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Ho, there!-But seek not for the buckler; 'tis
Too heavy-a light cuirass and my sword.
Myr. How I do love thee!
Sard.

I ne'er doubted it.
Myr. But now I know thee.
Sard. (arming himself)

Give me the cuirass-so: my baldric! now
My sword: I had forgot the helm, where is it?
That's well-no, 'tis too heavy: you mistake, too-
It was not this I meant, but that which bears
A diadem around it.

Sire, I deem'd

Sfero.
That too conspicuous from the precious stones
To risk your sacred brow beneath-and, trust me,
This is of better metal though less rich.

Sard. You deem'd! Are you too turn'd a rebel?
Fellow!

Your part is to obey: return, and-no-
It is too late-I will go forth without it.
Sfero. At least wear this.
Sard.

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Like frighten'd antelopes.
Sard.

No! Like the dam
Of the young lion, femininely raging,
She urged on, with her voice and gesture, and
Her floating hair and flashing eyes, the soldiers
In the pursuit.
Sale.
Indeed!
Sard.

You see, this night

Made warriors of more than me. I paused
To look upon her, and her kindled cheek;
Her large black eyes, that flash'd through her
long hair

As it stream'd o'er her; her blue veins that rose
Along her most transparent brow; her nostril
Dilated from its symmetry; her lips

Apart; her voice that clove through all the din,
As a lute's pierceth through the cymbal's clash,
Jarr'd but not drown'd by the loud brattling; her
Waved arms, more dazzling with their own born
whiteness

Than the steel her hand held, which she caught up
From a dead soldier's grasp; all these things made
Her seem unto the troops a prophetess
Of victory, or Victory herself

Come down to hail us hers.

Sale. (in retiring.)

Myr. Prince.

Myrrha !

Sale.
You have shown a soul to-night,
Which, were he not my sister's lord-But now
I have no time: thou lov'st the king?
Myr.
I love
Wear Caucasus! why, 'tis Sardanapalus.
Sale.
But wouldst have him king still?
Myr. I would not have him less than what he
should be.

A mountain on my temples.
Myrrha, retire unto a place of safety.
Why went you not forth with the other damsels ?
Myr. Because my place is here.
I dare all things
Except survive what I have loved, to be
A rebel's booty: forth, and do your bravest."
pp. 85-89.
The noise of the conflict now reaches her
in doubtful clamour; and a soldier comes in,
of whom she asks how the King bears him-
self-and is answered,

"All.
Like a king. I must find Sfero,
And bring him a new spear and his own helmet.
He fights till now bare-headed, and by far
Too much exposed. The soldiers knew his face,
And the foe too; and in the moon's broad light,
His silk tiara and his flowing hair

Make him a mark too royal. Every arrow
Is pointed at the fair hair and fair features,
And the broad fillet which crowns both.
The king! the king fights as he revels.
Myr.
'Tis no dishonour-no-
'Tis no dishonour! to have loved this man.
I almost wish now, what I never wish'd
Before, that he were Grecian. If Alcides
Were shamed in wearing Lydian Omphale's
She-garb, and wielding her vile distaff; surely
He, who springs up a Hercules at once,
Nurs'd in effeminate arts from youth to manhood,
And rushes from the banquet to the battle,
As though it were a bed of love, deserves
That a Greek girl should be his paramour,
And a Greek bard his minstrel, a Greek tomb
His monument!"-pp. 92, 93.

Soon after, she rushes out in agony to meet the fate that seemed impending. The King, however, by his daring valour, restores the fortune of the fight; and returns, with all his train, to the palace. The scene that ensues is very masterly and characteristic. Turning to Myrrha

Know'st thou, my brother, where I lighted on This minion?

Sale. Well, then, to have him king, and yours,
and all

He should, or should not be; to have him live,
Let him not sink back into luxury.

You have more power upon his spirit than
Wisdom within these walls, or fierce rebellion

Raging without: look well that he relapse not.

[Exit SALEMENES.

Sard. Myrrha! what, at whispers
With my stern brother? I shall soon be jealous.
Myr. (smiling.) You have cause, sire; for on the
earth there breathes not

A man more worthy of a woman's love-
A soldier's trust-a subject's reverence-
A king's esteem-the whole world's admiration!
Sard. Praise him, but not so warmly. I must not
Hear those sweet lips grow eloquent in aught
That throws me into the shade; yet you speak
truth."-pp. 100-105.

After this, there is an useless and unnatural scene with the Queen, whose fondness her erring husband meets with great kindness and remorse. It is carefully, but rather tediously written; and ends, a great deal too long after it ought to have ended, by Salemencs carrying off his sister in a fit.

The fifth act gives, rather languidly, the consummation of the rebellion. Salemenes is slain; and the King, in spite of a desperate resistance, driven back to his palace and its gardens. He then distributes his treasure to his friends, and forces them to embark on the river, which is still open for their escape; only requiring, as the last service of his faithful veterans, that they should build up a huge pile of combustibles around the throne in his presence-chamber, and leave him there with Myrrha alone; and commanding them, when they had cleared the city with their galleys, to sound their trumpets as a signal of safety. We shall close our extracts with a few frag.

ments of the final scene. well to the troops.

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This is his fare

Sard.
My best my last friends!
Let's not unman each other-part at once:
All farewells should be sudden, when for ever,
Else they make an eternity of moments,
And clog the last sad sands of life with tears.
Hence, and be happy trust me, I am not
Now to be pitied; or far more for what
Is past than present;-for the future, 'tis
In the hands of the deities, if such

[well. There be I shall know soon. Farewell-fare[Exeunt PANIA and Soldiers.

:

Having gone so much at length into this drama, which we take to be much the best in the volume, we may be excused for saying little of the others. "The two Foscari," we think, is a failure. The interest is founded upon feelings so peculiar or overstiained, as to engage no sympathy; and the whole story turns on incidents that are neither pleasing nor natural. The Younger Foscari undergoes the rack twice (once in the hearing of the audience), merely because he has chosen to

Myr. These men were honest: It is comfort stfeign himself a traitor, that he might be That our last looks should be on loving faces. [me! brought back from undeserved banishment, Sard. And lovely ones, my beautiful!-but hear and dies at last of pure dotage on this sentiIf at this moment, for we now are on ment; while the Elder Foscari submits, in The brink, thou feel'st an inward shrinking from profound and immovable silence, to this treatThis leap through flame into the future, say it : ment of his son, lest, by seeming to feel for I shall not love thee less; nay, perhaps more, his unhappy fate, he should be implicated in For yielding to thy nature: and there's time his guilt-though he is supposed guiltless. Yet for thee to escape hence. Myr. Shall I light One of the torches which lie heap'd beneath The ever-burning lamp that burns without, Before Baal's shrine, in the adjoining hall? Sard. Do so. Is that thy answer? Myr.

Thou shalt see."-pp. 162, 163.

The "Marino Faliero"--though rather more vigorously written-is scarcely more successful. The story, in so far as it is original in our drama, is extremely improbable; though, like most other very improbable stories, derived from authentic sources: But, in the main, it is not original-being indeed merely another Venice Preserved; and continually recalling, though certainly without eclipsing, the memory of the first. Except that Jaffier is driven to join the conspirators by the natural impulse of love and misery, and the Doge by a resentment so outrageous as to exclude 'Tis my country's custom to all sympathy-and that the disclosure, which

There is then a long invocation to the shades of his ancestors; at the end of which, Myrrha returns with a lighted torch and a cup of wine-and says,

"Lo!

I've lit the lamp which lights us to the stars.
Sard. And the cup?
Myr.

Make a libation to the gods.

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is produced by love in the old play, is here ascribed (with less likelihood) to mere friendship, the general action and catastrophe of the two pieces are almost identical-while, with regard to the writing and management, it must be owned that, if Lord Byron has most sense and vigour, Otway has by far the most passion and pathos; and that, though our new conspirators are better orators and reasoners than the gang of Pierre and Reynault, the tenderness of Belvidera is as much more touching, as it is more natural than the stoical and self-satisfied decorum of Angiolina. The abstract, or argument of the piece, is shortly as follows.

Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice, and nearly fourscore years of age, marries a young beauty of the name of Angiolina-and, soon after their union, a giddy young nobleman, whom he had had occasion to rebuke in public, sticks up some indecent lines on his chair of state; purporting that he was the husband of a fair wife, whom he had the honour of keeping for the benefit of others. The Doge having discovered the author of this lampoon, complains of him to the Senate-who, upon proof of the charge, sentence him to a month's confinement. The Doge, considering this as altogether inadequate to the reparation of his injured honour, immediately conceives a most insane and unintelligible animosity at the whole body of the nobility-and, in spite of the dignified example and gentle soothing of Angiolina, puts himself at the head of a conspiracy, which had just been organised for the overthrow of the government by certain plebeian malecontents, who had more sub

stantial wrongs and grievances to complain of. | a truth and a luxuriance in the description of One of the faction, however, had a friend in the rout, which mark at once the hand of a the Senate whom he wished to preserve; and master, and raise it to a very high rank as a goes to him, on the eve of the insurrection, with words of warning, which lead to its timely detection. The Doge and his associates are arrested and brought to trial; and the former, after a vain intercession from Angiolina, who candidly admits the enormity of his guilt, and prays only for his life, is led, in his ducal robes, to the place where he was first consecrated a sovereign, and there publicly decapitated by the hands of the executioner.

We can afford but a few specimens of the execution. The following passage, in which the ancient Doge, while urging his gentle spouse to enter more warmly into his resentment, reminds her of the motives that had led him to seek her alliance, (her father's request, and his own desire to afford her orphan helplessness the highest and most unsuspect. ed protection,) though not perfectly dramatic, has great sweetness and dignity; and reminds us, in its rich verbosity, of the moral and mellifluous parts of Massinger.

"Doge. For love, romantic love, which in my I knew to be illusion, and ne'er saw [youth Lasting, but often fatal, it had been

No lure for me, in my most passionate days,
And could not be so now, did such exist.
But such respect, and mildly paid regard
As a true feeling for your welfare, and
A free compliance with all honest wishes;
A kindness to your virtues, watchfulness
Not shown, but shadowing o'er such little failings
As youth is apt in, so as not to check
Rashly, but win you from them ere you knew
You had been won, but thought the change your
choice;

A pride not in your beauty, but your conduct-
A trust in you-a patriarchal love,
And not a doting homage-friendship, faith-
Such estimation in your eyes as these
Might claim, I hoped for.".

"I trusted to the blood of Loredano
Pure in your veins; I trusted to the soul [you
God gave you to the truths your father taught
To your belief in heaven-to your mild virtues
To your own faith and honour, for my own.-
Where light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities
Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart,
Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I know
'Twere hopeless for humanity to dream
Of honesty in such infected blood,
Although 'twere wed to him it covets most:
An incarnation of the poet's god
In all his marble-chisell'd beauty, or

piece of poetical painting-while the moon-
light view from the window is equally grand
and beautiful, and reminds us of those mag-
nificent and enchanting lookings forth in
Manfred, which have left, we will confess,
far deeper traces on our fancy, than any thing
in the more elaborate work before us.
says,

-I will try

Lioni

Whether the air will calm my spirits: 'tis
A goodly night; the cloudy wind which blew
And the broad moon has brighten'd. What a still-
From the Levant has crept into its cave,
[Goes to an open lattice.

[ness!

[&c.

And what a contrast with the scene I left,
Where the tall torches' glare, and silver lamps'
More pallid gleam, along the tapestried walls,
Spread over the reluctant gloom which haunts
Those vast and dimly-latticed galleries
A dazzling mass of artificial light,
Which show'd all things, but nothing as they were,
The music, and the banquet, and the wine-
The garlands, the rose odours, and the flowers-
The sparkling eyes and flashing ornaments-
The white arms and the raven hair-the braids
And bracelets; swanlike bosoms, and the necklace,
An India in itself, yet dazzling not

The eye like what it circled; the thin robes
Floating like light clouds 'twixt our gaze and heaven;
The many-twinkling feet, so small and sylphlike,
Suggesting the more secret symmetry

Of the fair forms which terminate so well!
All the delusion of the dizzy scene,

Its false and true enchantments-art and nature, Which swam before my giddy eyes, that drank The sight of beauty as the parch'd pilgrim's On Arab sands the false mirage, which offers A lucid lake to his eluded thirst, Are gone.-Around me are the stars and watersWorlds mirror'd in the ocean! goodlier sight Than torches glared back by a gaudy glass; And the great element, which is to space What ocean is to earth, spreads its blue depths, Soften'd with the first breathings of the spring; The high moon sails upon her beauteous way, Serenely smoothing o'er the lofty walls Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces, Whose porphyry pillars, and whose costly fronts, Fraught with the orient spoil of many marbles, Like altars ranged along the broad canal, Seem each a trophy of some mighty deed Rear'd up from out the waters, scarce less strangely Than those more massy and mysterious giants Of architecture, those Titanian fabrics, Which point in Egypt's plains to times that have No other record! All is gentle: nought Stirs rudely; but, congenial with the night, Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit. The tinklings of some vigilant guitars Of sleepless lovers to a wakeful mistress, And cautious opening of the casement, showing That he is not unheard; while her young hand, The fourth Act opens with the most poeti-Fair as the moonlight of which it seems part, cal and brilliantly written scene in the playthough it is a soliloquy, and altogether alien from the business of the piece. Lioni, a young nobleman, returns home from a splendid assembly, rather out of spirits; and, opening his palace window for air, contrasts the tranquillity of the night scene which lies before him, with the feverish turbulence and glittering enchantments of that which he has just quitted. Nothing can be finer than this picture in both its compartments. There is

The demi-deity, Alcides, in

His majesty of superhuman manhood,

Would not suffice to bind where virtue is not."

pp, 50-53.

So delicately white, it trembles in
The act of opening the forbidden lattice,
Thrill like his lyre-strings at the sight!-the dash
To let in love through music, makes his heart
Phosphoric of the oar. or rapid twinkle
Of the far lights of skimming gondolas,
And the responsive voices of the choir
of boatmen, answering back with verse for verse;
Some dusky shadow chequering the Rialto;
Some glimmering palace roof, or tapering spire,
Are all the sights and sounds which here pervade
The ocean-born and earth-commanding city."
pp. 98-101.

We can now afford but one other extract; | nor expect, by any exaggerations, so to rouse --and we take it from the grand and prophetic and rule our sympathies, by the senseless rant of which the unhappy Doge delivers himself at the place of execution. He asks whether he may speak; and is told he may, but that the people are too far off to hear him. He then says,

"I speak to Time and to Eternity,
Of which I grow a portion-not to man!
Ye elements! in which to be resolved
I hasten! Ye blue waves! which bore my banner,
Ye winds! which flutter'd o'er as if you loved it,
And fill'd my swelling sails, as they were wafted
To many a triumph! Thou, my native earth,
Which I have bled for, and thou foreign earth,
Which drank this willing blood from many a
wound!
[Thou!
Thou sun! which shinest on these things, and
Who kindlest and who quenchest suns!-Attest!
I am not innocent-But are these guiltless?
I perish: But not unavenged: For ages
Float up from the abyss of time to be,

anger of an old man, and the prudish proprieties of an untempted woman, as by the agency of the great and simple passions with which, in some of their degrees, all men are familiar, and by which alone the Dramatic Muse has hitherto wrought her miracles.

Of "Cain, a Mystery," we are constrained to say, that, though it abounds in beautiful passages, and shows more power perhaps than any of the author's dramatical compositions, we regret very much that it should ever have been published. It will give great scandal and offence to pious persons in general-and may be the means of suggesting the most painful doubts and distressing perplexities. to hundreds of minds that might never otherwise have been exposed to such dangerous disturbance. It is nothing less than absurd,

And show these eyes, before they close, the doom in such a case, to observe, that Lucifer cannot

Of this proud city!-Yes, the hours
Are silently engendering of the day,

When she, who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark,
Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield
Unto a bastard Attila; without

Shedding so much blood in her last defence
As these old veins, oft drain'd in shielding her,
Shall pour in sacrifice.-She shall be bought!
Then, when the Hebrews in thy palaces,
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his;
When thy patricians beg their bitter bread
In narrow streets, and in their shameful need
Make their nobility a plea for pity;-when
Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being,
Slaves turn'd o'er to the vanquish'd by the victors,
Despised by cowards for greater cowardice,
And scorn'd even by the vicious for their vices,
When all the ills of conquer'd states shall cling thee,
Vice without splendour, sin without relief;
When these and more are heavy on thee, when
Smiles without mirth, and pastimes without plea-
Youth without honour, age without respect, [sure,
Meanness and weakness, and a sense of woe
'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not
Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts,
Then-in the last gasp of thine agony,
Amidst thy many murders, think of mine!
Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes!
Gehenna of the waters! thou sea Sodom!
Thus I devote thee to the infernal gods!
Thee and thy serpent seed!

murmur,

well be expected to talk like an orthodox divine-and that the conversation of the first Rebel and the first Murderer was not likely to be very unexceptionable-or to plead the authority of Milton, or the authors of the old mysteries, for such offensive colloquies. The fact is, that here the whole argument—and a very elaborate and specious argument it is— is directed against the goodness or the power of the Deity, and against the reasonableness of religion in general; and there is no answer so much as attempted to the offensive doctrines that are so strenuously inculcated. The Devil and his pupil have the field entirely to themselves and are encountered with nothhorrors. Nor is this argumentative blasphemy ing but feeble obtestations and unreasoning a mere incidental deformity that arises in the course of an action directed to the common sympathies of our nature. It forms, on the contrary, the great staple of the piece-and occupies, we should think, not less than two thirds of it; so that it is really difficult to believe that it was written for any other purpose than to inculcate these doctrines or at least to discuss the question on which they bear. Now, we can certainly have no objection to Lord Byron writing an Essay on the Origin of Evil

[Here the DOGE turns, and addresses the Exe--and sifting the whole of that vast and per

cutioner.

Slave, do thine office!

Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would

plexing subject with the force and the freedom that would be expected and allowed in a fair philosophical discussion. But we do

Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my not think it fair, thus to argue it partially and

curse!

Strike--and but once!-pp. 162-165.

con amore, in the name of Lucifer and Cain; without the responsibility or the liability to answer that would attach to a philosophical disputant-and in a form which both doubles the danger, if the sentiments are pernicious, and almost precludes his opponents from the possibility of a reply.

It will not now be difficult to estimate the character of this work.-As a play, it is deficient in the attractive passions; in probability, and in depth and variety of interest; and revolts throughout, by the extravagant disproportion which the injury bears to the Philosophy and Poetry are both very good unmeasured resentment with which it is things in their way; but, in our opinion, they pursued. Lord Byron is, undoubtedly, a poet do not go very well together. It is but a poor of the very first order and has talents to and pedantic sort of poetry that seeks chiefly reach the very highest honours of the drama. to embody metaphysical subtilties and abstract But he must not again disdain love and am- deductions of reason-and a very suspicious bition and jealousy. He must not substitute philosophy that aims at establishing its docwhat is merely bizarre and extraordinary, for trines by appeals to the passions and the what is naturally and universally interesting-fancy. Though such arguments, however,

than all the rest; and whicn lead irresistibly to topics, upon which it seems at last necessary that we should express an opinion. We allude to the concluding part of the Appendix to "The Two Foscari," in which Lord Byron resumes his habitual complaint of the hostil

ters of his own country--makes reprisals on those who have assailed his reputation-and inflicts, in particular, a memorable chastisement upon the unhappy Laureate, interspersed with some political reflections of great weight and authority.

are worth little in the schools, it does not follow that their effect is inconsiderable in the world. On the contrary, it is the mischief of all poetical paradoxes, that, from the very limits and end of poetry, which deals only in obvious and glancing views, they are never brought to the fair test of argument. An al-ity which he has experienced from the wrilusion to a doubtful topic will often pass for a definitive conclusion on it; and, when clothed in beautiful language, may leave the most pernicious impressions behind. In the courts of morality, poets are unexceptionable wit⚫nesses; they may give in the evidence, and depose to facts whether good or ill; but we demur to their arbitrary and self-pleasing summings up. They are suspected judges, and not very often safe advocates; where great questions are concerned, and universal principles brought to issue. But we shall not press this point farther at present.

We shall give but one specimen, and that the least offensive we can find, of the prevailing tone of this extraordinary drama. It is the address (for we cannot call it prayer) with which Cain accompanies the offering of his sheaves on the altar-and directed to be delivered, standing erect.

"Spirit! whate'er or whosoe'er thou art,
Omnipotent, it may be-and, if good,
Shown in the exemption of thy deeds from evil;
Jehovah upon earth! and God in heaven!
And it may be with other names, because
Thine attributes seem many, as thy works:-
If thou must be propitiated with prayers,
Take them! If thou must be induced with altars,
And soften'd with a sacrifice, receive them!
Two beings here erect them unto thee. [smokes
If thou lov'st blood, the shepherd's shrine, which
On my right hand, hath shed it for thy service,
In the first of his flock, whose limbs now reek
In sanguinary incense to thy skies;

Or if the sweet and blooming fruits of earth,
And milder seasons, which the unstain'd turf
I spread them on now offers in the face

-

Of the broad sun which ripen'd them, may seem
Good to thee, inasmuch as they have not
Suffer'd in limb or life, and rather form
A sample of thy works, than supplication
To look on ours! If a shrine without victim,
And altar without gore, may win thy favour,
Look on it! and for him who dresseth it,
He is such as thou mad'st him; and seeks nothing
Which must be won by kneeling. If he's evil,
Strike him! thou art omnipotent, and may'st,-
For what can he oppose? If he be good,
Strike him, or spare him, as thou wilt! since all
Rests upon thee; and good and evil seem
To have no power themselves, save in thy will;
And whether that be good or ill I know not,
Not being omnipotent, nor fit to judge
Omnipotence; but merely to endure
Its mandate-which thus far I have endured."
pp. 424, 425.

The catastrophe follows soon after, and is brought about with great dramatic skill and effect. The murderer is sorrowful and confounded-his parents reprobate and renounce him-his wife clings to him with eager and unhesitating affection; and they wander forth together into the vast solitude of the universe. We have now gone through the poetical part of this volume, and ought here, perhaps, to close our account of it. But there are a few pages in prose that are more talked of

It is not however with these, or the merits of the treatment which Mr. Southey has either given or received, that we have now any concern. But we have a word or two to say on the griefs of Lord Byron himself. He complains bitterly of the detraction by which he has been assailed-and intimates that his works have been received by the public with far less cordiality and favour than he was entitled to expect. We are constrained to say that this appears to us a very extraordinary mistake. In the whole course of our experience, we cannot recollect a single author who has had so little reason to complain of his reception to whose genius the public has been so early and so constantly just-to whose faults they have been so long and so signally indulgent. From the very first, he must have been aware that he offended the principles and shocked the prejudices of the majority, by his sentiments, as much as he delighted them by his talents. Yet there never was an author so universally and warmly applauded, so gently admonished- -so kindly entreated to look more heedfully to his opinions. He took the praise, as usual, and rejected the advice. As he grew in fame and authority, he aggravated all his offences-clung more fondly to all he had been reproached with-and only took leave of Childe Harold to ally himself to Don Juan! That he has since been talked of, in public and in private, with less unmingled admiration-that his name is now mentioned as often for censure as for praise-and that the exultation with which his countrymen once hailed the greatest of our living poets, is now alloyed by the recollection of the tendency of his writings-is matter of notoriety to all the world; but matter of surprise, we should imagine, to nobody but Lord Byron himself.

He would fain persuade himself, indeed, that for this decline of his popularity-or rather this stain upon its lustre-for he is still popular beyond all other example-and it is only because he is so that we feel any interest in this discussion; he is indebted, not to any actual demerits of his own, but to the jealousy of those he has supplanted, the envy of those he has outshone, or the party rancour of those against whose corruptions he has testified;while, at other times, he seems inclined to insinuate, that it is chiefly because he is a Gentleman and a Nobleman that plebeian censors have conspired to bear him down! We scarcely think, however, that these theories will pass with Lord Byron himself—we are

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