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one of the Christabel,' of which it is a objects which bear the poet aloft on
continuation.
seraph's wings,

'Come we now from the Castle of
"And wake to ecstasy the living lyre."
Sir Leoline to the castle of St. Aldo- 'The very Dramatis Persona of this
brand. The change is so far an advan- performance sufficiently announces to
tage to us, that we are no longer un- us what we are to expect, and particu-
der a necessity to grope in the dark larly the ominous line at the bottom of
for a meaning. Every thing in this the page, "Knights, Monks, Soldiers,
quarter is obvious and palpable enough. Banditti, &c. &c." recalled to our minds
We are still, however, in the school of the alarm which we felt on reading
the influence of which we have been Lord Byron's motto to his last redoubta
complaining. Rotten principles and a ble performance, "Guns, trumpets,
bastard sort of sentiment, such, in short, blunderbusses, drums, and thunder."
as have been imported into this coun- The story of this piece is told in a
try from German moralists and poets, very few lines. Count Bertram, a no-
form the interest of this stormy and bleman of Sicily, high in the favour of
extravagant composition. The piece his Sovereign, was attached to Imogine,
is so much in the taste of Lord Byron, a young lady of comparatively humble
that the public have let that nobleman birth, who returned his love with an
into a large share of the credit of the equal passion. By a sad reverse, the
performance. How that may be we consequence of his ambition and rebel-
dare not say; but we venture to advise lion, the count is deprived of all his
the reverend dramatist, for the sake of fortune and honours, and banished from
the holy and immortal interests con- his native land. With a band of des-
nected with his profession, to withdraw perate followers he continues to keep
himself from all connexion with Lord the shores and the state itself in alarm.
Byron's tainted muse, and to the great- His great enemy and fortunate rival, to
est distance he possibly can from the whose ascendancy he was forced to
circle within which the demons of sen- give way, is St. Aldobrand, a valiant
timental profligacy exert their perni- and loyal subject, who, to complete the
cious incantations. The best amulet mortification of the discomfited rebel,
we can recommend him to use by way obtains the hand of Imogine in the ab-
of security against the influence of these sence of her first lover.
The lady's
spells and sorceries, is the frequent, excuse for this breach of constancy is
the perpetual perusal of the word of the starving state of a parent, whose
God, of which it is his happy privilege wants she is thus enabled to relieve.
to be the organ and expounder. Let Count Bertram, with his desperate
him bind it for a sign upon his hand, band of followers, is shipwrecked upon
and let it be as a frontlet between his the coast near the monastery of St.
eyes, and he may set at nought all the Anselm, and within a little distance of
fascinations of depraved poetical ex- the castle of St. Aldobrand. They are
amples. In that source of sublimity, received at the monastery with the hos-
simplicity, and beauty, will be found pitality usual in such places, and soon
a holy standard of moral perfection, a after a message comes from the fair
magnificent display of real grandeur, Imogine to invite the shipwrecked voya-
towards which the soul may erect it- gers to the castle of St. Aldobrand, as
self in an attitude of correspondent ele- being capable of affording them better
vation, and carry its views safely be- accommodation and refreshment than
yond the boundaries of material exist the convent. In the mean time, in a
ence into regions of intellectual splen- conversation with the prior of the con-
dour, and among those happy inspiring vent, Count Bertram reveals himself;
YOL, I. NO. I.

C

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Ber.

wretched.

Stay, gentle lady, I would somewhat with thee..

(Imogine retreats terrified)
(detaining her)-Thou shalt not go-
Imo. Shall not!-Who art thou? speak-
Ber. And must I speak?

There was a voice which all the world, but thee,
Might have forgot, and been forgiven.

Imo. My senses blaze--between the dead and
living

and makes a full declaration with all Pray, when thou tell'st thy beads, for one more the bitterness and rage of disappointed passion, and his deadly hate towards St. Aldobrand, and determined purpose of destroying him. He is made acquainted with the temporary absence of his enemy, then with the Knights of St. Anselm. Upon learning this he expresses a horrid joy, considering the opportunity is now arrived of satiating his vengeance. He goes to the castle of St. Aldobrand, where his followers are feasted. His interview with Imogine, and the dire impressions on his mind when the full disclosure of her situation is made to him, are exhibited in a scene of great tragic pathos and terror; and, in justice to the poet, we will here place it before the reader.

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moner

Ber. The wealth of worlds were heaped on
me in vain.

Imo. Oh then I read thy loss-thy heart is sunk
In the dark waters pitiless; some dear friend,
Or brother, loved as thine own soul, lies there-
"I pity thee, sad man, but can no more-"
Gold I can give, but can no comfort give,
For I am comfortless-

"Yet if I could collect my faltering breath
"Well were I meet for such sad ministry,
"For grief hath left my voice no other sound-"
Ber. (striking his heart) No dews give fresh-
ness to this blasted soil-

Imo. Strange is thy form, but more thy words
are strange-

Fearful it seems to hold this parley with thee.
Tell me thy race and country-

Ber. What avails it?

The wretched have no country: that dear name
Comprises home, kind kindred, fostering friends,
Protecting laws, all that binds man to man-
But none of these are mine ;-I have no country
And for my race, the last dread trump shall wake
The sheeted relics of mine ancestry,
Ere trump of herald to the armed lists
In the bright blazon of their stainless coat,
Calls their lost child again--

Imo. I shake to hear him--
There is an awful thrilling in his voice-
"The soul of other days comes rushing in them."
If nor my bounty nor my tears can aid thee,
Stranger, farewell; and 'mid thy misery

I

burnt features

stand in fear-oh God!-it cannot be—————
Those thick black locks-those wild and sun-
He looked not thus-but then that voice-
It cannot be for he would know my name.

Ber. Imogine-(she has tottered towards him during the last speech, and when he utters her name, shrieks and falls into his arms.)

Ber. Imogine-yes,

To be enfolded to this desolate heart
A blighted lily on its icy bed-

Thus pale, cold, dying, thus thou art most fit

Nay, look not up, 'tis thus I would behold thee,
That pale cheek looks like truth-I'll gaze no

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Oh God !

Why do I find thee in mine enemy's walls?
Ber. Imogiac-madness seizes me-

What dost thou in the halls of Aldobrand!
Infernal light doth shoot athwart my mind-
Swear thou art a dependent on his bounty,
That chance, or force, or sorcery brought thee
thither;

Thou canst not be-my throat is swoln with
agony--

Hell hath no plague-Oh no, thou couldst not do it.

Imo. "(kneeling)" Mercy.

Ber. Thou hast it not, or thou wouldst speak→→
Speak, speak(with frantic violence)

Imo. am the wife of Aldobrand,-
To save a famishing father did I wed.

Ber. I will not curse her---but the hoarded ven-
geance-

Imo. Aye---curse, and consummate the horrid
spell,

For broken-hearted, in despairing hour
With every omen dark and dire I wedded-
Some ministering demon mocked the robed priest,
With some dark spell, not holy vow, they bound

me,

Full were the rites of horror and despair.
They wanted but-the seal of Bertram's curse.
Ber. (not heeding her)---Talk of her father-
could a father love thee

As I have loved? "the veriest wretch on
earth

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Nor food, nor fire, nor raiment, and his child
Knelt madly to the hungry walls for succour
E'er her wrought brain could bear the horrid
thought,

Or wed with him---or---see thy father perish.
Ber. Thou tremblest lest I curse thee; tremble

not

Though thou hast made me, woman, very

wretched

Though thou hast made me---but I will not curse thee

Hear the last prayer of Bertram's broken heart,
That heart which thou hast broken, not his
foes!-

Of thy rank wishes the full scope be on thee---
May pomp and pride shout in thine addered path
Till thou shalt feel and sicken at their hollow-

ness--

May he thou'st wed, be kind and generous to thee,
Till thy wrung heart, stabb'd by his noble fond.

Bertram extorts a promise from Imogine to meet him under the castle walls, and yield him an hour's intercourse. The appointment is kept, and in a wretched moment the stain of guilt is added to the sorrows of the unhappy wife. Immediately after the parting, Bertram hears that Lord Aldobrand had received a commission from his sovereign to hunt down the outlawed Bertram. From this moment he forms an inexorable determination to murder (for whatever gloss is given to the act, in reference to the manner, place, and time of doing it, no other name could properly describe it) his devoted ene

my.

His horrid purpose is declared to the wretched wife, whose pitiable and mad despair, on being unable to move him from his purpose, is certainly a most distressing picture of female anguish. The murder is committed; and all that succeeds is the utter misery, madness, and death of Imogine, and the death of the Count by his own hands.

• That there is much deep distress in rable force in the expression of feeling the story of this tragedy, very consideand passion, and both vigour and beauty in the imagery and diction, we are very ready to admit; but in dignity, propriety, consistency, and contrast, in the finer movements of virtuous tenderness, the delicacies of female sensibility, the conflict of struggling emotions, heroical elevation of sentiment, and moral sublimity of action, this play is extremely deficient. The hero is that same mischievous compound of attractiveness and turpitude, of love and crime, of chivalry and brutality, which in the poems of Lord Byron and his imitators has been too long successful in captivating weak fancies and outraging moral truth. Let but your hero be well-favoured, wo-begone, mysterious, desperately brave, and, above (Bertram, p. 25---30. all, desperately in love, and the interAt the next meeting of this luckless est of the female reader is too apt to be pair, which is at the convent of St. secured in his behalf, however bloody, Anselm, after much painful conflict, dark, and revengeful, however hostile

ness,

Writhe in detesting consciousness of falsehood---
May thy babe's smile speak daggers to that mo-
ther

Who cannot love the father of her child,
And in the bright blaze of the festal hall,
When vassals kneel, and kindred smile around

thee,

May ruined Bertram's pledge hiss in thine

ear

Joy to the proud dame of St. Aldrobrand---
While his cold corse doth bleach beneath her

towers.

towards God and man, he may display fatigue of a journey. All this he rehimself in his principles and actions. The solves, and the deed is done, without whole theory and secret of this poeti- any tender visitings of nature, and with cal philosophy is amusingly detailed in less compunction or conflict in his bothe epilogue to the piece, from which, som than Milton's devil expressed on small as is our general esteem for these the eve of destroying the felicity of literary performances, we must, for the Paradise. And yet, says the epilogue, sake of the profound ethical maxims it in apology for all this, contains, exhibit an extract to the reader.

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"Bertram! ye cry, a ruthless blood-stain'd

rover!

He was but also was the truest lover!

We will present to our readers the scene which takes place between the lovers after that act of shame by which the mother, wife, and woman, were for ever lost.

Enter BERTRAM.

"It is a crime in me to look on thee-
But in whate'er I do there now is crime-
Yet wretched thought still struggles for the
safety-

Fly, while my lips without a crime may wara
thee-

Would thou hadst never come, or sooner parted..
Oh God-he heeds me not:

Why comest thou thus ?" what is thy fearful busi-
ness?

I know thou comest for evil, but its purport
I ask my heart in vain."

Ber. Guess it, and spare me." (a long pause,
during which she gazes at him.)
Canst thou not read it in my face?
Mixt shades of evil thought are darkening

"Imo. I dare not;

there;

But what my fears do indistinctly guess
Would blast me to behold-(turns away, a
pause)"

Ber. Dost thou not hear it in my very silence? "That which no voice can tell, doth tell itself. Imo. My harassed thought hath not one point of fear,

Save that it must not think."

'The cardinal crime on which the story turns is the fatal act of infidelity committed under the walls of the castle of Aldobrand. And this crime is proposed and assented to by the contract. ing parties, in a manner as little consistent with common modesty in woman, and common generosity in man, as can well be imagined. But if that which ought most to soften a man towards the sufferings of a woman be the consciousness that he himself has been the cause of it, then is this Bertram one of the worst specimens of a man and a soldier that we have yet encountered in the course of our experience. After crop- "I will arouse the castle, rouse the dead, ping this fair flower, he treads it under To save my husband; villain, murderer, monfoot, and scatters in the dust its blasted Dare the bayed lioness, but fly from me. beauty. With ruthless delight, and demoniac malice, he spurns the soft and melting prayers in her husband's behalf, whom he resolves to murder in his own mansion, in the presence or hearing of his wife and child, and, as it seems, while he rests on his couch after the

Ber. (throwing his dagger "on the ground”)
Show me the chamber where thy husband lies,
Speak thou for me,-
The morning must not see us both alive.
Imo. (screaming and struggling with him)
Ah! horror! horror! off-withstand me
not,

ster,

"Ber. Go, wake the castle with thy frantic

cries:

Those cries that tell my secret, blazon thine.

Yea, pour it on thine husband's blasted ear.
"Imo. Perchance his wrath may kill me in its

mercy.

"Ber. No, hope not such a fate of mercy from him; He'll curse thee with his pardon,

"And would his death-fixed eye be terrible
"As its ray bent in love on her that wronged him?
"And would his dying groan affright thine ear
"Like words of peace spoke to thy guilt-in vain?
"Imo. I care not, I am reckless, let me perish.
"Ber. No, thou must live amidst a hissing
world,

"A thing that mothers warn their daughters from,
"A thing the menials that do tend thee scorn.
"Whom when the good do name, they tell their
beads,

"And when the wicked think of, they do triumph;
"Canst thou encounter this?

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Imo. I must encounter it-I have deserved it; "Begone, or my next cry shall wake the dead. "Ber. Hear me.

"Imo. No parley, tempter; fiend, avaunt.

"Ber. Thy son.-(
(She stands stupified.) Go,
take him trembling in thy hand of shame,
"A victim to the shrine of public scorn-

"Poor boy! his sire's worst foe might pity him
"Albeit his mother will not-
“Banished from noble halls, and knightly con-

.verse,

"Devouring his young heart in loneliness
"With bitter thought-my mother was-a
wretch.

Imo. (falling at his feet) "I am a wretch,

but who hath made me so?

"I'm writhing like a worm beneath thy spurn." Have pity on me, I have had inuch wrong.

Ber. My heart is as the steel within thy grasp.
"Imo. (still kneeling) Thou hast cast me down
from light,

"From my high sphere of purity and peace,
"Where once I walked in mine uprightness,

blessed

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Imo. Thou must,

"Wouldst have him butchered by their ruffian hands

"That wait my bidding?

"Imo (falling on the ground)-Fell and hor

rible

"I'm sealed, shut down in ransomless perdition.
"Ber. Fear not, my vengeance will not yield
its prey.

"He shall fall nobly, by my hand shall fall-
"But still and dark the summons of his fate,
"So winds the coiled serpent round his victim.

Ill as the lady Imogine was used by her sanguinary and brutal lover, we cannot say that her own character is such as to entitle her to much respect. The author has endeavoured in a very lame manner to support her constancy in the present instance clumsily enough by the pretext, not a very new one, and inserted, of a starving parent whose life was saved by the sacrifice; and after this first sacrifice to convenience or exigency, not unlike those which, in the coarse arrangements of ordinary life, parents are apt to require of their daughters, and daughters are apt very cheerfully to submit to, she makes another voluntary sacrifice of her honour, her husband, and her child, to another sort of convenience or exigency which is created by the urgency of nature or the stress of passion. The events are of ordinary occurrence and of ephemeral frequency in vicious society; and though the author has raised them to tragic dignity by his manner of telling

“For I am strong in woes"—I ne'er reproached and describing them, and the vivacious

thee

"I plead but with my agonies and tears-"
Kind, gentle Bertram, my beloved Bertram,
For thou wert gentle once, and once beloved,
Have mercy on me--Oh, thou couldst not think it--
(looking up, and seeing no relenting in his face,
she starts up wildly)

By heaven" and all its host," he shall not perish.
Ber. "By hell and all its host," he shall not

live.

"This is no transient flash of fugitive passion"His death hath been my life for years of misery

"Which else I had not lived

"Upon that thought, and not on food, I fed;
"Upon that thought, and not on sleep, I rested
"Nor thou, nor sheltering angels could prevent

"I come to do the deed that must be done

me."

Imo. "But man shall, miscreant"-help!
Ber. Thou callest in vain--

The armed vassals all are far from succour

44

Following St. Anselm's votarists to the con

vent-"

My band of blood are darkening in theit halls

touches of a very glowing pencil, yet the real substratum of the tale is one of those turbulent triumphs of passion over duty, which mar the peace of families and make the practicers in Doctors' Commons.

That this murderous fellow of a count interest our sympathies, is but too apis meant to engage our admiration and parent. After Bertram has revealed to the Prior his bloody trade as the leader of a banditti, and his yet more horrible purposes, the holy man, as he is called, thus addresses him :

Prior. High-hearted man, sublime even in thy guile.

And again, after the horrible murder, which certainly had as little sublimity

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