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 A 
 
 LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY J. BULLOCK, ESSEX-STBEET, BOL'VERIE-STHEET.
 
 LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. 
 
 IN ANSWER TO THE REMONSTRANCE 
 OF OXONIENSIS 
 
 ON THE PUBLICATION OF 
 
 CAIN, A MYSTERY, 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD BYRON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR RODWELL AND MARTIN, 
 
 BOND-STREET. 
 1822
 
 TO 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. 
 
 Sm, 
 
 IN an age when writers so frequently 
 make use of the names of eminent men for the 
 purpose of giving fictitious interest and value 
 to their own sentiments on politics and lite- 
 rature, as it were by some reflection of bor- 
 rowed light, I am sensible that to relieve my- 
 self from the charge of unwarranted intrusion 
 in this address, some justification must be re- 
 quisite beyond the immediate connexion of all 
 literary subjects with the name of Sir Walter 
 Scott. For although it might be urged, that the 
 merits of any composition cannot be more appro- 
 priately referred than to one, who as a poet, an 
 historian, a moralist and an antiquary, has re- 
 ceived from the public voice the highest meed of 
 approbation and applause, yet this would scarcely 
 
 107'J-
 
 justify an unauthorized communication through 
 the medium of the press on any subject of or- 
 dinary interest. 
 
 It is only necessary, however, to name Lord 
 Byron to ensure attention ; and I hope to stand 
 acquitted in your opinion of any indecorous 
 freedom, if, in vindicating his recent publica- 
 tion of CAIN from the attacks with which it has 
 been assailed, I presume to place myself under 
 your auspices : for the circumstance of that poem 
 having been inscribed to you by the noble 
 author may, at least, warrant the supposition 
 that you are not indifferent to the estimation in 
 which it may be held. When Byron dedicates 
 to Scott the efforts of his muse* we mark with 
 interest the alliance of great minds; and I 
 shall proceed with more confidence in the pro- 
 posed inquiry, from the conclusion that, as his 
 lordship's delicacy, even in respect of friendship, 
 must have prevented any unauthorised dedi- 
 cation, the ' Mystery of Cain* has in some 
 degree received the sanction of your approval. 
 The following, remarks are wholly called forth 
 by a lively sense of the unjust imputations 
 cast upon a work, which I have no doubt has 
 afforded to you, Sir, in common with many 
 others, the highest intellectual gratification.
 
 3 
 
 I allude particularly to a pamphlet, which 
 has been recently addressed to the publisher of 
 Lord Byron's works in the form of a ' Remon- 
 strance,' under the signature of ' Oxoniensis.' 
 This tract appears to me not only to cast most 
 vehement aspersions upon the character of 
 Lord Byron, but to be calculated also to produce 
 much mischief amongst some classes of readers, 
 by adding the supposed sanction of his Lord- 
 ship's name to doctrines of infidelity, so broadly 
 and so boldly ascribed to him by that writer. If 
 his Lordship's character alone were implicated, 
 the most zealous of his admirers might well be 
 silent : he can ably defend himself, if he should 
 think it worth his while to do so, and needs not 
 any apology from a feeble pen : but as CAIN 
 may be considered in some measure the pro- 
 perty of the public, a candid and disinterested 
 reader may be excused for offering some ob- 
 servations on the nature and tendency of this 
 beautiful poem. 
 
 The * Remonstrance' (which does not even 
 affect to be a criticism) sets out with some viru- 
 lent abuse of Lord Byron's personal character ; 
 and surmises that the publication of CAIN may 
 be a useful measure of finance to his lordship, 
 whom he supposes to be a good 'hand at a
 
 bargain, and that Plutus sometimes goes shares 
 with Apollo in his inspirations !' To say nothing 
 of the bad taste of such an insinuation, it seems 
 peculiarly ungenerous thus obtrusively to draw 
 an inference of the noble author's effusions 
 being called forth by mere mercenary motives. 
 Whether * Oxoniensis' was led to this view of 
 the subject by the habit of his own calculations, 
 I will not assume to determine, as I can 
 have no wish to make any personal allusions; 
 nor shall I expatiate on the practice of all 
 poets, from Shakspeare to the present day, 
 who have always looked to and been justified 
 in expecting some remuneration for their com- 
 positions, more solid than that of fame. 
 
 The writer then finds fault with ' the de- 
 sultory style of Lord Byron's poetry in general, 
 deplores the disappointment every one has felt 
 at the portentous cloud, which has involved 
 his whole intellect in its fatal gloom ;' 
 and lastly reproaches him with private cir- 
 cumstances, that have occurred in his Lord- 
 ship's family, charging him with being * an 
 alien to his home and his country, and all the 
 charities those names should embrace ; with 
 having declared war against all the institutions 
 of civilised humanity, and being now, at last,
 
 goaded on by an arrogant and all-mastering 
 vanity to arraign God's wisdom and goodness, 
 and to cavil at the conditions, under which the 
 human race has been called into existence.' 
 
 All this, and much more to the same purport, 
 is, to say the least of it, quite foreign from 
 the subject, and establishes the immorality of 
 CAIN as little as it proves the orthodoxy of 
 ' Oxoniensis.' You will perhaps feel with me, 
 Sir, that whoever may be the writer, such 
 language is unfitting a literary discussion, and 
 still less any advocacy of a religion, whose 
 mild and charitable doctrines are amongst the 
 many sure tests of its divine institution. 
 
 The principal points which I shall propose 
 for present consideration are, whether Lord 
 Byron (for such are the specific charges con- 
 tained in the Remonstrance) * has profited by 
 the celebrity of his name to palm upon the 
 world obsolete trash, the very off-scourings of 
 Bayle and Voltaire :' whether * this poem, 
 this Mystery, with which he has insulted us, is 
 nothing more than a Cento from Voltaire's 
 novels, and the most objectionable articles in 
 Bayle's Dictionary, served up in clumsy cut- 
 tings often syllables, for the purpose of giving 
 it the guise of poetry:' whether CAIN really
 
 (J 
 
 contains any * blasphemous impieties, likely to 
 mislead the ignorant, unsettle the wavering, or 
 confirm the hardened sceptic in his misbelief:' 
 and whether there can be found in it 'any 
 pestilent sophistries framed to mislead the 
 weaker sex.' 
 
 And here, Sir, I must be permitted to pre- 
 mise, in order that these observations may not 
 be misinterpreted, that I love and revere all 
 the sacred doctrines of our divine religion, 
 and humbly hope I am not less anxious than 
 ' Oxoniensis,' to cherish * those institutions 
 of our country, by which morality and religion 
 are most effectually supported.' If I did not 
 conscientiously believe that Lord Byron's senti- 
 ments are either misunderstood, or misrepre- 
 sented by the author of the anonymous ' Re- 
 monstrance,' and that the publication of this 
 4 Mystery' carries with it neither the defiance 
 of open hostility, nor the seeds of disguised 
 enmity to the Religion we all profess, no con- 
 sideration would induce me to attempt its de- 
 fence. 
 
 As the greater portion of the drama is oc- 
 cupied with scenes between Cain and Lu- 
 cifer, it may be presumed that the passages 
 principally objected to are the sentiments, which
 
 they express in the course of their colloquies. 
 'Oxoniensis,' however, has himself furnished 
 a standard, by which Lord Byron's Poem shall 
 be judged ; and I may take for granted, after 
 his eulogy of MILTON, that wherever those per- 
 sonages of the ' Mystery' express nothing more 
 daring in sentiment and language, than what is 
 pronounced by the mighty spirits, which that 
 great hand called forth to people the regions of 
 his fancy, that, so far at least, the modern 
 Poet cannot, with any justice or propriety, be 
 said to have used more dangerous materials. 
 For if we find in Milton many striking pa- 
 rallels for the demoniacal sentiments of Lord 
 Byron's characters, then must candour pro- 
 nounce that CAIN is neither an impious nor 
 an immoral poem, unless PARADISE LOST fall 
 under the same imputation. 
 
 Let us then, as shortly as the case will admit, 
 examine those passages, against which * Ox- 
 oniensis' has thought fit to pronounce his ana- 
 thema, considering them with reference to their 
 own immediate tendency, and bringing them to 
 the test of Milton's compositions. 
 
 I need not dwell upon the manifest absurdity 
 there would have been in making Cain and Lu- 
 cifer speak the language of angels, or true wor-
 
 shippers of the Deity; nor impress upon the 
 mind of any reader, susceptible of the pro- 
 prieties of composition and of the true de- 
 lineation of character, that they are crea- 
 tures of the imagination, an ideal race of 
 beings not to be measured by the common 
 standard applied to man, but by the great ob- 
 jects comprehended in the event of the Drama. 
 When the characters were to be depicted 
 by the poet, it would have been wholly im- 
 possible to represent them other than we 
 have always considered them ; Cain as one, 
 who, never having known * the calm of a 
 contented knowledge,' is ready to receive all 
 impious impressions, who is afterwards a mur- 
 derer, and of whom Lucifer says, 
 
 Hadst thou not been fit by thine own soul 
 For such companionship, I would not now 
 Have stood before thee as I am ; 
 
 Lucifer as a vindictive Demon, who by subtle 
 arguments is to break down all the great truths, 
 revealed to fallen man for his consolation 
 and guidance; ere he can lead his victim to 
 imbrue his hands in his brother's blood, and 
 thus make him the instrument, at once of 
 his own revenge against the Highest, and
 
 of the confirmation of his dominion over the 
 new world. 
 
 Such is the cast of characters necessary to 
 work out the great moral of the * Mystery;* 
 and if Lord Byron, or any other poet, may be 
 charged with giving his own sentiments through 
 the mouth of his fictitious characters; then Shak- 
 speare, Milton nay, the great moralists of all 
 ages -must be treated as the abettors of evil ; 
 and examples of depravity are no longer to be 
 considered as written for our instruction, but 
 regarded as the emanation of a malignant temper 
 in the authors who record them. 
 
 The fallen spirit first presents himself to Cain, 
 as he is absorbed in the midst of a discontented 
 sceptical train of thought : 
 
 The tree was planted, and why not for him ? 
 If not, why place him near it, where it grew 
 The fairest in the centre ? 
 
 In order to establish an early influence over 
 his mind, by inspiring an idea of his greatness 
 and power, he comes to him in a shape c Like 
 to the angels, mightier far than they, nor less 
 beautiful.' He tells him he is * master of 
 spirits ;' and excites his astonishment by show- 
 ing him that he is acquainted with his most 
 
 c
 
 10 
 
 secret thoughts ; flattering him, at the same 5 
 time, with the assurance that those thoughts 
 are worthy and noble ; 
 
 'Tis your immortal part, 
 Which speaks within you ; 
 
 declares to him that he has been deceived; 
 that he shall not die, but live ; seems to sym- 
 pathise in his wretchedness, with which, if he had 
 made him, he should not have been afflicted ; 
 and having by these arts inspired Cain with 
 such an awful sense of his attributes, that he 
 exclaims, * Thou look'st almost a God,' he 
 insinuates that the angels of Heaven offer up a 
 forced homage to the Deity : 
 
 The seraphs sing, 
 
 And say what they must sing and say, on pain 
 Of being that which I am and thou art. 
 
 And again in the same act ; 
 
 Higher things than ye are slaves : and higher 
 
 Than them or ye would be so, did they not 
 
 Prefer an independency of torture 
 
 To the smooth agonies of adulation 
 
 In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking prayers 
 
 To that which is omnipotent, because 
 
 It is omnipotent, and not from love, 
 
 But terror, and self-hope. 
 
 Thus Milton's Satan taunts the Archangel
 
 11 
 
 when he meets him between the two opposing 
 hosts of armed spirits ; 
 
 * At first I thought that liberty and heaven 
 ' To heavenly souls had been all one ; 
 
 ' But now I see that most through sloth had rather serve, 
 ' Minist'ring spirits, train'd up in feast and song : 
 
 * Such hast thou arm'd, the minstrelsy of heaven, 
 
 * Servility with freedom to contend, 
 
 * As both their deeds compared this day shall prove.' 
 
 Book vi. v. 165. 
 
 And with no less impiety, in the same Book 
 of PARADISE LOST, he thus addresses his as- 
 sembled train in Heaven : 
 
 * Another now hath to himself engross'd 
 
 ' All pow'r, and us eclipsed, under the name 
 ' Of King anointed, for whom all this haste 
 
 * Of midnight march, and hurried meeting here, 
 
 * This only to consult, how we may best, 
 
 ' With what may be devised of honours new, 
 ' Receive him coming ; to receive from us 
 ( Knee-tribute, yet unpaid, prostration vile ! 
 ( Too much to one ; but double how endured 
 ' To one and to his imqge now proclaim'd ? 
 4 But what if better counsels might erect 
 
 * Our minds, and teach us to cast off this yoke ? 
 ' Will ye submit your necks, and choose to bend 
 c The supple knee ?' Sec. 
 
 And again, Mammon, when he counsels the
 
 Devils to * prefer hard liberty to the easy yoke 
 of servile pomp' in Heaven. 
 
 * Suppose he should relent, 
 ' And publish grace to all, on promise made 
 ' Of new subjection; with what eyes could we 
 ' Stand in his presence humble, and receive 
 ' Strict laws imposed, to celebrate his throne 
 ' With warbled hymns, and to his godhead sing 
 
 * Forced Hallelujahs ; while he lordly sits 
 
 * Our envied sov'reign, and his altar breathes 
 ' Ambrosial odours, and ambrosial flowers 
 
 * Our servile offerings ; how wearisome 
 
 * Eternity, so spent in worship paid 
 
 * To whom we hate.' Book ii. v. 287. 
 
 With all the daring of the malignant devil, 
 described in the following passage of the * Mys- 
 tery,' can it be said that Lord Byron has gone 
 further than Milton? or must it not at least 
 be allowed that, in an age and nation, holding 
 the name of that great poet in highest honour 
 and applause, the modern dramatist might 
 well expect to escape the censures of envy in 
 the flow of his own genius and imagination? 
 Lucifer, having first called in question the sin- 
 cerity of the adoration paid by the Angels to 
 the Majesty of Heaven, that he may, by their 
 supposed example, encourage Cain in his fu-
 
 ture presumptuous doubts, breaks forth into 
 an impious arraignment of God's power and 
 goodness, and describes himself and Cain to 
 be 
 
 Souls who dare use their immortality 
 Souls who dare look the omnipotent tyrant in 
 His everlasting face, and tell him, that 
 His evil is not good ! If he has made, 
 As he saith, which I know not, nor believe 
 But, if he made us he cannot unmake. 
 
 So Satan, in answer to Abdiel, in PARADISE 
 LOST, with equal insolence denies the Godhead 
 of the Messiah. 
 
 * That we were formed then, say'st thou ? and the work 
 ' Of secondary hands, by task transferr'd 
 
 * From father to his son ? strange point and new ! 
 ' Doctrine which we would know whence learn'd. 
 
 * Who saw 
 
 * When this creation was ? rememb'rest thou 
 
 ' Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being ? 
 
 * We know no time when we were not as now ; 
 
 * Know none before us, self-begot, self-raised 
 
 * By our own quick'ning powY, &c. 
 
 * Our puissance is our own.' Book v. v. 853. 
 
 Mark the noble, the original strain of dread- 
 fully sublime conception, in which the poet 
 gives utterance to the blasphemies of Lucifer :
 
 14 
 
 yet will any one say, that such sentiments 
 expressed are either intended or calculated to 
 produce in the mind of the reader any thing 
 like approbation ? Surely not we are surprised 
 at the effort of imagination, which produced 
 them, but they only serve to render humanity 
 more dear to us ; to impress upon our minds a 
 deeper detestation and abhorrence of the spirits 
 of evil, who could so impiously arraign the 
 beneficent author of all good. 
 
 We are immortal ! nay, he 'd have us so, 
 That he may torture : let him ! he is great 
 But, in his greatness, is no happier than 
 We in our conflict ! Goodness would not make 
 Evil; what else hath he made? But let him 
 Sit on his vast and solitary throne, 
 Creating worlds, to make eternity 
 Less burthensome to his immense existence 
 And unparticipated solitude ! 
 Let him crowd orb on orb : he is alone 
 Infinite, indissoluble tyrant ! 
 Could he but crush himself, 'twere the best boon 
 He ever granted : but let him reign on, 
 . And multiply himself in misery ! 
 Spirits and men, at least we sympathise ; 
 And, suffering in concert, make our pangs, 
 Innumerable, more endurable, 
 By the unbounded sympathy of all
 
 With all ! But He! so wretched in his height* 
 So restless in his wretchedness, must still 
 Create, and re-create 
 
 Compare this passage with many which are 
 to be found in Paradise Lost, and judge whether 
 Milton's devils are less hateful in their blas^ 
 phemy, or less opprobrious against the Ma- 
 jesty of Heaven. 
 
 1 Shall we sit ling'ring here, 
 
 * Heav'n's fugitives, and for our dwelling-place 
 ' Accept this dark opprobious den of shame, 
 
 The prison of his tyranny, who reigns 
 ' By our delay ? No, let us rather choose, 
 c Arm'd with hell flames and fury, all at once 
 ' O'er Heaven's high tow'rs to force resistless way, 
 ' Turning our tortures into horrid arms 
 
 * Against the torturer.' Book ii. v. 55. 
 
 And thus Satan to Beelzebub : 
 
 ' To bow and sue for grace 
 
 * With suppliant knee, and deify his pow'r, 
 
 * Who from the terror of this arm so late 
 
 * Doubted his empire ; that were low indeed ! 
 
 * That were an ignominy and shame beneath 
 
 ' This downfall ! since by fate the strength of gods 
 f And this empyreal substance cannot fail ; 
 ' Since through experience of this great event, 
 
 * In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced, 
 -.' We may with more successful hope resolve
 
 16 
 
 ' To wage, by force or guile, eternal war 
 ' Irreconcileable to our grand foe ; 
 
 * Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy 
 
 * Sole reigning, holds the tyranny of heav'n.' 
 
 Booki. v. 116. 
 
 And on his approach to earth, having under- 
 taken the task of corrupting the first woman ; 
 
 4 To me shall be the glory sole among 
 ' Th' infernal powers, in one day to have marr'd 
 ' What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days 
 ' Continued making, and who knows how long 
 
 * Before had been contriving, though, perhaps 
 
 * Not longer than since I in one night freed 
 
 * From servitude inglorious well nigh half 
 
 ' Th' angelic name, and thinner left the crowd 
 
 * Of his adorers : he to be avenged, 
 
 * And to repair his numbers thus impair*d, 
 
 * Whether such virtue spent of old now fail'd 
 
 * More angels to create, if they at least 
 
 * Are his created, or to spite us more, 
 ' Determined to advance into our room 
 
 < A creature form'd of earth,' &c. Book ix. v. 135. 
 
 Not to multiply these passages from Milton, 
 though we might swell our subject with many 
 others equally bold, and equally expressive of 
 the sentiments of a fallen host, who war 
 against heaven and defy the Almighty, I pro- 
 ceed to show the progress of Cain's seduction.
 
 Far from being shocked at Lucifer's impiety, 
 he says, 
 
 Thou speak'st to me of things, which long have swum 
 In visions through my thoughts. 
 
 He acknowledges that he is dissatisfied with the 
 weight of daily toil, and the comparatively 
 virtuous tenor of his father's life ; and that, until 
 he saw Lucifer, * he had never met aught to 
 sympathise with him.' 
 
 Encouraged by this declaration, Lucifer pro- 
 ceeds in his treacherous work. He has just in- 
 stilled into the mind of Cain a sentiment of 
 God's injustice and tyranny in the fall and 
 punishment of man, which he contrasts with 
 what he himself would have done for him. 
 
 I would have made ye 
 
 Gods; and even He who thrust ye forth, so thrust ye 
 Because ' ye should not eat the fruits of life, 
 ' And become gods as we.' 
 
 Then who was the demon ? He , 
 Who would not let ye live, or he who would 
 Have made ye live for ever in the joy 
 And power of knowledge ? 
 
 Thus the devil, in the ninth book of PARA- 
 DISE LOST, seduces Eve by specious arguments 
 
 D
 
 to doubt the equity of God's command, that 
 she should not eat the fruit of the tree of 
 knowledge. 
 
 ' God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just; 
 ' Not just, not God ; not fear'd then, nor obey'd : 
 ' Your fear itself of death removes the fear. 
 ' Why then was this forbid ? Why but to awe, 
 ' Why but to keep you low and ignorant, 
 ' His worshippers ?' 
 
 Lucifer, however, disclaims having tempted 
 Eve : he pretends to sympathise with mankind 
 in their fall from happiness j and to have con- 
 fessed that it was through his intervention that 
 death dame into the world, would have belied 
 his own words, and have driven Cain from him 
 in terror. When, therefore, he lets fall an 
 expression, which excites the suspicion of Cain, 
 ' Ah ! didst thou tempt my mother ?' he im- 
 mediately answers, 
 
 I tempt none, &c. 
 Poor clay ! what should I tempt them for, or how ? 
 
 What 
 
 Was there to envy in the narrow bounds 
 Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade 
 Space but 
 
 Here he craftily breaks off his discourse of im-
 
 19 
 
 material things, the rather to increase Cain's 
 desire of knowing their mysteries, and to watch 
 the workings of his mind : 
 
 But I speak to thee of what thou know'st not. 
 Cain's presumptuous spirit answers, 
 
 But thou canst not 
 
 Speak aught of knowledge, which I would not know, 
 And do not thirst to know, and bear a mind 
 To know. 
 Luc. Dar'st thou to look on Death I 
 
 Then follow those sublime and beautiful pas- 
 sages, descriptive of the feelings, which agitate 
 the soul of Cain, when he contemplates the 
 nature and the power of death ; passages which, 
 of themselves, would stamp the writer's poetic 
 genius of the highest order. 
 
 Cain. Thoughts unspeakable 
 
 Crowd in my breast to burning, when I hear 
 Of this almighty Death, who is, it seems, 
 Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him ? 
 I wrestled with the lion, when a boy, 
 In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe. 
 
 Luc. It has no shape ; but will absorb all things 
 That bear the form of earth-born being. 
 
 Cain. Ah ! 
 
 I thought it was a being : who could do 
 Such evil things to beings save a being ? 
 
 Luc. Ask the Destroyer.
 
 Cain. Who ? 
 
 .Luc. The Maker call him 
 
 Which name thou wilt; he makes but to destroy. 
 
 Cain. I knew not that, yet thought it, since I heard 
 Of death : although I know not what it is, 
 Yet it seems horrible. I have look'd out 
 In the vast desolate night in search of him; 
 And when I saw gigantic shadows in 
 The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequer' d 
 By the far flashing of the cherubs 1 swords, 
 I watch'd for what I thought his coming ; for 
 With fear rose longing in my heart to know 
 What 'twas which shook us all but nothing came. 
 And then I turn'd my weary eyes from off 
 Our native and forbidden Paradise, 
 Up to the lights above us, in the azure, 
 Which are so beautiful : shall they, too, die ? 
 
 Luc. Perhaps but long outlive both thine and thee. 
 
 Cain. I 'm glad of that ; I would not have them die, 
 They are so lovely. What is death ? I fear, 
 I feel, it is a dreadful thing ; but what, 
 I cannot compass : 'tis denounced against us, 
 Both them who sinn'd and sinn'd not, as an ill 
 What ill? 
 
 Luc. To be resolved into the earth. 
 
 Cain. Alas ! I scarcely now know what it is, 
 And yet I fear it fear I know not what ! 
 
 Luc. And I, who know all things, fear nothing : see 
 What is true knowledge. 
 
 Cain. Wilt thou teach me all 2
 
 Lucifer, perceiving the intense interest to 
 which he has excited his destined victim, takes 
 advantage of such a moment to secure him 
 in his toils : he promises to gratify his thirst 
 after the higher knowledge to which he al- 
 ludes;- but upon one condition (and to this 
 point we may observe his treacherous reasoning 
 throughout has been directed) that he will pay 
 him the tribute of his homage, and confess him- 
 self his votary. 
 
 Wilt thou teach me all ? (says Cain.) 
 Luc. Ay, upon one condition. 
 Cain. Name it. 
 
 Luc. That 
 
 Thou dost fall down and worship me thy Lord. 
 
 Let us for a moment quit the language of 
 poetry, and in sober reason inquire how Cain 
 was to be seduced to the commission of his 
 crime, which forms the great event of the 
 scripture history, and of the drama before us, un- 
 less by such subtle arguments as, to our sorrow, 
 continue to exercise a fatal influence over so many 
 of the sons of humanity. How otherwise was the 
 mind of Cain to be inspired with the contempt 
 and hatred of God's divine laws, to which in 
 the progress of events we see him conducted, a 
 wretched blood-stained criminal ; or by what
 
 less powerful agency hurried on to perdition, 
 than by the fascination of the unrighteous 
 spirit, the permitted enemy of mankind ? And 
 if by such a being, how otherwise than by means 
 which suited his character of a demon, and 
 might best accomplish his malicious object? 
 by creating a doubt of Heaven's mercy and 
 goodness, by inculcating an awful admiration 
 of the attributes of God's enemy, by inspiring 
 a discontent of his own imagined wrongs, and a 
 disbelief of those truths, which formed his surest 
 safeguard, and the mainspring of his happiness? 
 One or all of these are the daily and hourly 
 causes of man's fall from virtue ; they are 
 the instruments, by which sin is permitted to 
 operate upon our depraved nature ; and though 
 Cain and Lucifer express themselves in the 
 strong language of poetry, and are bolder in 
 their impiety, the one a fiend, the other al- 
 ready an infidel, in his heart, yet there are 
 few of us, perhaps, who are not sometimes as- 
 sailed by the whisperings of the same doubts, 
 and of the same discontented spirit. The per- 
 sonages of the * Mystery' give utterance only 
 to those feelings by which, though not openly 
 pronounced, and perhaps never clearly defined, 
 man always has been, and always will be, 
 impelled to works of evil.
 
 The demon, however, is foiled in his ex- 
 pectation of immediate conquest over Cain by 
 that very pride of heart, which had first induced 
 him to attempt his conversion : Cain refuses to 
 worship the seducer, not from any virtuous he- 
 sitation, or fear of offending the majesty of e a 
 jealous God/ but, says he, 
 
 I never 
 
 As yet have bow'd unto my father's God : 
 Why should I bow to thee ? 
 
 Luc. Hast thou ne'er bow'd 
 
 To him ? 
 
 Cain. Have I not said it ? need I say it ? 
 Could not thy mighty knowledge teach thee that ? 
 
 Luc. He who bows not to him has bow'd to me. 
 
 Cain. But I will bend to neither. 
 
 Luc. Ne'er the less 
 
 Thou art my worshipper : not worshipping 
 Him makes thee mine the same. 
 
 We may hope that this, at least, is no pestilent 
 doctrine, calculated to mislead the ignorant, 
 but a confirmation of the natural train of in- 
 ference, which I hope I shall hereafter prove to 
 be deducible from the whole drama : it points 
 out the danger of unsettled sceptical reasonings, 
 which lead to the denial of the God who made 
 us, and our consequent subjection to the in- 
 fluence of his declared enemy.
 
 Having necessarily detained you so long, 
 Sir, in the conference of Cain with his infernal 
 companion, I turn with pleasure to the virtuous 
 sentiments of Adah, who now enters upon the 
 scene in search of her husband. What a con- 
 "trast is afforded to the presumption of that 
 wretched infidel, in the innocence of heart 
 which shines forth in her character ! Cain 
 apprises her that he must depart with the Spirit ; 
 and when, in answer to her anxious inquiries 
 who it is that interposes to separate them, he 
 informs her * He is a God,' she replies, 
 
 How know'st thou ? 
 
 Cain. He speaks like 
 
 A god. 
 
 Adah. So did the serpent, and it lied. 
 
 Luc. Thou errest, Adah ! was not the tree that 
 Of knowledge ? 
 
 Adah. Ay to our eternal sorrow. 
 
 Luc. And yet that grief is knowledge so he lied not : 
 And if he did betray you, 'twas with truth ; 
 And truth in its own essence cannot be 
 But good. 
 
 With equally pernicious and more successful 
 arguments Milton's Satan tempted our first 
 mother in the garden :
 
 4 Queen of this universe, do not believe 
 
 ' Those rigid threats of death ; ye shall not die : 
 
 4 How should ye? By the fruit ? it gives you life 
 
 * To knowledge : by the threat'ner ? Look on me, 
 
 * Me who have touched and tasted, yet both live, 
 ' And life more perfect have attain'd than fate 
 
 ' Meant me, by vent'ring higher than my lot.' 
 
 Book ix. v. 684. 
 
 ' And wherein lies 
 
 * Th' offence, that man should thus attain to know ? 
 ' What can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree 
 
 ' Impart against his will, if all be his ? 
 ' Or is it envy ? and can envy dwell 
 
 * In heav'nly breasts T Book ix. v. 725. 
 
 Adah, superior to the sophistry by which 
 the fiend would involve her in the destruction 
 that awaits her husband, replies 
 
 But all we know of it has gathered 
 Evil on ill : expulsion from our home, 
 And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness ; 
 Remorse of that which was and hope of that 
 Which cometh not. 
 
 She has no desire to attain the knowledge he 
 would lead her to, at the expense of her virtue 
 and her happiness : she perceives the devil's 
 craftiness, and would instantly persuade Cain 
 to fly from the perdition that already seems to 
 threaten them :
 
 Cain ! walk not with this spirit. 
 Bear with what we have borne, and love me- 
 And when, in answer to the idea she had ex- 
 pressed, that Omnipotence must be all good- 
 ness, Lucifer insidiously asks, 
 
 Was it so in Eden ? 
 She exclaims, 
 
 Fiend ! tempt me not with beauty ; thou art fairer 
 Than was the serpent, and as false. 
 
 Luc. As true. 
 
 Ask Eve, your mother ; bears she not the knowledge 
 Of good and evil ? 
 
 Adah. Oh, my mother ! thou 
 
 Hast pluck'd a fruit more fatal to thine offspring 
 Than to thyself; thou at the least hast past 
 Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent 
 And happy intercourse with happy spirits; 
 But we, thy children, ignorant of Eden, 
 Are girt about by demons, who assume 
 The words of God, and tempt us with our own 
 Dissatisfied and curious thoughts as thou 
 Wert work'd on by the snake, in thy most flush'd 
 And heedless, harmless, wantonness of bliss. 
 I cannot answer this immortal thing 
 Which stands before me ; I cannot abhor him ; 
 I look upon him with a pleasing fear, 
 And yet I fly not from him : in his eye 
 There is a fastening attraction which
 
 Fixes my fluttering eyes on his ; my heart 
 Beats quick ; he awes me, and yet draws me near, 
 Nearer, and nearer: Cain Cain save me from him. 
 He is not God nor God's : I have beheld 
 The cherubs and the seraphs ; he looks not 
 Like them. 
 
 Again, to Lucifer's insinuation, 
 
 Yet thy God is alone ; and is he happy ? 
 Lonely and good ? 
 
 She replies, 
 
 He is not so ; he hath 
 The angels and the mortals to make happy, 
 And thus becomes so in diffusing joy : 
 What else can joy be, but the spreading joy ? 
 
 I may be permitted to pause for a moment 
 on reading this beautiful and thrilling de- 
 scription of the feelings of a youthful heart dis- 
 posed to virtue, and fearful of the first influences 
 of a fatal propensity to evil, which had been 
 entailed upon her by her parents' fall. What 
 pathos, what flow of language, how harmonious 
 and expressive ! There is, indeed, something 
 so beautiful in the whole character of Adah, 
 that we might be almost tempted to imagine 
 the poet had touched some responsive chord, 
 that vibrated to the kindly affections of his 
 heart, as he delineated her virtues. If it were
 
 within the intended scope of the present tract 
 to analyze the individual features of each 
 character in the * Mystery,' we might dwell 
 with increasing pleasure on every successive 
 sentiment she utters. But I must venture to 
 refer to such points only as bear upon the im- 
 mediate subject of our inquiry, the moral tend- 
 ency and fitness of the drama. 
 
 The Prince of Darkness was well able to dis- 
 criminate between the characters of Cain and 
 Adah : to the former he has already proposed 
 that he should fall down and worship him his 
 lord ; but he knows how Adah would treat 
 such a suggestion ; he sees the horror she 
 entertains of his blasphemous insinuations, and 
 knows that any temptation he might assail her 
 with must be so artfully concealed, as not to 
 alarm the sensibility of her virtue: yet she 
 must be tempted ; and upon her expressing the 
 love she bears to the beauty of 
 
 The star which watches, welcoming the morn, 
 
 he asks, 
 
 And why not adore ? 
 
 Could he only persuade her, as she beheld the 
 works of creation, to make those beauties, of 
 which she was so susceptible, the objects of her
 
 adoration, her progress to infidelity and the 
 worship of himself would have been easy and 
 natural. But with what unexpected force does 
 the simplicity of her answer defeat all his pur- 
 poses ! 
 
 Our father 
 Adores the Invisible only. 
 
 Luc. But the symbols 
 
 Of the Invisible are the loveliest 
 Of what is visible ; and yon bright star 
 Is leader of the host of heaven. 
 
 Adah. Our father 
 
 Saith that he has beheld the God himself 
 Who made him and our mother. 
 
 Luc. Hast thou seen him ? 
 
 Adah. Yes in his works. 
 
 Luc. But in his being ? 
 
 Adah. No 
 
 Save in my father, who is God's own image ; 
 Or in his angels, who are like to thee 
 And brighter, yet less beautiful and powerful 
 In seeming : as the silent sunny noon, 
 All light they look upon us ; but thou seenTst 
 Like an ethereal night, where long white clouds 
 Streak the deep purple, and unnumber'd stars 
 Spangle the wonderful mysterious vault 
 With things that look as if they would be suns ; 
 So beautiful, unnumbered, and endearing, 
 Not dazzling, and yet drawing us to them,
 
 30 
 
 They fill my eyes with tears, and so dost thou. 
 Thou seem'st unhappy; do not make us so, 
 And I will weep for thee. 
 
 Untouched by the tenderness of this appeal, 
 and of a heart, which offers to weep for him if he 
 be unfortunate, he is stung with malignant dis- 
 appointment at the gentle but unyielding virtue 
 of one, who he might have expected would fall 
 an easy prey to his specious reasoning; and 
 he answers her with a dreadful denunciation of 
 woe to all the future generations, which shall 
 descend from her. 
 
 Alas ! those tears ! 
 Couldst thou but know what oceans will be shed 
 
 Adah. By me ? 
 
 Luc. By all. 
 
 Adah. What all ? 
 
 Luc. The million millions 
 
 The myriad myriads the all-peopled earth 
 The unpeopled earth and the o'er-peopled Hell, 
 Of which thy bosom is the germ. 
 
 Adah. Oh Cain ! 
 
 This spirit curseth us. 
 
 The demon perceives that the innocence of 
 Adah, her steadfast belief in the truths that 
 had been revealed to her, and her distrust of 
 his new and dangerous theories, had rendered
 
 31 
 
 her proof against all his attacks ; and despairing 
 to overcome her virtuous dispositions, he turns 
 from her to his more willing victim, whom he 
 commands to follow him to the other world, 
 where he will satiate his thirst for knowledge. 
 
 It appears to me, Sir, that no one who brings 
 to the attentive perusal of this * Mystery* a 
 candid and unbiassed judgment, animated with 
 a sincere Christian desire rather to discover in 
 it some new confirmation of the faith that is 
 in him, than an impeachment of the doctrines 
 of his religion, can read the first act, through 
 which we have been conducted, and fail to de- 
 duce an edifying moral from the whole. Let him 
 call to mind the relative influence, which the 
 master-spirit of evil exercises over Cain and Adah, 
 and he will see how forcibly the poet has pour- 
 trayedthe unhappy consequences of permitting 
 even the approach of scepticism, whilst his heart 
 must expand with gratitude in the pleasing con- 
 sciousness, that virtue and happiness are in- 
 separably united. On the one hand he will 
 see a discontented and aspiring mind, relying 
 rather on its own strength than on the benign 
 influence of religion, which is no sooner as- 
 sailed by the arguments of infidelity, than it 
 yields to the congenial spirit, and is lost in its
 
 own self-love and vanity : on the other hand 
 he may contemplate the calm and steadfast faith 
 of a grateful heart, impressed with a sense of 
 its own unworthiness, which either flies from 
 the insidious attack of scepticism, or rests its 
 hope on the divine assistance, as all-sufficient 
 for its defence. 
 
 In the second act Lucifer and Cain are in- 
 troduced to us travelling through the Abyss of 
 Space. Cain fearing to sink, is encouraged by 
 his guide to trust in his protecting power. 
 
 Believe and sink not ! doubt and perish ! thus 
 
 Would run the edict of the other God, 
 
 Who names me demon to his angels ; they 
 
 Echo the sound to miserable things, 
 
 Which knowing nought beyond their shallow senses, 
 
 Worship the word which strikes their ear, and deem. 
 
 Evil or good what is proclaimed to them 
 
 In their abasement. I will have none such : 
 
 Worship or worship not, thou shalt behold 
 
 The worlds beyond thy little world, nor be 
 
 Amerced, for doubts beyond thy little life, 
 
 With torture of my dooming.
 
 As they recede from Paradise in their rapid 
 flight, Cain exclaims, in astonishment, 
 
 Oh, god, or demon, or whate'er thou art, 
 Is yon our earth ? 
 
 Luc. Dost thou not recognize 
 
 The dust which form'd your father ? 
 
 Cain. Can it be ? 
 
 Yon small blue circle, swinging in far ether, 
 With an inferior circlet near it still, 
 Which looks like that which lit our earthly night ? 
 
 As we move 
 
 Like sunbeams onward, it grows small and smaller, 
 And as it waxes little, and then less, 
 Gathers a halo round it, like the light 
 Which shone the roundest of the stars, when I 
 Beheld them from the skirts of Paradise ; 
 Methinks they both, as we recede from them, 
 Appear to join the innumerable stars 
 Which are around us ; and, as we move on, 
 Increase their myriads. 
 
 Lucifer, observing his delight at these new 
 wonders of creation, takes care to counteract 
 the admiration they might produce of the om- 
 nipotence of the Deity, by insinuating that 
 his power is exercised for the destruction of 
 mankind, * all fore-doomed' to be frail and 
 wretched.
 
 And if there should be 
 Worlds greater than thine own, inhabited 
 By greater things, and they themselves far more 
 In number than the dust of thy dull earth, 
 Though multiplied to animated atoms, 
 All living, and all doom'd to death, and wretched, 
 What wouldst thou think ? 
 
 Cain. Spirit ! if 
 
 It be, as thou hast said (and I within 
 Feel the prophetic torture of its truth), 
 Here let me die : for to give birth to those 
 Who can but suffer many years, and die, 
 Methinks is merely propagating death, 
 And multiplying murder. 
 
 Thus Adam, after his expulsion from Paradise, 
 ' in a troubled sea of passion tost* at the sight 
 of the growing miseries of the world, to which 
 he is exiled, wishes that death might end the 
 existence of mortality, and exclaims ; 
 
 * O miserable of happy ! Is this the end 
 ' Of this new glorious world, Sic. 
 
 ' Yet well if here would end 
 ' The misery : I deserved it, and would bear 
 ' My own deservings ; but this will not serve : 
 
 * All that I eat or drink, or shall beget, 
 
 * Is propagated curse. O voice once heard 
 ' Delightfully, ( Increase and multiply,' 
 
 ' Now death to hear ! for what can I increase 
 
 * Or multiply, but curses on my head ?' Book x. v. 720.
 
 Proceeding onwards, Cain is again enraptured 
 with the glories of the skies, and exclaims, 
 
 Oh, thou beautiful 
 And unimaginable ether ! and 
 Ye multiplying masses of increased 
 And still-increasing lights ! what are ye ? what 
 Is this blue wilderness of interminable 
 Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen 
 The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden ? 
 Is your course measured for ye ? or do ye 
 Sweep on in your unbounded revelry 
 Through an aerial universe of endless 
 Expansion, at which my soul aches to think, 
 Intoxicated with eternity ? 
 Oh God ! Oh Gods ! or whatsoe'er ye are ! 
 How beautiful ye are ! how beautiful 
 Your works, or accidents, or whatsoe'er 
 They may be ! Let me die, as atoms die, 
 (If that they die) or know ye in your might 
 And knowledge ! My thoughts are not in this hour 
 Unworthy what I see, though my dust is; 
 Spirit ! let me expire, or see them nearer. 
 
 Luc. Art thou not nearer ? look back to thine earth ! 
 
 Cain. Where is it ? I see nothing save a mass 
 Of most innumerable lights. 
 
 Luc. Look there ! 
 
 Cain. I cannot see it. 
 
 Luc. Yet it sparkles still. 
 
 Cain. What, yonder !
 
 36 
 
 Luc. Yea. 
 
 Cain. And wilt thou tell me so ? 
 
 Why, I have seen the fire-flies and fire-worms 
 Sprinkle the dusky groves and the green banks 
 In the dim twilight, brighter than yon world 
 Which bears them. 
 
 Luc. Thou hast seen both worms and worlds, 
 
 Each bright and sparkling, what dost think of them ? 
 
 Cain. That they are beautiful in their own sphere, 
 And that the night, which makes both beautiful 
 The little shining fire-fly in its flight, 
 And the immortal star in its great course, 
 Must both be guided. 
 
 How noble an incident of the poem is this 
 finely imagined flight! of which, Sir, I an- 
 ticipate you will think me justified in ad- 
 vancing, that it loses nothing of its beauties, 
 or its high original character, by a comparison 
 with Satan's aerial journey in search of Pa- 
 radise, as described by Milton. But, for the 
 present, I must refrain from further extracts, 
 however beautiful and striking, to return once 
 more to the moral of the drama. Lucifer, 
 in conducting Cain through the air, instils into 
 his mind the same impious thoughts, by which 
 he tempted him to the journey; exciting his 
 desire to know more than is permitted for 
 mortals to know, yet unfolding only so much
 
 of the mysteries, as may rather serve to confuse 
 than enlighten his mind; to increase his dis- 
 content of his own fallen state, than to inspire 
 an admiration of the wonders he beholds. 
 
 Having thus, by crafty appeals to his passions, 
 bewildered the better impressions of Cain's 
 nature, and rendered him almost a fit companion 
 for the fallen host, to whose presence he is 
 about to introduce him, Lucifer conducts his 
 mortal companion to the gates of Hell : these 
 open wide before them as the congregated 
 vapours roll away, and the insidious guide and 
 his too willing convert enter together. 
 
 Cain no sooner plunges into the realm of death 
 than he loses all reserve ; every spark of re- 
 maining virtue seems blasted by the pestilential 
 air he breathes in common with the Demonian 
 spirits. 
 
 Oh God ! I dare not think on't ! Cursed be 
 He who invented life that leads to death ! 
 Or the dull mass of life, that being life 
 Could not retain, but needs must forfeit it 
 Even for the innocent ! 
 
 Luc. Dost thou curse thy father ? 
 
 Cain. Cursed he not me in giving me my birth ? 
 Cursed he not me before my birth, in daring 
 To pluck the fruit forbidden ? 
 
 Luc. Thou say'st well !
 
 38 
 
 Yes ! he has him in his toils : nothing now 
 seems wanting to complete his victory; for 
 Cain has cursed his God and his father, which 
 is the seal of his doom ! What wonder, then, 
 that Lucifer can scarcely contain his hellish 
 joy! 
 
 Thou says't well : 
 The curse is mutual 'twixt thy sire and thee. 
 
 Cain, yet unsatisfied, desires to know the na- 
 ture of this almighty Death, who is, it seems, 
 inevitable : 
 
 Then what [he says] is death ? 
 
 Luc. What ? hath not he who made ye 
 
 Said 'tis another life ? 
 
 Cain. Till now he hath 
 
 Said nothing, save that all shall die. 
 
 Luc. Perhaps 
 
 He one day will unfold that further secret. 
 
 Cain. Happy the day ! 
 
 Luc. Yes ; happy ! when unfolded 
 
 Through agonies unspeakable, and clogg'd 
 With agonies eternal, to innumerable 
 Yet unborn myriads of unconscious atoms, 
 All to be animated for this only ! 
 
 In the same strain of impious discontent does 
 Milton's Adam arraign the purposes of God 
 after his fall.
 
 4 O fleeting joys 
 ' Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes ! 
 
 * Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay 
 ' To mould me man ? Did I solicit thee 
 
 * From darkness to promote me, or here place 
 
 * In this delicious garden ? As my will 
 
 * Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right 
 ' And equal to reduce me to my dust, 
 
 ( Desirous to resign and render back 
 
 ' All I received, unable to perform 
 
 ' Thy terms too hard, by which I was to hold 
 
 ' The good I sought not.' Book x. v. 174, 
 
 Lucifer had first seduced Cain to tempt the 
 
 * Abyss of Space* by representing to him the 
 beauty of knowledge, which would place him 
 beyond tbe reach of fear and above the gro- 
 veling thoughts of earth, and lead him to hap- 
 piness in the contemplation of celestial and un- 
 imaginable things. But now that he sees him 
 securely in his power, he no longer conceals 
 the misery, which this very knowledge will oc- 
 casion him, as he predicts the future empire of 
 sin throughout the world. 
 
 Cain answers, 
 
 I understand not this. 
 
 Luc. The happier thou ! 
 
 Thy world and thou are still too young ! Thou thinkest 
 Thyself most wicked and unhappy, &c.
 
 40 
 
 . First-born of the first man ! 
 
 Thy present state of sin and thou art evil, 
 Of sorrow and thou sufferest, are both Eden 
 In all its innocence compared to what 
 Thou shortly may'st be ; and that state again, 
 In its redoubled wretchedness., a Paradise 
 To what thy sons' sons 1 sons, accumulating 
 In generations like to dust, (which they 
 In fact but add to,) shall endure and do. 
 Now let us back to earth ! 
 
 Cain. And wherefore didst thou 
 
 Lead me here only to inform me this ? 
 
 Luc. Was not thy quest for knowledge ? 
 
 Cain. Yes : as being 
 
 The road to happiness. 
 
 Luc. If truth be so, 
 
 Thou hast it 
 
 Cain. Then my father's God did well 
 
 When he prohibited the fatal tree. 
 
 Let this and the following passages be read 
 with the attention they deserve, and I will 
 venture to say, that scarcely any thing in our 
 language more clearly ' points a moral,' more 
 correctly shows the necessary connexion of sin 
 and misery; or more forcibly conveys to the mind 
 all the fatal consequences of an aberration from 
 virtue, cheerless disappointment of the plea- 
 sures and enjoyments we had promised to our-
 
 41 
 
 selves from the indulgence of our unrestrained 
 desires, deep execration and reproach against 
 those who have tempted us to it, with remorse 
 and self-condemnation, aggravated by the cer- 
 tain horrors of retribution, which the delusive 
 sophistry of the heart can no longer conceal 
 from us. 
 
 The mind of the betrayed Cain now begins 
 to be sensible to the danger of his situation : he 
 has penetrated all the mysteries, which Lucifer 
 could disclose : he feels that, so far from re- 
 lieving his unquiet thoughts, or satisfying his 
 desires, they have only led him to the foreknow- 
 ledge of the wretchedness entailed on him, and 
 on the successive generations of which he is the 
 germ : he hears, above all, that it is the misery 
 and debasement of sin, by which they shall suf- 
 fer; and he now, for the first time, begins to 
 doubt the purpose of Lucifer, and perceives 
 the mercy of the Deity in having concealed 
 from man the great dispensations of his pro- 
 vidence. 
 
 But, alas ! it is too late : his curse of God 
 and his father has passed his lips irrevocably. 
 He finds the tempter is about to leave him as 
 he ever has, and ever will leave his unhappy 
 victims, in utter hopelessness and despair. He
 
 'reproaches him for having seduced him from 
 earth, only to make him wretched. The demon, 
 however, offers him no consolation, but ma- 
 lignantly endeavours to poison the only re- 
 maining source of comfort which is left to him, 
 his affection for Adah, his beloved Adah, by 
 foretelling the decay of her beauty, and the 
 consequent diminution of his love for her. 
 
 Cain. Within those glorious orbs which we behold, 
 Distant and dazzling, and innumerable, 
 Ere we came down into this phantom realm, 
 111 cannot come ; they are too beautiful. 
 
 Luc. Thou hast seen them from afar. 
 
 Cain. And what of that ? 
 
 Distance can but diminish glory they 
 When nearer must be more ineffable. 
 
 Luc. Approach the things of earth most beautiful, 
 And judge their beauty near. 
 
 Cain. I have done this 
 
 The loveliest thing I know is loveliest nearest. 
 
 Luc. Then there must be delusion. What is that 
 Which being nearest to thine eyes is still 
 More beautiful than beauteous things remote ? 
 
 Cain. My sister Adah. All the stars of heaven, 
 The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb 
 Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world 
 The hues of twilight the sun's gorgeous coming- 
 His setting indescribable, which fills 
 My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold
 
 Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him 
 
 Along that western paradise of clouds 
 
 The forest shade the green bough the bird's voice, 
 
 The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love, 
 
 And mingles with the song of cherubim, 
 
 As the day closes over Eden's walls ; 
 
 All these are nothing to my eyes and heart 
 
 Like Adah's face : I turn from earth and heaven 
 
 To gaze on it. 
 
 Luc. 'Tis frail as fair mortality, 
 
 In the first dawn and bloom of young creation 
 And earliest embraces of earth's parents, 
 Can make its offspring ; still it is delusion, See. 
 Thou lovest it, because 'tis beautiful 
 As was the apple in thy mother's eye ; 
 And when it ceases to be so, thy love 
 Will cease, like any other appetite. 
 
 Cain. Cease to be beautiful ! how can that be ? 
 
 Luc. With time. 
 
 Cain. But time has past, and hitherto 
 
 Even Adam and my mother both are fair : 
 Not fair like Adah and the seraphim 
 But very fair. 
 
 Luc. AIL that must pass away 
 
 In them and her. 
 
 Though the unhappy victim's mind has been 
 agitated by the sight of new worlds, and his 
 imagination bewildered, and as it were set 
 afloat on a tempestuous sea of uncertainty, by
 
 44 
 
 the tortuous reasoning of his seducer, yet the 
 recollection of Adah and his parents lights up 
 the last gleam of tender feeling in his heart ; it 
 cheers, and for a moment inspires him with af- 
 fection for his family * Adam and my mother 
 both are very fair ;' ' I turn from earth and heaven 
 to gaze on Adah's face.' And he adds, ' I 
 pity thee, who lov'st nothing,' for Lucifer had 
 told him a little before, * Mortal, my brother- 
 hood's with those who have no children.' 
 This last remnant of nature's softer mould, 
 and the reproachful expression of a mortal's 
 pity, excite all the malevolence of the fiend 
 to expel the rising sentiments of love, lest 
 Cain should find some resting-place for his 
 heart, which might lead him to be thankful and 
 to worship : he touches, therefore, another fatal 
 chord, and wakes up fresh sounds of mischief 
 in his heart jealousy of his brother Abel, and 
 hatred, its direful accompaniment. 
 
 Luc. And thy brother, 
 
 Sits he not near thy heart ? 
 
 Cain. Why should he not ? 
 
 Luc. Thy father loves him well so does thy God. 
 Cain. And so do I. 
 
 IMC. Tis well and meekly done. 
 
 Cain. Meefcly.
 
 Luc. He is the second born of flesh, 
 
 And is his mother's favourite. 
 
 Cain. Let him keep 
 
 Her favour, since the serpent was the first 
 To win it. 
 
 Luc. And his father's ? 
 
 Cain. What is that 
 
 To me ? should I not love that which all love ? 
 
 Luc. And the Jehovah the indulgent Lord, 
 And bounteous planter of barr'd Paradise 
 He, too, looks smilingly on Abel. 
 
 Cain. I 
 
 Ne'er saw him and I know not if he smiles. 
 
 Luc. But you have seen his angels. 
 
 Cain. Rarely. 
 
 Luc. But 
 
 Sufficiently to see they love your brother ; 
 His sacrifices are acceptable. 
 
 Cain. So be they ! wherefore speak to me of this ? 
 
 Luc. Because thou hast thought of this ere now. 
 
 Cain. And if 
 
 I have thought, why recall a thought that (he pauses, 
 
 as agitated) Spirit ! 
 Here we are in thy world ; speak not of mine. 
 
 The devil perceives that he has fixed his stamp 
 on Cain, and that every thing works to the dreadful 
 consummation of his fate. A brother, the child 
 of the same parents, has been rendered the ob- 
 ject of all the passions which raged in his bosom :
 
 the virtues of Abel, cherished of his kindred, 
 and favoured of God, become, by the agency 
 of hell, the source of crime and bloodshed. The 
 deadly purpose is effected, for the heart is poi- 
 soned : and Lucifer, exulting in his work, and 
 confident of the certainty of its effect, pro- 
 poses to dismiss his new creature to his native 
 earth, which is too soon to be stained with the 
 first murder. 
 
 And now I will convey thee to thy world, 
 
 Where thou shall multiply the race of Adam, 
 
 Eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, sleep, and die. 
 
 Cain. And to what end have I beheld these things 
 Which thou hast shown me ? 
 
 Luc. Didst thou not require 
 
 Knowledge ? And have I not, in what I showed, 
 Taught thee to know thyself? 
 
 Cain. Alas ! I seem 
 
 Nothing. 
 
 Luc. And this should be the human sum 
 Of knowledge, to know mortal nature's nothingness ; 
 Bequeath that science to thy children, and 
 'Twill spare them many tortures. 
 
 Cain. Haughty spirit ! 
 
 Thou speak'st it proudly; but thyself, though proud, 
 Hast a superior. 
 
 Luc. No ! By heaven, which He 
 
 Holds, and the abyss, and the immensity
 
 Of worlds and life, which I hold with him No ! 
 I have a victor true ; but no superior. 
 Homage he has from all but none from me : 
 I battle it against him, as I battled 
 In highest heaven. Through all eternity, 
 And the unfathomable gulfs of Hades, 
 And the interminable realms of space, 
 And the infinity of endless ages. 
 All, all, will I dispute ! And world by world, 
 And star by star, and universe by universe 
 Shall tremble in the balance, till the great 
 Conflict shall cease, if ever it shall cease, 
 Which it ne'er shall, till he or I be quench'd ! 
 One good gift has the fatal apple given 
 Your reason : let it not be over-swayM 
 By tyrannous threats to force you into faith 
 'Gainst all external sense and inward feeling : 
 Think and endure, and form an inner world 
 In your own bosom where the outward fails ; 
 So shall you nearer be the spiritual 
 Nature, and war triumphant with your own. 
 
 If this language must be considered dread- 
 fully energetic, yet is it not the language of the 
 fiend? and can it be said that such is likely to 
 corrupt or to seduce, except perhaps another 
 Cain, to whom his own heart must be an evil 
 spirit? In the prosecution of the object proposed 
 by this address, I must pursue the present course 
 of citation, even at the risk of being thought
 
 unreasonably tedious, in order at once to justify 
 the ' Mystery,' and the assertion hazarded by 
 way of comparison with the writings of Milton, 
 to whom malevolence itself has never ventured 
 to affix the stigma of impiety. I shall, therefore, 
 point out one or two passages, as offering a pa- 
 rallel of equally ungovernable hate and defiance 
 to the will of the Highest, on the part of his 
 devils, in the poem of PARADISE LOST. 
 
 To begin with part of Satan's address to his 
 compeers in sin : 
 
 * All hope excluded thus, behold instead 
 
 * Of us, outcast, exiled, his new delight 
 
 * Mankind created, and for him this world ! 
 
 * So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, 
 
 * Farewell remorse : all good to me is lost ; 
 
 * Evil be thou my good ; by thee at least 
 
 * Divided empire with Heaven's King I hold, 
 
 * By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign, 
 
 * As man ere long, and this new world shall know.' 
 
 Book iv. v. 105. 
 
 And again to the Archangel, whom God sent 
 to oppose the hostile array of spirits. 
 
 * Err not that so shall end 
 ' The strife which thou call'st evil, but we style 
 
 * The strife of glory ; which we mean to win, 
 
 * Or turn this heaven itself into the hell 
 
 * Thou fablest, here however to dwell free
 
 ' If not to reign : meanwhile thy utmost force, 
 6 And join him, named Almighty, to thy aid 
 
 * I fly not, but have sought thee far and nigh.' 
 
 Book vi. v. 288. 
 
 And Moloch, the fiercest of those who fought 
 in heaven. 
 
 ' What fear we then ? what doubt we to incense 
 ' His utmost ire ? which to the height enraged, 
 ' Will either quite consume us, and reduce 
 
 * To nothing this essential (happier far 
 
 4 Than, miserable, to have eternal being) ; 
 
 I 
 
 4 Or if our substance be indeed divine, 
 < And cannot cease to be, we are at worst 
 
 * On this side nothing ; and by proof we feel 
 4 Our power sufficient to disturb his heaven, 
 
 4 And with perpetual inroads to alarm, 
 
 * Though inaccessible, his fatal throne ; 
 
 ' Which, if not victory, is yet revenge. 1 Book ii. v. 94. 
 
 And again in Satan's memorable address to 
 Beelzebub. 
 
 ' Yet not for those, 
 ' Nor what the potent victor in his rage 
 
 * Can else inflict, do I repent or change. 
 
 4 (Though changed in outward lustre) that fix'd mind 
 
 * And high disdain, from sense of injured merit 
 
 4 That with the Mightiest raised me to contend, &c. 
 * What though the field be lost, 
 
 * All is not lost ; th' unconquerable will, 
 
 * And study of revenge, immortal hate, 
 
 H
 
 .50 
 
 * And courage never to submit or yield, 
 
 * And what is else not to be overcome, 
 
 1 That glory never shall his wrath or might 
 
 ' Extort from me.' Book i. v. 94. 
 
 And lastly (that we may not further dwell on 
 passages to this point) when he refuses to ac- 
 knowledge the Messiah, and * with calumnious 
 art of counterfeited truth ' addresses the fallen 
 angels. 
 
 ' Who can in reason then, or right, assume 
 ' Monarchy over such as live by right 
 
 * His equals, if in power and splendour less, 
 
 * In freedom equal? or can introduce 
 
 4 Law and edict on us, who without law 
 
 4 Err not ? much less for this to be our Lord, 
 
 * And look for adoration, to th' abuse 
 
 * Of those imperial titles, which assert 
 
 ' Our being ordained to govern, not to serve.' 
 
 Book v. v. 794. 
 
 It suited well with the whole train of Lucifer's 
 argument, that his parting words should confirm 
 Cain's pride and presumptuous confidence in 
 himself: indeed it was necessary to the success 
 of his infernal projects that he should persuade 
 him to 
 
 Think and endure and form an inner world 
 In his own bosom.
 
 51 
 
 He knew that * inner world* would surely bring 
 his victim to the perdition which he desired : 
 he had seen enough of the workings of his mind 
 to be convinced, that, with a thirst to know, he 
 also possessed a haughty spirit, prepared to doubt 
 of all things beyond the capacity of his reason. 
 He had already acknowledged 
 
 It is not with the earth, though I must till it, 
 
 I feel at war but that I may not 
 
 gratify my thousand swelling thoughts 
 
 With knowledge. 
 
 The devil had begun by flattering him into 
 the belief that it was his ' immortal part, which 
 spoke within him,' when he doubted Heaven's 
 goodness ; and that he might induce him to look 
 upon the Deity as the * indefinite, indissoluble 
 tyrant,' which he had represented him, he con- 
 cluded by desiring him still to exercise that 
 reason, which he himself had succeeded so ef- 
 fectually in perverting. 
 
 Let it not be oversway'd 
 
 By tyrannous threats to force you into faith 
 
 'Gainst all external sense, and inward feeling. 
 
 Think and endure and form an inner world, &c. 
 
 The train of argument, by which the tempter 
 in PARADISE LOST prevailed on Eve to eat of 
 the forbidden tree was not dissimilar to the pro-
 
 gress of Cain's seduction in his conference with 
 the spirit. The serpent, too, began by flattery, 
 
 ' Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair, 
 
 ' Thee all things living gaze on, all things thine 
 
 * By gift, and thy celestial beauty adore 
 
 4 With ravishment beheld ;' Book ix. v. 538, 
 
 and having thus secured her willing atten- 
 tion, he persuades her, by his * glozing ' ar- 
 guments, to a disbelief of * God's rigid threats 
 of death,' and leads her to question his justice 
 in denying to them the fruit of the tree : 
 
 * Why then was this forbid ? why but to awe ? 
 ' Why but to keep you low and ignorant 
 
 ' His worshippers ?' v. 703. 
 
 Then, exciting her desire to comprehend 
 the mysteries of the knowledge, which is con- 
 cealed from her, he endeavours to convince her, 
 that Adam and herself, in their nature, have as 
 fit capacity for that knowledge as Gods. 
 
 ' And what are Gods, that man may not become 
 
 ( As they, participating Godlike food ? 
 
 ' The Gods are first, and that advantage use 
 
 ' On our belief, that all from them proceeds : 
 
 ' I question it, for this fair earth I see 
 
 ' Warm'd by the sun, producing every kind, 
 
 4 Them nothing:' 
 
 * and wherein lies
 
 53 
 
 * Th 1 offence, that man should thus attain to know ? 
 ' What can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree 
 
 ' Impart against his will, if all be his. 
 ' Or is it envy ? and can envy dwell 
 
 * In heavenly breasts ?' v. 716. 
 
 Nor does Milton represent our first mother 
 less weak or facile in the temptation she is ex- 
 posed to, than we find the victim of Lucifer's 
 
 attack in the drama before us : too soon she 
 
 
 
 acquiesces in all that Satan says, approaches 
 the tree, of which the fruit has proved so bitter 
 to mankind, and thus impiously addresses it. 
 
 ' Great are thy virtues, best of fruits, 
 
 ' Though kept from man, &c. 
 
 ' Thy praise he also, who forbids thy use, 
 
 * Conceals not from us, naming thee the tree 
 
 ' Of knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil ; 
 ' Forbids us then to taste, but his forbidding 
 ' Commends thee more, while it infers the good 
 
 * By thee communicated, and our want. 
 
 * In plain then, what forbids he but to know, 
 ' Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise ? 
 
 ' Such prohibitions bind not. But if death 
 ' Bind us with after bands, what profits then 
 ' Our inward freedom ? &c. 
 
 * What fear I then, rather what know to fear 
 ' Under this ignorance of good and evil, 
 
 ' Of God or death ; of law or penalty ?' 
 
 Book ix. v. 758.
 
 And at length, when she has plucked and 
 eaten, ' thus to herself she pleasingly began :' 
 
 1 O sovereign, virtuous, precious of all trees, 
 
 * henceforth my early care 
 
 4 Shall tend thee, 
 
 ' Till dieted by thee I grow mature 
 
 ' In knowledge as the Gods, who all things know, 
 
 ' Though others envy what they cannot give ; 
 
 * For had the gift been theirs, it had not here 
 
 * Thus grown 
 
 * And I perhaps am secret ; heaven is high, 
 
 ' High, and remote to see from thence distinct 
 
 * Each thing on earth ; and other care perhaps 
 ' May have diverted from continual watch 
 
 4 Our great Forbidder, safe with all his spies 
 ' About him.' v. 795. 
 
 In the last act of the * Mystery,' we find 
 Cain restored to his family, but not to his 
 former comparatively happy state of feeling. 
 All his guilty passions have become more head- 
 strong by his communion with Lucifer ; his 
 former discontent is deepened into an impious 
 and daring denial of God's beneficence ; his 
 fear of death has given place only to a reckless
 
 55 
 
 despair; his jealousy of Abel, and his hatred of 
 his parents, through whose offence he fell from 
 Paradise, still rankle in his bosom with in- 
 creasing fury, and, whilst he is in this state of 
 mind, the scene opens upon him and Adah, 
 watching their sleeping infant Enoch, to whom 
 he addresses this sullen apostrophe. 
 
 He smiles, and sleeps ! Sleep on 
 And smile, thou little, young inheritor 
 Of a world scarce less young : sleep on, and smile ! 
 Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering 
 And innocent! thou hast not pluck'd the fruit 
 Thou know'st not thou art naked! Must the time 
 Come thou shalt be amerced for sins unknown, 
 Which were not thine nor mine ? 
 But now sleep on ! 
 
 He must dream 
 
 Of what ? of Paradise ! Ay ! dream of it, 
 My disinherited boy ! 'Tis but a dream ; 
 For never more thyself, thy sons, nor fathers, 
 Shall walk in that forbidden place of joy ! 
 
 Adah. Cain! that proud spirit, who withdrew thee 
 
 hence, 
 
 Hath sadden'd thine still deeper. I had hoped 
 The promised wonders which thou hast beheld, 
 Visions, thou say'st, of past and present worlds, 
 Would have composed thy mind into the calm
 
 5f> 
 
 Of a contented knowledge ; but I see 
 Thy guide hath done thee evil. 
 
 Adah speaks too truly, and he seems to feel 
 himself that the malignant spirit, whom he fol- 
 lowed to the other world, has led him on to 
 greater misery than he felt before. 
 
 I had beheld the immemorial works 
 
 Of endless beings ; skirr'd extinguish'd worlds : 
 
 And, gazing on eternity, methought 
 
 I had borrow'd more by a few drops of ages 
 
 From its immensity; but now I feel 
 
 My littleness again. Well said the spirit 
 
 That I was nothing. 
 
 Adah. Wherefore said he so ? 
 
 Jehovah said not that. 
 
 Cain. No : he contents him 
 
 With making us the nothing which we are ; 
 And after flattering dust with glimpses of 
 Eden and immortality, resolves 
 It back to dust again for what ? 
 
 Adah. Thou know'st, 
 
 Even for our parents' error. 
 
 Cain. What is that 
 
 To us ? they sinn'd, then let them die ! 
 
 Adah. Thou hast not spoken well, nor is that thought 
 Thy own, but of the spirit who was with thee. 
 Would / could die for them, so they might live. 
 
 Cain. Why so say I provided that one victim
 
 Might satiate the insatiable of life, 
 
 And that our little rosy sleeper there 
 
 Might never taste of death nor human sorrow, 
 
 Nor hand it down to those who spring from him. 
 
 Thus we find Adam described by Milton, 
 after his exile from Eden, arraigning the dis- 
 pensations of Providence in the universal misery 
 to be brought on his descendants through his 
 offence : 
 
 c In me all 
 
 * Posterity stands cursed : fair patrimony 
 
 * That I must leave ye, sons ! O were I able 
 ( To waste it all myself, and leave ye none ; 
 
 ' So disinherited, how would ye bless 
 
 ' Me, now your curse ! Ah why should all mankind 
 
 4 For one man's fault thus guiltless be condemned, 
 
 If guiltless ?' Book x. v. 817. 
 
 And again, with feelings very similar, in the 
 eleventh book of PARADISE LOST, he renews his 
 complaint at the vision of death's empire over 
 the world, which the angel Michael has set 
 before him : 
 
 1 O miserable mankind, to what fall 
 4 Degraded, to what wretched state reserved ! 
 1 Better end here unborn. Why is life given 
 ( To be thus wrested from us ? rather why 
 4 Obtruded on us thus ? who, if we knew 
 
 I
 
 58 
 
 * What we receive, would either not accept 
 
 * Life offer'd, or soon beg to lay it down, 
 4 Glad to be dismissed in peace.' 
 
 Cain now perceives two altars, built by Abel 
 during his absence, for their intended sacrifice : 
 he is stung with furious jealousy at this instance 
 of his brother's piety, -of that piety, which has 
 met the favour of Jehovah, and obtained for 
 him the preference of their common parents. 
 The insinuations of the fiend have worked their 
 poisonous effects in his soul : his brother's 
 offerings, he says, are made with base humility, 
 showing more of fear than worship, and, for 
 himself, he has no sacrifice to make. 
 
 Adah. The fruits of the earth, the early, beautiful 
 Blossom and bud, and bloom of flowers, and fruits ; 
 These are a goodly offering to the Lord, 
 Given with a gentle and a contrite spirit. 
 
 Cain. I have toil'd, and tilPd, and sweaten in the sun, 
 According to the curse : must I do more? 
 For what should I be gentle ? for a war 
 With all the elements ere they will yield 
 The bread we eat? For what .must I be grateful? 
 For being dust, and groveling in the dust, 
 Till I return to dust ? If I am nothing 
 For nothing shall I be a hypocrite, 
 And seem well-pleased with pain ? For what should I 
 Be contrite ? for my father's sin, already
 
 Expiate with what we all have undergone, 
 
 And to be more than expiated by 
 
 The ages prophesied, upon our seed. 
 
 Little deems our young blooming sleeper, there, 
 
 The germs of an eternal misery 
 
 To myriads is within him ! better 'twere 
 
 I snatch'd him in his sleep, and dash'd him 'gainst 
 
 The rocks, than let him live to 
 
 Adah. Oh, my God ! 
 
 Touch not the child my child ! thy child ! Oh Cain ! 
 
 With a not less reckless despair did Eve pro- 
 pose to avert the woes denounced against her 
 race by self-destruction, when she thus addressed 
 herself to Adam ; 
 
 * If care of our descent perplex us most, 
 
 ' Which must be born to certain woe, devour'd 
 ' By death at last ; and miserable it is 
 ' To be to others cause of misery,' &c. 
 
 * Then both ourselves and seed at once to free 
 
 * From what we fear for both, let us make short, 
 ' Let us seek death, or he not found, supply 
 
 * With our own hands his office on ourselves. 
 ' Why stand we longer shivering under fears 
 
 * That show no end but death, and have the power 
 
 * Of many ways to die, the shortest choosing, 
 ' Destruction with destruction to destroy?' 
 
 Book xi. v. 979. 
 
 Adah's gentleness, however, subdues the fu- 
 rious spirit of Cain. In language most beautiful,
 
 60 
 
 in tones of such tender sentiment as 'fill our eyes 
 with pleasant tears,' she appeals to his feelings 
 as a father and a husband, and, at length, by 
 her soul-subduing eloquence, restores him to a 
 momentary composure. When he says it were 
 better Enoch never had been born, she answers 
 him in all the strain of impassioned yet af- 
 fectionate feeling, which such a reproach was 
 calculated to excite in a mother's bosom, 
 
 Oh, do not say so ! Where were then the joys, 
 
 The mother's joys of watching, nourishing, 
 
 And loving him ? Soft ! he awakes. Sweet Enoch ! 
 
 [She goes to the child. 
 
 Oh Cain ! look on him ; see how full of life, 
 Of strength, of bloom, of beauty, and of joy, 
 How like to me how like to thee, when gentle, 
 For then we are all alike ; is 't not so, Cain ? 
 Mother, and sire, and son, our features are 
 Reflected in each other; as they are 
 In the clear waters, when they are gentle, and 
 When thou art gentle. Love us, then, my Cain ! 
 And love thyself for our sakes, for we love thee. 
 Look ! how he laughs and stretches out his arms, 
 And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine, 
 To hail his father ; while his little form 
 Flutters as wing'd with joy. Talk not of pain ! 
 The childless cherubs well might envy thee 
 The pleasures of a parent! Bless him, Cain !
 
 Gl 
 
 As yet he hath no words to thank thee, but 
 His heart will, and thine own too. 
 
 Cain's rugged temper is for a moment softened ; 
 
 Bless thee, boy ! [he says] 
 If that a mortal blessing may avail thee, 
 To save thee from the serpent's curse ! 
 
 They are interrupted by the entrance of 
 Abel, who comes to the appointed offering; 
 Cain receives him with morose averted looks, 
 and in answer to his inquiries, where he has 
 been, and what he has seen in communion with 
 the spirit, whom he has been wandering with, 
 * What hast thou seen ?' he exclaims, 
 
 The dead, 
 
 The immortal, the unbounded, the omnipotent, 
 The overpowering mysteries of space 
 The innumerable worlds that were and are 
 A whirlwind of such overwhelming things, 
 Suns, moons, and earths, upon their loud-voiced spheres 
 Singing in thunder round me, as have made me 
 Unfit for mortal converse : leave me, Abel. 
 
 Abel. Thine eyes are flashing with unnatural light 
 Thy cheek is flushed with an unnatural hue 
 Thy words are fraught with an unnatural sound 
 What may this mean ? 
 
 Cain. It means 1 pray thee, leave me. 
 
 Abel, however, will not be spurned from his 
 presence, but uses such persuasive entreaties
 
 to him to sacrifice, that, at last, the wretched 
 man reluctantly consents ; 
 
 If it must be so well, then, 
 
 What shall I do? 
 
 I have already detained you so long, Sir, that 
 I must forbear to add many further passages 
 from this scene, the whole of which is equal to 
 the highest efforts of poetry in our language, 
 but at once proceed to the fatal catastrophe of 
 the drama. 
 
 The sacrifices being disposed on the altars, 
 they address themselves to the Deity Abel, in 
 all the humility of a true worshipper, suppli- 
 cating the ' sole Lord of light, of good and 
 glory, and eternity,' whilst Cain's proud heart, 
 refusing obeisance, * seeks nothing which must 
 be won by kneeling.' Abel's sacrifice is ac- 
 cepted, but a whirlwind scatters that of Cain, 
 who rises in phrensy against the altars, threat- 
 ening to overthrow them, and, upon Abel's en- 
 deavouring to oppose his intention, gives him a 
 mortal blow on the temples with a brand, which 
 he has snatched from the fire. Abel falls, and 
 falteringly exclaims, 
 
 What hast thou done, my brother ? 
 Cain. Brother!
 
 Abel. Oh, God ! receive thy servant, and 
 
 Forgive his slayer, for he knew not what 
 He did. Cain, give me thy hand. 
 
 Cain. My hand ! 'tis all red, and with 
 
 What ? 
 
 [A long pause. Looking slowly round. 
 Where am I? alone! Where's Abel? where 
 Cain ? Can it be that I am he ? My brother, 
 Awake ! why liest thou so on the green earth ? 
 'Tis not the hour of slumber: why so pale? 
 
 What, hast thou ! thou wert full of life this morn ! 
 
 Abel I I pray thee, mock me not ! I smote 
 
 Too fiercely, but not fatally. Ah, why 
 
 Would'st thou oppose me ? This is mockery ; 
 
 And only done to daunt me : 'twas a blow 
 
 And but a blow. Stir stir nay, only stir ! 
 
 Why, so that 's well ! thou breath'st ! breathe upon me ! 
 
 Oh, God! Oh, God! 
 
 Cain's sin stares him in the face in all its 
 horror. He sees the gulf, into which he has 
 been led by the arguments of Lucifer : he has 
 brought death into the world, and awakens 
 from his fatal dream only to find, that he has 
 himself accomplished ' the heavy doom, so long 
 forespoken* to man. 
 
 I who abhor 
 
 The name of Death so deeply, that the thought 
 Empoison'd all my life, before I knew 
 His aspect I have led him here, and giv'n
 
 My brother to his cold and still embrace, 
 
 As if he would not have asserted his 
 
 Inexorable claim without my aid. 
 
 I am awake at last a dreary dream 
 
 Had madden'd me ; but Tie shall ne'er awake ! 
 
 Thus, Sir, have I endeavoured to conduct 
 you through the progress of Cain's seduction, 
 on which the deep interest of the poem is made 
 to hang, and the greater portion of which is 
 necessarily comprehended in the conferences 
 between him and the tempter. I may now, 
 perhaps, be permitted to take a very short re- 
 trospect of the other characters of the * Mystery,' 
 for the purpose of showing that there is nothing 
 in the sentiments they utter, to which the most 
 scrupulous censor of public morals can take 
 exception. On the contrary, it may be safely 
 advanced, that wherever the chain of incidents 
 permitted the introduction of other personages 
 than the demon and his victim, the poet has 
 not failed to give some of those true touches of 
 piety and tender feeling, which the occasion 
 called for. What reader can fail to be im- 
 pressed with the devotional sacrifice of Adam 
 and his family, when, in the opening scene, they 
 Offer up these beautiful prayers ?
 
 Adam. God, the Eternal ! Infinite ! All- Wise ! 
 Who out of darkness on the deep didst make 
 Light on the waters with a word all hail ! 
 Jehovah, with returning light, all hail ! 
 
 Eve. God ! who didst name the day, and separate 
 Morning from night, till then divided never 
 Who didst divide the wave from wave, and call 
 Part of thy work the firmament all hail ! 
 
 Abel. God ! who didst call the elements into 
 Earth ocean air and fire, and with the day 
 And night, and worlds which these illuminate 
 Or shadow, madest beings to enjoy them, 
 And love both them and thee all hail ! all hail ! 
 
 Adah. God, the Eternal ! Parent of all things ! 
 Who didst create these best and beauteous beings, 
 To be beloved, more than all, save thee 
 Let me love thee and them : All hail ! all hail ! 
 
 Zillah. Oh, God ! who loving, making, blessing all, 
 Yet didst permit the serpent to creep in, 
 And drive my father forth from Paradise, 
 Keep us from further evil : Hail ! all hail ! 
 
 Let us connect these effusions with the bright 
 example of piety, resignation and humility, por- 
 trayed in the character of Abel : let us review the 
 guileless innocence of Adah, whose every ex- 
 pression breathes an inspired devotion, and a sub- 
 missive acquiescence to the will of Heaven : let 
 us contrast all this with the easy progress of Cain's
 
 66 
 
 mind to infidelity, and the consequent remorse he 
 feels at having listened to the devil's sophistries, 
 by which, when he is roused from his * madden- 
 ing dreary vision,' he perceives his reason has 
 been perverted : let us mark, above all, the great 
 example of punishment, which is held out to man 
 in the horrors of his ultimate fate and then may 
 every dispassionate reader determine, whether 
 this ' Mystery* be really a mischievous pro- 
 duction, or whether its moral do not offer a 
 salutary warning of the nature and consequences 
 of impiety. 
 
 There is one observation of * Oxoniensis,' 
 of which, however pointed, I have been wholly 
 unable to find the application : he says * Lord 
 
 * Byron doubtless thinks it a fine thing to strike 
 ' at the very existence of society by pestilent 
 
 * sophistries framed to mislead the weaker sex. 
 
 * It is difficult to advert to this part of the sub- 
 ' ject without expressing, in such terms as in- 
 
 * dignation suggests, an opinion on this dastardly 
 ' perversion of intellectual ingenuity. I will not 
 
 * stain my page with quotations ; but 720 one 
 ' who has had the misfortune to read Cain will be 
 ' at a loss to understand the allusion.' 
 
 From the pen of one, whose signature be- 
 speaks him a gentleman and a scholar, such an
 
 f>7 
 
 aspersion must necessarily produce a serious 
 influence on many, who are either likely to 
 become readers, or who are called upon to 
 regulate the reading of others : and I can only 
 hope that, if he has, by the warmth of his zeal, 
 been betrayed into a mistake, his candour and 
 love of justice will induce a retractation of the 
 charge. It was natural to suppose, on reading 
 the passage I have just cited, that I had inad- 
 vertently passed over some obscene passages in 
 CAIN, or at least some questionable allusions, 
 which might endanger the principles of un- 
 suspecting innocence; but, after having scanned 
 the whole poem over with attention, for the 
 distinct purpose of detecting those unspeakable 
 horrors which cannot be allowed to * stain the 
 pages of Oxoniensis,' I may honestly declare 
 that I see nothing in it whatever to justify the 
 accusation. 
 
 That we may, however, bring this charge to 
 the proof, I shall consider, separately, every 
 passage in the drama, which has any reference 
 whatever to the subject alluded to ; and this 
 without apology, because there is not one, that 
 may not safely be read by the weakest of ' the 
 weaker sex.' In the first scene, Adah having 
 expressed her love for Cain, who was her hus-
 
 68 
 
 band and her brother, Lucifer asks her if she 
 love him more than her mother and her sire : 
 she answers, 
 
 I do. Is that a sin, too P 
 
 Luc. No, not yet ; 
 
 It one day will be in your children. 
 
 Adah. What ! 
 
 Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch ? 
 
 Lite. Not as thou lovest Cain. 
 
 Adah. Oh, my God ! 
 
 Shall they not love and bring forth things that love 
 Out of their love ? have they not drawn their milk 
 Out of this bosom ? was not he, their father, 
 Born of the same sole womb, in the same hour 
 With me ? did we not love each other ? and 
 In multiplying our being multiply 
 Things which will love each other as we love 
 Them? 
 
 Luc, The sin I speak of is not of my making, 
 And cannot be a sin in you whate'er 
 It seem in those who will replace ye in 
 Mortality. 
 
 Permit me to ask, Sir, if you perceive anything 
 in this, framed to mislead either an ignorant or 
 an innocent mind ? Adah is the sister of Cain 
 as well as his wife, which, in them, was no of- 
 - fence j for, as there was only one family on the 
 earth, their marriage was necessary to the ful-
 
 69 
 
 filment of God's wise purposes. Adah was as 
 wholly unconscious of, as she was free from, 
 sin in loving Cain, her brother ; and it is ex- 
 pressly said by Lucifer, 'you do not transgress, 
 though it will be a sin in the generations which 
 follow you :' alluding to those wise and sa- 
 lutary restrictions, afterwards introduced by 
 the inspired lawgiver of the Hebrews, and 
 adopted by all civilized nations, to prevent the 
 intermarriage of near relatives, for reasons 
 which would suggest themselves to every re- 
 flecting mind. In my apprehension, this is so 
 far from appearing to 'strike at the existence 
 of society,' that it is, in fact, one of the few 
 occasions when Lucifer speaks the truth. 
 
 There is another passage, to which allusion is 
 probably made, and which I shall proceed to 
 examine, in the full confidence, that nothing in 
 the citation can give offence even to the most 
 refined and sensitive moralist. In the second 
 scene of the second act, Lucifer says to Cain, 
 
 Eve, thy mother, best 
 Can tell what shape of serpent tempted her. 
 Your father saw him not ? 
 
 Cain. No : 'twas my mother 
 
 Who tempted him she tempted by the serpent. 
 
 Luc. Good man ! whene'er thy wife, or thy sons' 1 wives
 
 Tempt thee or them to aught that's new or strange, 
 Be sure thou see'st first who hath tempted them. 
 
 Cain. Thy precept comes too late : there is no more 
 For serpents to tempt woman to. 
 
 Luc. But there 
 
 Are some things still which woman may tempt man to, 
 And man tempt woman : let thy sons look to it ! 
 My counsel is a kind one ; for 'tis even 
 Given chiefly at my own expense : 'tis true, 
 'Twill not be follow'd, so there's little lost. 
 
 Cam. I understand not this. 
 
 Luc. The happier thou ! 
 
 Is there any pestilent sophistry here ? or is 
 it, in an age like the present, when the daily 
 newspapers, which find their way into every 
 family, are filled with nauseous details of pro- 
 fligacy, that our delicate feelings should be 
 shocked at the poet's anticipations of the future 
 progress of vice in a luxurious and corrupted 
 age ? And when ' Oxoniensis' professes that 
 ' he will not stain his pages' with Lucifer's mere 
 allusion to the dissolute morals of the coming 
 generations, he appears to have forgotten that 
 prophetic vision, which the Archangel brought 
 before the mortal ken of Adam, after his exile 
 from the happy garden. 
 
 ' They on the plain 
 * Long had not walk'd, when from the tents behold
 
 71 
 
 * A bevy of fair women, richly gay 
 
 ' In gems and wanton dress ; to th 1 harp they sung 
 
 * Soft amorous ditties, and in dance came on,' &c. 
 
 As Adam looked on these with eyes, * too 
 soon inclined to admit delight,' Michael warns 
 him against their seductive influence. 
 
 ' Those tents thou saw'st so pleasant, were the tents 
 ' Of wickedness, wherein shall dwell his race, 
 
 * Who slew his brother ; &c. 
 
 ' Yet they a beauteous offspring shall beget ; 
 
 4 For that fair female troop thou saw'st, that seem'd 
 
 * Of goddesses so blithe, so smooth, so gay, &c. 
 ' Yet empty of all good wherein consists 
 
 ' Woman's domestic honour and chief praise; 
 ' Bred only and completed to the taste 
 ' Of lustful appetence, to sing, to dance, 
 
 * To dress, and troll the tongue, and roll the eye. 
 ' To these that sober race of men, whose lives 
 
 * Religious titled them the sons of God 
 
 * Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame,' &c. 
 
 Book xi. v. 607. 
 
 To these I may .add a similar passage from 
 the poem of PARADISE REGAINED, where in the 
 Council, held by the Demonian spirits to con- 
 sider how Satan best may tempt the Son of 
 God, Belial impiously says, 
 
 * Set women in his eye, and in his walk, 
 
 * Among daughters of men the fairest found ;
 
 72 
 
 * Many are in each region passing fair 
 
 ' As the noon sky; more like to goddesses 
 
 * Than mortal creatures, graceful, and discreet, 
 
 * Expert in am'rous arts, enchanting tongues 
 
 * Persuasive, virgin majesty with mild 
 
 * And sweet allay'd, yet terrible to approach, 
 c Skill'd to retire, and in retiring draw 
 
 * Hearts after them tangled in amorous nets, 
 
 * Such object hath the power,' &c. 
 
 Book ii. v. 153. 
 
 I must profess, that when I first read the 
 ' Mystery,' immediately on its publication, 
 my impressions were altogether different from 
 those so unhesitatingly and unequivocally ex- 
 pressed by * Oxoniensis:' and upon a more 
 intimate acquaintance with its beauties, as well 
 as a more calm and deliberate review of the 
 whole scope of the drama, I can find no ground, 
 on which to impugn its moral tendency. The 
 brilliancy of conception and depth of thought, 
 which it displays, appear to me to be equalled 
 only by the force and harmony of the language 
 and rhythm and in my humble estimation (be 
 it said without offence to the admirers of 
 Milton) the finest passages in PARADISE LOST 
 do not bear away the palm in the comparison 
 with many to be found in CAIN *. 
 
 * It must not, of course, be supposed, that I intend to
 
 73 
 
 After an opinion, which may possibly appear 
 to those, who consider themselves the orthodox 
 in criticism, to be an overstrained eulogy, it 
 may be permitted to me to say, Sir, that the 
 individual, who has the honour now to address 
 you, is wholly unacquainted with Lord Byron, 
 whilst he is as far beyond the necessity, as 
 he is above the desire or intention of flat- 
 tering any man. A love of truth, and a 
 sense of justice, coupled with a conviction of 
 the danger of misrepresenting the religious 
 sentiments of so eminent a writer, are the mo- 
 tives which have given an impulse to his pen. 
 And who, but the most prejudiced reader of 
 the ' Mystery,' will not feel astonished at the 
 boldness of the assertion, that it is 'a mere 
 cento from Voltaire's novels, &c. served up in 
 clumsy cuttings of ten syllables, for the pur- 
 pose of giving it the guise of poetry?' Let 
 posterity judge of its merits, whether as a 
 moral or a poetic composition, and when the 
 present unworthy jealousies, and the contest of 
 
 place the ' Mystery' in the hazardous competition in respect 
 of grandeur of design, or importance and dignity of subject ; 
 the dramatic must needs yield to the superior character of 
 the great epic.
 
 passions shall be hushed in one oblivious silence* 
 this wonderful poem will ever remain an illus- 
 trious ornament of our age and nation. 
 
 As I have no doubt * Oxoniensis* was ani- 
 mated by a zeal for religion in the censures 
 he has so boldly pronounced, it may be well 
 allowed me to ask him, whether the cause he 
 advocates can really be promoted by bring- 
 ing an unsupported charge against the prin- 
 ciples of the noble author of CAIN. I need 
 not to remind him of that Christian maxim, 
 which pronounces, * judge not, that ye be not 
 judged ;' but I would dispassionately call upon 
 him, as a member of our church, to reflect, 
 whether his gratuitous assumption, that Lord 
 Byron 'professes to despise the happiness, 
 which springs from the belief in religion,' be 
 not calculated to give weight, in the minds of 
 the ignorant, to the doctrines of infidelity? 
 
 It has been no inconsiderable argument of 
 the great and pious champions of the Gospel, 
 in support of the inspired character of its re- 
 velation, that the most enlightened and power- 
 ful minds of all ages have been deeply im- 
 pressed with its truth. And therefore we should 
 have undeniable proof, ere we venture to cast 
 the grave and dangerous imputation of in-
 
 fidelity against one so highly gifted with in- 
 tellectual endowments. 
 
 For however * Oxoniensis' may affect to un- 
 der-rate his Lordship's genius, he may be as- 
 sured the world in general does not form the 
 same estimate of it ; and many there are, who, 
 judging from the assertion thus unhesitatingly 
 advanced of his irreligious opinions, may ar- 
 rive at the false, but full conviction of its 
 truth, and may thence conceive they find a 
 justification for their indifference or their scep- 
 ticism, in the supposed authority of his name. 
 
 However desirous I am, on this account, 
 to disprove the aspersions cast upon Lord 
 Byron's character, I feel some hesitation in 
 deviating from the immediate subject of this 
 communication, to enter upon inquiries, which, 
 though not foreign, may possibly be deemed 
 inappropriate. There is something so sacred 
 in every man's sentiments on religion : he is 
 so wholly accountable for them to the great 
 Searcher of hearts, and to him alone (though 
 far be it from me to deny the privilege of a 
 free examination of the published works of any 
 writer), that it almost appears an unhallowed 
 intrusion, to make them the subject of public 
 disquisition.
 
 As Lord Byron (conscious, no doubt, of the 
 high vantage-ground, on which he stands, and 
 looking with indifference on the attacks of 
 his adversaries) has not thought it necessary to 
 answer the swarm of busy detractors, who 
 have endeavoured to hold up to the public a 
 distorted picture of the workings of his genius, 
 it may be said, perhaps, that a mere stranger 
 is not justified in interposing in his defence. 
 When, however, we consider his Lordship's 
 rank, and more particularly that eminence 
 of his talents, which has rendered him a great 
 object of public notice, and must give to his 
 supposed opinions on any topic a more than 
 ordinary importance, it cannot be altogether 
 uninteresting to refer to a few passages from 
 his other writings, which go far to show how 
 unjustifiably he has been misrepresented. 
 
 Has * Oxoniensis* read the appendix to the 
 tragedy of * FOSCARI,' which is published in 
 the same volume with the * Mystery?' or has his 
 attention been so exclusively directed to the 
 imagined impiety of the one, as to leave him no 
 opportunity of discovering the admirable senti- 
 ments expressed in the other? Lord Byron 
 tells us in the preface of Cain, that he ' has 
 endeavoured to preserve the language adapted
 
 77 
 
 to his characters :' and let it be always re- 
 membered, that they are fictitious characters, 
 acting and speaking under the influence of 
 passions and principles, indispensably neces- 
 sary to the development of the plot. Would it 
 not, then, be more candid to receive his sen- 
 timents, as he has himself declared them in the 
 undisguised language of prose, which cannot be 
 mistaken ? 
 
 * There never was, nor ever will be a country 
 
 * without a religion. We shall be told of France 
 ' again ; but it was only Paris and a frantic 
 
 * party, which for a moment upheld their dog- 
 
 * matic nonsense of theo-philanthropy. The 
 ' Church of England, if overthrown, will be 
 ' swept away by the sectarians, and not by the 
 ' sceptics.' (Is Oxoniensis prepared to deny 
 this ?) ' People are too wise, too well informed, 
 ' too certain of their own immense importance 
 
 * in the realms of space, ever to submit to the 
 ' impiety of doubt. There may be a few such 
 
 * diffident speculators, like water in the pale 
 
 * sunbeam of human reason, but they are very 
 ' few ; and their opinions, without enthusiasm 
 
 * or appeal to the passions, can never gain pro- 
 
 * selytes ; unless, indeed, they are persecuted 
 
 * that, to be sure, will increase any thing.' 
 
 And here I cannot omit a few lines in the
 
 78 
 
 ' Mystery* itself, which afford us some further 
 evidence of the opinions, entertained by the 
 noble author respecting that great key-stone 
 of revealed religion, the truth of the advent of 
 the blessed Messiah. The allusions are striking 
 and important, and may serve to prove that this 
 characteristic sentiment of the Christian is not 
 alien to the convictions of Lord Byron's mind : 
 they are introduced in a manner so natural 
 and incidental, as to exclude all idea of their 
 application to any purpose of ostentation or 
 design. 
 
 When Lucifer is about to take Cain with 
 him on his ethereal journey, Adah inquires, 
 
 Will he return ? 
 
 Luc. Ay, woman ! he alone 
 
 Of mortals from that place (the first and last 
 Who shall return, save ONE.) 
 
 Again Lucifer says, 
 
 There will come 
 
 An hour, when toss'd upon some water-drops, 
 A man shall say to a man, " Believe in me, 
 And walk the waters," and the man shall walk 
 The billows and be safe. 
 
 And again ; 
 
 Cain. Then what is death ? 
 
 Luc. What hath not he who made ye 
 
 Said 'tis another life ?
 
 79 
 
 Cain. Till now he hath 
 
 Said nothing, save that all shall die. 
 
 Luc. Perhaps 
 
 He one day will unfold that further secret, 
 
 And though last, not least worthy of ob- 
 servation, are those all-conclusive passages in 
 his Lordship's Letter on Mr. Bowies' ' Life 
 and Writings of Pope.' The feelings there 
 expressed can leave no doubt on the mind of 
 any dispassionate man, that the too apparent, 
 if not avowed object of the * Remonstrance,' 
 to stamp the scandal of an imputation of in- 
 fidelity upon the author of the Mystery, is most 
 overstrained and unjustifiable. 
 
 * The depreciation of Pope is partly founded 
 
 * upon a false idea of the dignity of his order of 
 
 * poetry, to which he has partly contributed by 
 ' the ingenuous boast, 
 
 ' That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long, 
 ' But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song. 
 
 ' He should have written, * rose to truth.' In 
 
 * my mind the highest of all poetry is ethical 
 
 * poetry, as the highest of all objects must be 
 
 * moral truth. Religion does not make a part 
 
 * of my subject; it is something beyond human 
 4 powers, and has failed in all human hands ex- 
 
 * cept Milton's and Dante's ; and even Dante's
 
 80 
 
 * powers are involved in his delineation of human 
 
 * passions, though in supernatural circumstances. 
 
 * What made Socrates the greatest of men ? his 
 ' moral truth his ethics. What proved Jesus 
 ' Christ the son of God, hardly less than his 
 ' miracles ? His moral precepts. And if ethics 
 ' have made a philosopher the first of men, and 
 
 * have not been disdained as an adjunct to his 
 ' Gospel by the Deity himself, are we to be 
 ' told that ethical poetry, or by whatever 
 
 * name you term it, whose object is to make 
 
 * men better and wiser, is not the very Jirst 
 ' order of poetry?' 
 
 Though I might here rest satisfied with what 
 has been adduced, and am desirous to conclude 
 an address, already much protracted, I cannot 
 withhold another passage in the same letter, re- 
 lating to Milton's description of the Messiah, 
 
 * in his right hand grasping ten thousand 
 thunders ;' which, if it were only for its co- 
 incidence of subject, would make it a very fit 
 illustration of any argument on CAIN and PA- 
 RADISE LOST ; but which, as an important avowal 
 of his Lordship's sentiments, will not be thought 
 unworthy of attention. 
 
 * In speaking of artificial objects (of poetry), 
 
 * I have omitted to touch upon one? which I will
 
 ' now mention. Cannon may be presumed to be 
 
 * as highly poetical as art can make her objects. 
 ' Mr. Bowles will, perhaps, tell me that this is 
 because they resemble that grand natural sound 
 ' in heaven, and simile upon earth thunder. I 
 
 * shall be told triumphantly, that Milton made 
 ' sad work with his artillery, when he armed his 
 devils therewithal. He did so ; and this ar- 
 ' tificial object must have had much of the 
 
 * sublime to attract his attention for such a con- 
 ' flict. He has made an absurd one of it ; but 
 ' the absurdity consists, not in using cannon 
 1 against the angels of God, but any material 
 ' weapon. The thunder of the clouds would 
 
 * have been as ridiculous and vain in the hands 
 
 * of the devils as the "villanous saltpetre." The 
 
 * angels were as impervious to one as to the 
 ' other. The thunderbolt becomes sublime in 
 
 * the hands of the Almighty (I need scarcely re- 
 
 * mind you, Sir, that he is speaking of the Son 
 ' who wielded them), not as such, but because he 
 ' deigns to use them as a means of repelling the 
 ' rebel spirits ; but no one can attribute their 
 
 * defeat to this grand piece of natural electricity: 
 
 * the Almighty willed, and they fell : his word 
 ' would have been enough ; and Milton is as 
 ' absurd (and in fact blasphemous) in putting 
 
 M
 
 * material lightnings in the hands of the God- 
 
 * head, as in giving him hands at all. 
 
 .' The artillery of the demons was but the first 
 ' step of his mistake, the thunder the next, and 
 
 * it is a step lower. It would have been fit for 
 
 * Jove, but not for Jehovah. The subject al- 
 
 * together was essentially unpoetical ; he has 
 
 * made more of it than another would, but it is 
 ' beyond him and all men.' 
 
 In bringing to a close these extended extracts, 
 some apology seems necessary for the parti- 
 cularity of detail into which I have entered, 
 when I reflect that I have been addressing one, 
 to whom the whole must be familiar, and whose 
 perception of its beauties is doubtless so much 
 more happy, than any to be struck out by these 
 illustrations. If, however, there should have 
 appeared any want of conciseness in the course I 
 have pursued, I trust you will immediately have 
 felt that I was to carry along with me, in the 
 course of my investigation, not yourself so much, 
 as the ordinary reader, whom I hoped to enlist in 
 my train ; and that it has arisen from an anxiety 
 effectually to accomplish the object with which I 
 set out, the vindication of this MYSTERY from 
 the charge of an impious and dangerous tendency 
 or design. For, after the appearance of a tract,
 
 83 
 
 professedly stigmatizing the poem and the au- 
 thor, under a signature, which indicates lite- 
 rary pretensions, and assumes the character of 
 censor, I am irresistibly compelled to believe, 
 that prejudice is actively and extensively stir- 
 ring up more than doubts of the fitness of 
 its publication. Fashion, on this, as on other 
 occasions of life, will doubtless exercise too 
 powerful an influence; but it becomes the 
 candid and dispassionate portion of the com- 
 munity of letters to form its own opinion, su- 
 perior equally to dogmatic assertion, and to a 
 blind acquiescence in the prevailing impressions 
 of the day; particularly as sucli impressions 
 are too often regulated by the dictation of 
 a few, with whom neither all the taste and 
 talent, nor all the piety and attachment to re- 
 ligion, can be allowed to centre. 
 
 In this endeavour to rescue CAIN from the 
 grasp of prejudice,, and to secure it a place 
 amongst the admitted sources of instruction 
 and mental gratification, I have not assumed to 
 diversify my subject by any thing like criticism 
 on its literary merits and character, though 
 perhaps occasionally warmed into an admiration 
 of its beauties. I only hope that, if the passages 
 cited are not inappropriately introduced, and
 
 the connexion of the whole not unfitly pre- 
 served, the drama will not be thought to have 
 suffered from the manner, in which the inquiry 
 has been conducted. 
 
 And permit me to appeal to you, Sir, whether 
 the admirers of superior genius shall stand 
 tamely by, and permit such a man as this to be 
 assailed and hunted down in society, the 
 victim of prejudice, or of passion. Shall he, 
 who has beguiled the weary hours of thousands, 
 who has called forth the tears of pity, of love 
 and admiration, by the finest touches of inimi- 
 table feeling, truth, and nature ; who astonishes 
 and delights us, and who seems to hold the 
 passions at command, shall such a man be de- 
 nounced as an object of abhorrence, and loaded 
 with every contumelious epithet, which can be 
 crowded into twenty pages of a * Remonstrance?' 
 If so, we may, indeed, lament the licence of 
 the press, which enables any anonymous writer 
 to vilify the private character, and outrage the 
 feelings of a distinguished poet, under the pro- 
 fessed design of canvassing the merits of his 
 literary publications. 
 
 If all were true, that * Oxoniensis* has ven- 
 tured to impute to Lord Byron, who would 
 not lament the perversion and fall of such an
 
 intellect? The magnificence of the ruins would 
 but increase the bitterness of our regret at 
 contemplating them. But I appeal to that small 
 portion of his works, which has come under 
 our review, for a refutation of his accusers ; 
 and with the greater confidence, because even 
 such as participate in the impressions of Oxo- 
 niensis will scarcely deny to his Lordship that 
 fearlessness of opinion, and that high and 
 genuine disdain of falsehood, which must render 
 him incapable of endeavouring to take credit 
 for religious sentiments, or any sentiments, 
 which do not belong to him. 
 
 Let, then, his writings speak for him ; let the 
 sceptic learn from them, that he has no support 
 in his infidelity from the author of CAIN : let 
 the wavering and the ignorant receive this com- 
 fortable assurance of the truth of our religion, 
 that amidst all the splendour of imagination, with 
 which the intellectual are gifted, they have 
 solidity of mind to see, and know, and believe 
 the evidences of its Divine Revelation. 
 
 I have the honor to be, 
 
 Sir, 
 Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 HARROVIENSIS. 
 
 London, February, 1822*
 
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