e some vigorous passages scattered through the plays, and we
have it on record that Dr. Parr could not sleep a wink after reading
_Sardanapalus_. Nevertheless, we fear that the present generation will
find little cause for demurring to Jeffrey's judgment upon the
tragedies, that they are for the most part 'solemn, prolix, and
ostentatious.' They were not composed, as Byron himself explained,
'with the most remote view to the stage,' so that he had not before
his eyes the wholesome fear of a critical audience. In truth it must
be admitted that he lacked the true dramatic instinct; he could only
set up his leading figures to deliver imposing speeches appropriate to
a tragic situation; and one may guess that the consciousness of
awkward handling weighed upon the spirit and style of his blank verse,
for his ear seems to have completely misled him when it had lost the
guidance of recurrent rhyme. Of _Cain: a Mystery_, one must speak
reverently, since Walter Scott, to whom it was dedicated, wrote that
the author had 'matched Milton on his own ground'; yet in Lucifer, who
leads the dialogue, we have little more than a spectral embodiment of
Byron's own rebellious temper; and in this poem, as in _Manfred_, the
discussion of metaphysical problems carries him beyond his depth.
There are, nevertheless, some fine declamatory passages; and we may
quote as a curiosity one soft line, fresh from the Swiss mountains:

'Pipes in the liberal air
_Mixed with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd_,'

which is to be found in _Manfred_ and might have been taken from the
_Excursion_.

When we turn from the plays to the lyrics, we see at once the
importance, to a poet, of choosing rightly the metrical form that is
the best expression of his peculiar genius. In some of these shorter
poems Byron rises to his highest level, and by these will his
popularity be permanently maintained. They are certainly of very
unequal merit; yet when Byron is condemned for artificiality and
glaring colour, we may point to the poem beginning 'And thou art dead,
as young and fair,' where form and feeling are in harmony throughout
eight long stanzas, without a single line that is feeble or
overcharged:

'The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine;
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;