable to sleep, is represented wandering on the beach, till he arrives within a carbine's reach of the leaguered eity, and sees

-the lean dogs beneath the wall

Hold o'er the dead their carnival.'

The following lines describe, with horrible minuteness, the disgusting spectacle, which the Author assures us, he himself beheld under the wa.ls of the Seraglio at Constantinople. What follows is quite in the spirit of our Author; it is exceedingly touching.

But he better could brook to behold the dying,
Deep in the tide of their warm blood lying,
Scorch'd with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain,
Than the perishing dead who are past all pain.
There is something of pride in the perilous hour,
Whate'er be the shape in which death may lower;
For Fame is there to say who bleeds,

And Honour's eye on daring deeds!

But when all is past, it is humbling to tread
O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead,
And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air,
Beasts of the forest, all gathering there;
All regarding man as their prey,

All rejoicing in his decay.

There is a temple in ruin stands,
Fashioned by long forgotten hands;
Two or three columns, and many a stone,
Marble and granite, with grass o'er grown!
Out upon Time! it will leave no more
Of the things to come than the things before!
Out upon Time! who for ever will leave

But enough of the past for the future to grieve

O'er that which hath been, and o'er that which must be:
What we have seen, our sons shall see;

Remnants of things that have passed away,

Fragments of stone, reared by creatures of clay!'

pp. 27-28.

The scene between Alp and Francesca is equal to any thing of the sort that we remember to have read. We prefer giving as specimens, passages which will better admit of being detached from the story, but we are tempted to particularize the following lines in the description of the Venetian maid, as being eminently happy.

-He looked on the face, and beheld its hue
So deeply changed from what he knew:
Fair but faint-without the ray

Of mind, that made each feature play
Like sparkling waves on a sunny day:
And her motionless lips lay still as death,

And her words came forth without her breath,
And there rose not a heave o'er her bosom's swell,
And there seemed not a pulse in her veins to dwell.
Though her eye shone out, yet the lids were fixed,
And the glance that it gave was wild and unmixed
With aught of change, as the eyes may seem
Of the restless who walk in a troubled dream;
Like the figures on arras, that gloomily glare
Stirred by the breath of the wintry air.' p. 33.

The simile in the last couplet, is pursued to too great a

length, a defect often chargeable on Lord Byron's otherwise beautiful similes.

Corinth is taken: a gallant remnant of the Venetian garrison retain for some time the possession of a church, but the gates yield at length to the overwhelming force of the Mussulman,' and murder and sacrilege go forward.

• Minotti lifted his aged eye,

And made the sign of a cross with a sigh,
Then seized a torch which blazed thereby;
And still he stood, while, with steel and flame,
Inward and onward the Mussulman came.

The vaults beneath the Mosaic stone
Contained the dead of ages gone:
Their names were on the graven floor,
But now illegible with gore,

The carved crests, and curious hues
The varied marble's veins diffuse,

Were smeared, and slippery-stained, and strown

With broken swords, and helms o'erthrown:
There were dead above, and the dead below

Lay cold in many a coffined row;

You might see them piled in sable state,
By a pale light through a gloomy grate;
But War had entered their dark caves,
And stored along the vaulted graves
Her sulphurous treasures, thickly spread
In masses by the fleshless dead:
Here, throughout the siege had been
The Christian's chiefest magazine;
To these a late-formed train now led,
Minotti's last and stern resource
Against the foe's o'erwhelming force.

The foe came on, and few remain
To strive, and those must strive in vain:
For lack of further lives, to slake
The thirst of vengeance now awake,
With barbarous blows they gash the dead,
And lop the already lifeless head,
And fell the statues from their niche,
And spoil the shrines of offerings rich,
And from each other's rude hands wrest
The silver vessels saints had blessed.
To the high altar now they go;
Oh, but it made a glorious show!
On its table still behold

The cup of consecrated gold;

Massy and deep, a glittering prize,

Brightly it sparkles to plunderers' eyes:

That morn it held the holy wine,

Converted by Christ to his blood so divine,

Which his worshippers drank at the break of day,
To shrive their souls ere they joined in the fray,
Still a few drops within it lay,

And round the sacred table glow
Twelve lofty lamps, in splendid row,
From the purest metal cast;

A spoil the richest and the last.

So near they came, the nearest stretched
To grasp the spoil he almost reached,
When old Minotti's hand

Touched with the torch the train-
'Tis fired!

Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain,
The turban'd victors, the Christian band,
All that of living or dead remain,
Hurled on high with the shivered fane,
In one wild roar expired!

The shattered town-the walls thrown down-
The waves a moment backward bent-
The hills that shake, although unrent,

As if an earthquake passed

The thousand shapeless things all driven
In cloud and flame athwart the heaven,
By that tremendous blast-

Proclaimed the desperate conflict o'er

On that too long afflicted shore.' pp. 49-52.

There are some obvious marks of carelessness in these lines. We know not how all that of dead remained,' could expire in that wild roar.' It may possibly occur also to some dry reader of his Lordship's minutely circumstantial detail of the catastrophe, to inquire whether the original record was furnished by an eye-witness.

The Poem concludes with a minute, and, in some parts, lowering description of the effects of the catastrophe. From the beginning of the eleventh stanza, however, to the close, the spirit of the poem is sustained in a style quite equal to any of his Lordship's former poems.

We shall say little of "Parisina." It is not deficient in merit. The first stanza, which has appeared before in a different form, is very beautiful; and we might select several other fine passages. His Lordship will set us down among the fastidious objectors to such stories, which he deems sufficiently authorized by the Greek Dramatists and some of the best of our old English writers'. Our objections, however, originate rather in taste than respect for morality. The subject of the tale is purely unpleasing, and the manner in which it is treated, does not tend to reconcile us to it. The use which was made of facts or fables of this sort, by our old dramatic writers, was, VOL. V. N. S.

Y