resentment with which it is pursued. As a poem, though it occasionally displays great force and elevation, it obviously wants both grace and facility. The diction is often 'heavy and cumbrous, and the versification without sweetness or elasticity. It is generally very verbose, and sometimes exceedingly dull. Altogether, it gives us the impression of a thing worked out against the grain, and not poured forth from the fulness of the heart or the fancy; - the ambitious and elaborate work of a powerful mind engaged with an unsuitable task-not the spontaneous effusion of an exuberant imagination, sporting in the fulness of its strength. Every thing is heightened and enforced with visible effort and design; and the noble author is often contented to be emphatic by dint of exaggeration, and elo. quent by the common topics of declamation. Lord Byron is, undoubtedly, a poet of the very first order, and has talents to reach the very highest honours of the drama. But he must not again disdain love, and ambition, and jealousy; he must not substitute what is merely bizarre and extraordinary, for what is naturally and universally interesting, nor expect, by any exaggerations, so to rouse and rule our sympathies by the senseless anger of an old man, and the prudish proprieties of an untempted woman, as by the agency of the great and simple passions with which, in some of their degrees, all men are familiar, and by which alone the Dramatic Muse has hitherto wrought her miracles. - JEFFREY.

On the whole, the Doge of Venice is the effect of a powerful and cultivated mind. It has all the requisites of tragedy, sublimity, terror, and

* [In Blackwood's Magazine for 1822, we find a comical rhyming chronicle of Lord Byron's poetical history, of which the following specimen may amuse the reader :

"To Venice he hied him,

And that city supplied him
With the matter capricious
For his Beppo' facetious;
A model, so please ye,
Of a style free and easy.
The story that's in it
Might be told in a minute;
But par parenthèse chatting,
On this thing and that thing,
Keeps the shuttlecock flying,
And attention from dying.
There are some I could mention,
Think the author's intention

Was to sneer and disparage

The vow made in marriage;

But the sneer, as I take it,
Is against folks who break it.

"Thunders in now on horseback
'Mazeppa' the Cossack;

pathos all but that without which the rest are unavailing, interest! With many detached passages which neither derogate from Lord Byron's former fame, nor would have derogated from the reputation of our best ancient tragedians, it is, as a whole, neither sustained nor impressive. The poet, except in the soliloquy of Lioni, scarcely ever seems to have written with his own thorough good liking. He may be suspected through. out to have had in his eye some other model than nature; and we riso from his work with the same feeling as if we had been reading a transla tion. For this want of interest the subject itself is, doubtless, in some measure to blame; though, if the same subject had been differently treated, we are inclined to believe a very different effect would have been produced. But for the constraint and stiffness of the poetry, we have nothing to blame but the apparent resolution of its author to set (at whatever risk) an example of classical correctness to his uncivilised countrymen, and rather to forego success than to succeed after the manner of Shakspeare. — HEBER.]

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

[I AM obliged for the following excellent translation of the old Chronicle to Mr. F. Cohen (1), to whom the reader will find himself indebted for a version that I could not myselfthough after many years' intercourse with Italian—have given by any means so purely and so faithfully. (2)]

On the eleventh day of September, in the year of our Lord 1354, Marino Faliero was elected and chosen to be the Duke of the Commonwealth of Venice. He was Count of Valdemarino, in the Marches of Treviso, and a Knight, and a wealthy man to boot. As soon as the election was completed, it was resolved in the Great Council, that a deputation of

(1) [Mr. Francis Cohen, now Sir Francis Palgrave, K. H., the learned author of the "Rise'and Progress of the English Constitution," "History of the Anglo-Saxons," &c. &c. - E.]

(2) [In a letter to Mr. Murray, dated Ravenna, July 30. 1821, Lord B. says:-"Enclosed is the best account of the Doge Faliero, which was only sent to me, from an old MS., the other day. Get it translated, and append it as a note to the next edition. You will, perhaps, be pleased to see, that my conceptions of his character were correct; though I regret not having met with the extract before. You will perceive that he himself said exactly what he is made to say about the Bishop of Treviso. You will see also that he spoke little, and those only words of rage and disdain, AFTER his arrest; which is the case in the play, except when he breaks out at the close of Act fifth. But his speech to the conspirators is better in the MS, than in the play. I wish I had met with it in time."]

twelve should be despatched to Marino Faliero the Duke, who was then on his way from Rome; for when he was chosen, he was embassador at the court of the Holy Father, at Rome, the Holy Father himself held his court at Avignon. When Messer Marino Faliero the Duke was about to land in this city, on the 5th day of October, 1354, a thick haze came on, and darkened the air; and he was enforced to land on the place of Saint Mark, between the two columns, on the spot where evil doers are put to death; and all thought that this was the worst of tokens. forget to write that which I have read in a chronicle. Marino Faliero was Podesta and Captain of Treviso, the Bishop delayed coming in with the holy sacrament, on a day when a procession was to take place. Now, the said Marino Faliero was so very proud and wrathful, that he buffeted the Bishop, and almost struck him to the ground: and, therefore, Heaven allowed Marino Faliero to go out of his right senses, in order that he might bring himself to an evil death.

Nor must I When Messer

When this Duke had held the dukedom during nine months and six days, he, being wicked and ambitious, sought to make himself Lord of Venice, in the manner which I have read in an ancient chronicle. When the Thursday arrived upon which they were wont to hunt the bull, the bull hunt took place as usual; and, according to the usage of those times, after the bull hunt had ended, they all proceeded unto the palace of the Duke, and assembled together in one of his halls; and they disported themselves with the women. And until the first bell tolled they danced, and then a banquet was served up. My Lord the Duke paid the expenses thereof, provided he had a Duchess, and after the banquet they all returned to their homes.

Now to this feast there came a certain Ser Michele Steno, a gentleman of poor estate and very young, but crafty and daring, and who loved one of the damsels of the Duchess. Ser Michele stood amongst the women upon the solajo; and he behaved indiscreetly, so that my Lord the Duke ordered that he should be kicked off the solajo; and the esquires of the Duke flung him down from the solajo accordingly. Ser Michele thought that such an affront was beyond all bearing; and when the feast was over, and all other persons had left the palace, he, continuing heated with anger, went to the hall of audience, and wrote certain unseemly words relating to the Duke and the Duchess upon the chair in which the Duke was used to sit; for in those days the Duke did not cover his chair with cloth of sendal, but he sat in a chair of wood. Ser Michele wrote thereon" Marin Falier, the husband of the fair wife; others kiss her, but he keeps her." In the morning the words were seen, and the matter was considered to be very scandalous; and the Senate commanded the Avogadori of the Commonwealth to proceed therein with the greatest diligence. A largess of great amount was immediately proffered by the Avogadori, in order to discover who had written these words. And at length it was known that Michele Steno had written them. It was resolved in the Council of Forty that he should be arrested; and he then confessed that in the fit of vexation and spite, occasioned by his being thrust off the solajo in the presence of his mistress, he had written the words. Therefore the Council debated thereon.