Goethe said that "Its beauty is such as we shall not see a second time in the world" (_Conversations, etc._, 1874, p. 261); Scott, in speaking of "the very grand and tremendous drama of _Cain_," said that the author had "matched Milton on his own ground" (letter to Murray, December 4, 1821, _vide post_, p. 206); "_Cain_," wrote Shelley to Gisborne (April 10, 1822), "is apocalyptic; it is a revelation never before communicated to man." Uncritical praise, as well as uncritical censure, belongs to the past; but the play remains, a singular exercise of "poetic energy," a confession, _ex animo_, of "the burthen of the mystery, ... the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world." For reviews of _Cain: A Mystery_, _vide ante_, "Introduction to _Sardanapalus_," p. 5; see, too, _Eclectic Review_, May, 1822, N.S. vol. xvii. pp. 418-427; _Examiner_, June 2, 1822; _British Review_, 1822, vol. xix. pp. 94-102. For O'Doherty's parody of the "Pisa" Letter, February 8, 1822, see _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, February, 1822, vol. xi. pp. 215-217; and for a review of Harding Grant's _Lord Byron's Cain, etc._, see _Fraser's Magazine_, April, 1831, iii. 285-304. TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART., THIS MYSTERY OF CAIN IS INSCRIBED, BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, THE AUTHOR.[86] PREFACE