This idea, confused, intermitted, obscured by all forms of evil--for it was not discovered, but only in the process of discovery--is the one which comes out with greater and greater strength, through all Corsairs, Laras, and Parasinas, till it reaches its completion in "Cain" and in "Manfred," of both of which we do boldly say, that if any sceptical poetry at all be right, which we often question, they are right and not wrong; that in "Cain," as in "Manfred," the awful problem which, perhaps, had better not have been put at all, is nevertheless fairly put, and the solution, as far as it is seen, fairly confessed; namely, that there is an absolute and eternal law in the heart of man which sophistries of his own or of other beings may make him forget, deny, blaspheme; but which exists eternally, and will assert itself. If this be not the meaning of "Manfred," especially of that great scene in the chamois hunter's cottage, what is?--If this be not the meaning of "Cain," and his awful awakening after the murder, not to any mere dread of external punishment, but to an overwhelming, instinctive, inarticulate sense of having done wrong, what is? Yes; that law exists, let it never be forgotten, is the real meaning of Byron, down to that last terrible "Don Juan," in which he sits himself down, in artificial calm, to trace the gradual rotting and degradation of a man without law, the slave of his own pleasures; a picture happily never finished, because he who painted it was taken away before he had learnt, perhaps when he was beginning to turn back from--the lower depth within the lowest deep.