ADVERTISEMENT.

"CELUI qui remplissait alors cette place était un gentilhomme Polonais, nommé Mazeppa, né dans le palatinat de Padolie : il avait été élevé page de Jean Casimir, et avait pris à sa cour quelque teinture des belles-lettres. Une intrigue qu'il eut dans sa jeunesse avec la femme d'un gentilhomme Polonais ayant été découverte, le mari le fit lier tout nu sur un cheval farouche, et le laissa aller en cet état. Le cheval, qui était du pays de l'Ukraine, y retourna, et y porta Mazeppa, demi-mort de fatigue et de faim. Quelques paysans le secoururent: il resta longtems parmi eux, et se signala dans plusieurs courses contre les Tartares. La supériorité de ses lumières lui donna une grande considération parmi les Cosaques : sa réputation s'augmentant de jour en jour, obligea le Czar à le faire Prince de l'Ukraine."-VOLTAIRE, Hist. de Charles XII. p. 196.

"Le roi fuyant, et poursuivi, eut son cheval tué sous lui; le Colonel Gieta, blessé, et perdant tout son sang, lui donna le sien. Ainsi on remit deux fois à cheval, dans la fuite, ce conquérant qui n'avait pu y monter pendant la bataille."-P. 216.

"Le roi alla par un autre chemin avec quelques cavaliers. Le carrosse, où il était, rompit dans la marche; on le remit à cheval. Pour comble de disgrace, il s'égara pendant la nuit dans un bois; là, son courage ne pouvant plus suppléer à ses forces épuisées, les douleurs de sa blessure devenues plus insupportables par la fatigue, son cheval étant tombé de lassitude, il se coucha quelques heures au pied d'un arbre, en danger d'être surpris à tout moment par les vainqueurs, qui le cherchaient de tous côtés."-P. 218.

INTRODUCTION TO MAZEPPA.

"MAZEIPA was begun at Venice at least as early as July, 1818, and, contrary to the poet's ordinary practice of striking off his works at a heat, was not completed till October. Its historical frame-work cannot hinder the conviction that the jealous rage of the old Count Palatine against the youthful lover of the fair Theresa was filled up from the personal experience of the author. Mr. Gifford terms it, on the margin of the MS., "a lively, spirited, and pleasant tale ;" and M. Villemain, the eminent French critic, declares that, sublime in its substance and finishing with a joke, it is at once the master-piece and symbol of Byron. The poet himself did not consider that it was in his best manner. It must be admitted that the narrative sometimes flags, yet the tale is uncommonly animated and impressive, and the finest passages equal any which ever proceeded from his pen. If the poem falls below the panegyric of M. Villemain, it more than maintains the description of Mr. Gifford. An able critic of the day commended the manner in which the story was introduced, and thought that the calm resignation of Mazeppa to defeat, -the heroic thoughtlessness of his royal auditor, with the perilous accompaniments of their desolate bivouac-all contributed to throw a striking charm both of preparation and contrast over the wild adventures related by the Hetman. No one will deny that there is considerable gracefulness in the comic portions of the tale, and it is quite in keeping with an old soldier's character that he should enliven a history of bygone dangers with strokes of humour. But, through the power of the poet, the reader feels himself placed nearer to the event than a narrator who calls to memory his long-past perils; and thus the main story is, to our thinking, much too impassioned to harmonise with the jesting prelude and conclusion. The end, especially, sounds a mockery of the emotions which are excited by the Hetman's fearful ride. However natural it might be for the Swedish madman to fall asleep after the terrible labours of Pultowa's day, we, who have not participated in his fatigues, give up our sympathies to Mazeppa, and are offended at a pleasantry which dissipates, in a measure, the romance of his recitation. Lord Byron received for "Mazeppa" the 500 guineas which was paid for most of his tales.

MAZEPPA.

I.

"TWAS after dread Pultowa's day,
When fortune left the royal Swede,
Around a slaughter'd army lay,

No more to combat and to bleed.
The power and glory of the war,
Faithless as their vain votaries, men,
Had pass'd to the triumphant Czar,

And Moscow's walls were safe again,
Until a day more dark and drear,
And a more memorable year,
Should give to slaughter and to shame
A mightier host and haughtier name;
A greater wreck, a deeper fall,

A shock to one-a thunderbolt to all.

VOL. III.

II.

Such was the hazard of the die;
The wounded Charles was taught to fly-
By day and night through field and flood,
Stain'd with his own and subjects' blood;
For thousands fell that flight to aid:
And not a voice was heard t'upbraid
Ambition in his humbled hour,

When truth had nought to dread from power.

Y

His horse was slain, and Gieta gave
His own-and died the Russians' slave.
This too sinks after many a league
Of well sustain'd, but vain fatigue;
And in the depth of forests darkling,
The watch-fires in the distance sparkling-
The beacons of surrounding foes-
A king must lay his limbs at length.
Are these the laurels and repose

For which the nations strain their strength?
They laid him by a savage tree,

In outworn nature's agony;

His wounds were stiff, his limbs were stark;
The heavy hour was chill and dark;
The fever in his blood forbade

A transient slumber's fitful aid:

And thus it was; but yet through all,
Kinglike the monarch bore his fall,
And made, in this extreme of ill,

A band of chiefs !-alas! how few,
Since but the fleeting of a day
Had thinn'd it; but this wreck was true
And chivalrous: upon the clay
Each sate him down, all sad and mute,
Beside his monarch and his steed;

For danger levels man and brute,

And all are fellows in their need. Among the rest, Mazeppa made His pillow in an old oak's shadeHimself as rough, and scarce less old, The Ukraine's Hetman, calm and bold; But first, outspent with this long course, The Cossack prince rubb'd down his horse, And made for him a leafy bed,

And smooth'd his fetlocks and his mane,