With none to listen and reply

To thoughts with which my heart beat high,
Were irksome-for whate'er my mood,
In sooth I love not solitude:

I on Zuleika's slumber broke,

And as thou knowest that for me
Soon turns the haram's grating key,
Before the guardian slaves awoke
We to the cypress groves had flown,

And made earth, main, and heaven our own."

The reader of the poem, who is not yet informed of the true relation that subsists between Giaffir and Selim, is shocked at hearing a father speak to a son in terms, not of salutary, parental rebuke, nor even of indignant severity, but of malignant reproach, indicating a settled abhorrence and contempt.

"Son of a slave!" the Pacha said,
"From unbelieving mother bred,

Vain were a father's hopes to see
Aught that becomes a man in thec.
Thou, when thy arm should bend the bow,
And hurl the dart, and curb the steed,
Thou Greek in soul, if not in creed,
Must pore where babbling waters flow,
And watch unfolding roses blow.
Would that yon orb, whose matin glow
Thy listless eyes so much admire,
Would lend thee something of his fire!
Thou who wouldst see this battlement
By christian cannon piecemeal rent-
Nay, tamely view old Stambol's wall
Before the dogs of Moscow fall--
Nor strike one stroke for life or death
Against the curs of Nazareth,
Go-let thy less than woman's hand
Assume the distaff, not the brand.
But Haroun !-to my daughter speed-
And hark-of thine own head take heed-
If thus Zuleika oft takes wing-

Thou see'st yon bow-it hath a string!"

As the nature of young Selim is beautifully disclosed in the bold candour with which he assumes to himself the blame of taking Zuleika abroad, and in the refined sensibility to the beauties of nature, which he urges as his motives for doing it—so is the character of Giaffir at once unfolded by his speech, and particularly by the reference in the last line to the bow-string.

The indignation of Selim, which, though suppressed in speech, breaks forth from his eye, and is perceived by Giaffir, gives rise to a most admirable scene, in which the perception of some mystery of "occulted guilt" begins to dawn upon the reader.

"No sound from Selim's lip was heard,

At least that met old Giaffir's ear,

But every frown and every word
Pierced keener than a christian sword-

Son of a slave!-reproach'd with fear-
Those gibes had cost another dear.
Son of a slave!-and who my sire?"
Thus held his thoughts their dark career,
And glances even of more than ire
Flash forth-then faintly disappear.
Old Giaffir gazed upon his son

And started-for within his eye
He read how much his wrath had done,
He saw rebellion there begun-

• Come hither boy!What, no reply?
I mark thee-and I know thee too;
But there be deeds thou dar'st not do:
But if thy beard had manlier length,
And if thy hand had skill and strength,
I'd joy to see thee break a lance,
Albeit against my own perchance.'"

"As sneeringly these accents fell,
On Selim's eye he fiercely gazed-
That eye returned him glance for glance,
And proudly to his sire's was raised,

Till Giaffir's quailed and turn'd askance
And why-he felt, but durst not tell."

VOL. III. New Series.

43

We have more than once heard it asked, by persons who acknowledged the pleasure they had received from Lord Byron's poetry, wherein consisted their instruction?-a question which could only have been suggested by a very narrow and a partial view of the nature of that mode of instruction peculiar to certain kinds of poetry and works of fiction. Were there no other kind of instruction but the preceptive communication of moral truth, many of the most valuable productions of the muse, in every language, must renounce their claim to utility: but if, in poetry, or any other works of invention, incidents and human actions are so finely imagined, and so judiciously conducted to interesting results, as to awaken the nobler passions, to animate and inflame the finer feelings, and to give to our affections a tendency favourable to virtue and hostile to vice, they surely are instructive, and in the most successful way too; insinuating through the fascination of pleasure, the improvement of our moral and intellectual faculties. The poem before us is replete with this. In what possible form of words could the firm confidence and unabashed courage, resulting from conscious rectitude, be more attractively displayed than in the conduct of young Selim; or the meanness and timidity into which authority and power themselves are sunk by secret guilt than by that of Giaffir, in the six lines last quoted. The very same has, in many instances of secret guilt, been presented in different shapes, by our best poets-by Shakspeare frequently; and we recollect a very beautiful passage to that effect, in Scott's Marmion, where the Palmer outlooks Marmion.

"Rising upon his pilgrim staff

Right opposite the palmer stood,
His thin dark visage seen but half,
Half hidden by his hood;

Still fixed on Marmion was his look,

Which he who ill such gaze could brook,

Strove by a frown to quell."

A beautiful passage, but which we think outdone by that between Giaffir and Selim-though Mr. Scott has generalized his into a fine moral reflection.

THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS,

"Thus oft it haps that when within
They shrink at sense of secret sin,
A feather daunts the brave;

A fool's wild speech confounds the wise,
And proudest princes veil their eyes
Before their meanest slave."

In the works of Lord Byron there are too many passages indicative of secret sorrow, to leave a doubt in the reader's mind that his heart is a prey to melancholy; while the topics upon which these break out, show that the root of that melancholy is love robbed by death of its hopes; and the warmth with which his imagination glows in his many effusions upon female beauty and excellence, evinces the depth to which his heart was engaged. Of those we offer the following to justify our remarks:

"Who hath not proved-how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel-until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight-
His changing cheek-his sinking heart confess
The might-the majesty of loveliness?
Such was Zuleika-such around her shone
The nameless charms unmark'd by her alone-
The light of love-the purity of grace-
The mind-the music breathing from her face!
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole-
And O! that eye was in itself a soul!"

That this exquisite picture is drawn from the remembrance of her
whose loss causes his melancholy, appears from a note affixed to
the words "Music breathing from her face," which note, by the
way, contains a more exquisitely poetical figure than any in the
whole poem.
"After all, (says he,) this is rather to be felt than
described-still I think there are some who will understand it- at
least they would have done had they beheld the countenance
whose speaking harmony suggested the idea; for this passage is
not drawn from imagination, but memory-that mirror which
affliction dashes to the earth, and looking down upon the fragments
only beholds the reflection multiplied."

After some strong expressions of tenderness for his daughter, Giaffir informs her that she must prepare to receive as her husband Osman, a Bey of the House of Carasman, and leaves her, accompanied only by Haroun and Selim.

In the scene which follows, Lord Byron evinces a clear insight into the human heart, and the most happy method of approaching it. Sunk in horror at the sentence passed upon Zuleika by the pacha, Selim stands absorbed in sullen silence, almost proof against all her tender blandishments, till, ignorant of the real cause, she suggests the idea that the Bey to whom she is betrothed is an enemy of Selim's, in which case she swears by Mecca's shrine that he shall not have her hand. Roused by this tender avowal, he presses her till he obtains her consent to leave the haram at twilight, and walk with him to the seaside, in order that he may in privacy unfold to her a secret of importance to them both, and emphatically tells her that he is not what he appears.

Lord Byron upon many occasions discloses the softness, the warmth, and the sweet plaintiveness of Ovid, though it cannot be said of him, as it was of that poet when he was living in exile at Pontus, that his sorrows depress his genius-we doubt whether at any time more rapturous effusions of tenderness ever escaped the Roman poet than some which enrich the production we are considering. For instance, when Zuleika is endeavouring to reconcile him to himself, and make him speak to her:

"O, Selim dear! O, more than dearest!

Say is it I thou hat'st or fearest ?
Come, lay thy head upon my breast,
And I will kiss thee into rest."

"My love thou surely knew'st before,
It ne'er was less, nor can be more.
To see thee, hear thee, near thee stay,

And hate the night, I know not why;
Save that we meet not but by day--
With thee to live, with thee to die,

I dare not to my hope deny :
Thy cheek, thine eyes, thy lips to kiss,
Like this-and this-no more than this,