Like showers which on the midnight gusts will pass, Sounding like very supernatural water,

Came over Juan's ear, which throbbed, alas!

For immaterialism's a serious matter;

So that even those, whose faith is the most great
In souls immortal, shun them tête-à-têtc.

Were his eyes open ?-Yes! and his mouth too.
Surprise has this effect-to make one dumb,
Yet leave the gate which Eloquence slips through
As wide as if a long speech were to come.
Nigh and more nigh the awful echoes drew,
Tremendous to a mortal tympanum :

His eyes were open, and (as was before
Stated) his mouth. What opened next?-the door.

It opened with a most infernal creak,

Like that of hell.

Voi che entrate !'

Lasciate ogni speranza

The hinge seemed to speak,

Dreadful as Dante's rhyma, or this stanza;
Or-but all words upon such themes are weak;
A single shade's sufficient to entrance a
Hero-for what is substance to a spirit?
Or how is't matter trembles to come near it?

The door flew wide, not swiftly-but, as fly

The sea-gulls, with a steady, sober flight-
And then swung back; nor close-but stood awry,
Half letting in long shadows on the light,
Which still in Juan's candlesticks burned high,
For he had two, both tolerably bright,

And in the door-way, darkening Darkness, stood
The sable Friar in his solemn hood.

Don Juan shook, as erst he had been shaken

The night before; but, being sick of shaking, He first inclined to think he had been mistaken; And then to be ashamed of such mistaking; His own internal ghost began to awaken Within him, and to quell his corporal quaking— Hinting that soul and body, on the whole, Were odds against a disembodied soul.

And then his dread grew wrath, and his wrath fierce;
And he arose, advanced-the shade retreated;
But Juan, eager now the truth to pierce,

Followed, his veins no longer cold, but heated,
Resolved to thrust the mystery carte and tierce,
At whatsoever risk of being defeated:
The ghost stopped, menaced, then retired, until
He reached the ancient wall, then stood stone still.
Juan put forth one arm-Eternal Powers!

It touched no soul, nor body, but the wall,
On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers
Chequered with all the tracery of the hall;
He shuddered, as no doubt the bravest cowers
When he can't tell what 'tis that doth appal.
How odd a single hobgoblin's nonentity

Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity !*
But still the shade remained; the blue eyes glared,
And rather variably for stony death;

Yet one thing rather good the grave had spared,
The ghost had a remarkably sweet breath.
A straggling curl showed he had been fair-haired;
A red lip, with two rows of pearls beneath,
Gleamed forth, as through the casement's ivy shroud
The moon peeped, just escaped from a grey cloud.`

And Juan, puzzled, but still curious, thrust

His other arm forth-Wonder upon wonder!
It pressed upon a hard but glowing bust,

Which beat as if there was a warm heart under.
He found, as people on most trials must,
That he had made at first a silly blunder,
And that in his confusion he had caught
Only the wall, instead of what he sought.

The ghost, if ghost it were, seemed a sweet soul
As ever lurked beneath a holy hood:

Shadows, to-night,

Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard

Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers,' &c.

SHAKSPEARE'S Richard III.

A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory, stole

Forth into something much like flesh and blood;
Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl,

And they revealed-alas! that e'er they should!
In full, voluptuous, but not o'ergrown bulk,

The phantom of her frolic Grace-Fitz-Fulke!

Thus breaks off this singular poem, of which, taken as a whole, we cannot regret that we have no more.

CHAPTER XII.

THE Somewhat lengthened notice of Don Juan' into which we have thought it expedient to go has prevented us from observing strictly the order of time in which Lord Byron's poems were published: we shall now, however, resume the connexion of them, and proceed to speak of Werner,' a tragedy which came out early in the year 1822. It is founded upon one of the stories in Miss Lee's Canterbury Tales ;' and, although the subject is deeply interesting, and even worthy of the honour which the labours of Lord Byron have conferred upon it, we cannot but wonder that so inventive a mind as his should have chosen to be indebted to any other writer for the plot of his tragedy, which without too great an effort he might have fabricated for himself.

Miss Lee's tale is called Kuitzner,' and is the longest and the best in the collection which we have mentioned. It does not fall within our plan to allude more particularly to that tale, but justice to the authoress compels us to observe that it is highly creditable to her talents; and, although it is slight, and has rather an unfinished appearance, it is equal, in all the characteristics of romantic narrative, to any similar production in this language.

Lord Byron dedicated his tragedy to the illustrious Göethe,' and did himself at least as much honour as he conferred upon that gifted and universal genius of Germany, by professing himself to be one of his humblest admirers.' The tragedy which we proceed now to describe opens with a dialogue between Werner and his wife. He is at this time just recovered from a sickness which has seized him on a journey which he was making from Hamburgh towards Bohemia, and which compelled him to stop on the Silesian frontier. He is accom