New-York tribune., 1902-06-08

d
Huge dusky masses; but unlike the worlds
We were approaching, which, begirt with Light
Seemed full of life even when their atmosphere
OF light gave way, and showed them taking
shapes
Unequal OF deep valleys and vast mountains;
And some emitting sparks, and some displaying
Enormous liquid plains, and some begIrt
With luminous belts, and floating moons. which
took,
Like them. the features of fair earth:-instead
All here seems dark and dreadful
1t is good so far as it goes. but does it go
far as the point to which characteristicaIy
Byronic eIoquence is carried? What ne miss
in Cain" we miss in ''SardanapaIus.' The
Two Foscari" Heaven and Earth Werner
and "The Deformed Transformed II is not
simply the note of more artless and yet IN
fniteIy more brilliant diction. such we find
In Byron at his best; it is the volcanic energy
the creative fury. which seems somehow to
have been subdued if not altogether invalidated
by the tranmels which the poet put upon his
genius in attempting these works Sardanap-
alus, In describing to Myrrha the vision from
which he awakes in the fourth act. says:
But all along
The table safe range Of crowned wretcheA
Of various aspects. but of one expression
1t was so paIpable could have touched them
In spite of Mr. CoIeridge's remark about the
poets ability, in these dramas, to transform
names and shadows into persons and SUD
stance" we must doubt If the Assyrian King, or
any of the other characters portrayed or in
vented in the plays, was so paIpable" to the
poet that he could have touched them" and
from that contact have felt the sympathy Wnlcn
might have enabled him to have given them
indubitable reality in the plays II the latter
make hard and even tedious reading to-day. II
is chiefly because of this lack of sympathy be-
tween the poet and his subject. We do not for
get that he wrote with enthusiasm. and had. in
deed. high hopes of these children Of his imagl-
nation. But in writing them he was not IN MS
natural element: the dramatic force which he
could put to such splendid in his own
sphere is here frittered away and. at best. gives
us picturesque episode. Yet we come back In
appreciative mood to Mr. COeridge's PREDATORY
remark that the dramas will always be studied
from motives of curiosity and find interest,
if not abundant pleasure. IN this penrltnaLe
volume of the admirable edition in which the
poetry and prose are being published The
text after all. is ByrOn's, which is to say thAI
even In it's dullest passages il possesses Ger
tain significance for the student of his inconi-
parable personality. and. in addition TO the teAO
there is the usual body of suggestive notes. Win
the light it throws the position Of the dramas
in literary history.
II is interesting to read the high sounding
dedication of "Sardanapalus'' to Goethe. and 10
catch the gIimpses that this volume a1ordS OF
the German poets attitude toward his great
contemporary. He cheerfully entered the same
galley with Scott where Gain was concerned
Its beauty" he said, lis such as We snaa not
see a second time in the world" He did not
sympathize with Eckermann's astonishment AZ
the painful SUBJECT
of Jacopo FOscari's tortured limbs III me
opening scene of the Venetian drama He was
always a self-tOrmentor. and hence such SUD
jects were his darling theme" OF Heaven and
Earth" Crabb Robinson says that Goethe pre-
ferred it to all the other serious poems of Byron
"A bishop. he exclaimed. though ii sounded
almost like satire might have written II
Mr. CoIeridge recognizes the interest in the con-
tention that Werner written, not by
Lord Byron but by GeOrgiana, Duchess OF
Deyonshire. to the extent of including among
his Illustrations a reproduction of Sir Joshua
beautiful portrait of the lady. and traveTslns
In four or five carefully written pages the Hon
F. Leveson Covers article supporting the claim
made for her: but he has no difficulty. as II
seems to us, in exposing the futility OF this Gu
rious assumption. To Byrons OWN -adVertlSe-
Inent" prefixed to The Deforned Trans
formed" IN which the poet cOnfesses his IN
debtedness TO Pickersgill's novel. THE Three
Brothers and TO Goethe's Faust" Mr. Cole
tba motto inscribed nv Shelley