“We must not forget, that through the whole piece there runs a kind of presentiment of a Saviour, so that the poet at this point, as well as in all others, has known how to bring himself near to the ideas by which we explain things, and to our modes of faith. “Of the scene with the parents, in which Eve at last curses the speechless Cain, which our western neighbour lifts into such striking prominence, there remains nothing more for us to say: we have to approach the conclusion with astonishment and reverence. “With regard to this conclusion, an intelligent and fair friend, related to us through esteem for Byron, has asserted that everything religious and moral in the world was put into the last three words of the piece.” {143} We have now heard enough from Goethe to prove that Mr. Arnold’s interpretation of “_so bald er reflectirt ist er ein Kind_” is not Goethe’s interpretation of Byron. It is to be remembered that Goethe was not a youth overcome by Mr. Arnold’s “vogue” when he read Byron. He was a singularly self-possessed old man. Many persons will be inclined to think that Goethe, so far from putting Byron on a lower level than that usually assigned to him, has over-praised him, and will question the “burning spiritual vision” which the great German believed the great Englishman to possess. But if we consider what Goethe calls the “motivation” of Cain; if we reflect on what the poet has put into the legend; on the exploration of the universe with Lucifer as a guide; on its result, on the mode in which the death of Abel is reached; on the doom of the murderer—the limitless wilderness henceforth and no rest; on the fidelity of Adah, who, with the true instinct of love, separates between the man and the crime; on the majesty of the principal character, who stands before us as the representative of the insurgence of the human intellect, so that, if we know him, we know a whole literature; if we meditate hereon, we shall say that Goethe has not exaggerated. It is the same with the rest of Byron’s dramas. Over and above the beauty of detached passages, there is in each one of them a large and universal meaning, or rather meaning within meaning, precisely the same for no reader, but none the less certain, and as inexhaustible as the meanings of Nature. This is one reason why the wisdom of a selection from Byron is so doubtful. The worth of “Cain,” of “Sardanapalus,” of “Manfred,” of “Marino Faliero,” is the worth of an outlook over the sea; and we cannot take a sample of the scene from a cliff by putting a pint of water into a bottle. But Byron’s critics and the compilers tell us of failures, which ought not to survive, and that we are doing a kindness to him if we suppress these and exhibit him at his best. No man who seriously cares for Byron will assent to this doctrine. We want to know the whole of him, his weakness as well as his