t sheath his sword--

'Tis the sole sceptre left you now with safety,

the king replies--

"A heavy one;" and subjoins, as if to conceal his distaste for war,
by ascribing a dislike to the sword itself,

The hilt, too, hurts my hand.

It may be asked why I dwell so particularly on the character of
Sardanapalus. It is admitted that he is the most heroic of
voluptuaries, the most philosophical of the licentious. The first he
is undoubtedly, but he is not licentious; and in omitting to make him
so, the poet has prevented his readers from disliking his character
upon principle. It was a skilful stroke of art to do this; had it
been otherwise, and had there been no affection shown for the Ionian
slave, Sardanapalus would have engaged no sympathy. It is not,
however, with respect to the ability with which the character has
been imagined, nor to the poetry with which it is invested, that I
have so particularly made it a subject of criticism; it was to point
out how much in it Lord Byron has interwoven of his own best nature.

At the time when he was occupied with this great work, he was
confessedly in the enjoyment of the happiest portion of his life.
The Guiccioli was to him a Myrrha, but the Carbonari were around, and
in the controversy, in which Sardanapalus is engaged, between the
obligations of his royalty and his inclinations for pleasure, we have
a vivid insight of the cogitation of the poet, whether to take a part
in the hazardous activity which they were preparing, or to remain in
the seclusion and festal repose of which he was then in possession.
The Assyrian is as much Lord Byron as Childe Harold was, and bears
his lineaments in as clear a likeness, as a voluptuary unsated could
do those of the emaciated victim of satiety. Over the whole drama,
and especially in some of the speeches of Sardanapalus, a great deal
of fine but irrelevant poetry and moral reflection has been profusely
spread; but were the piece adapted to the stage, these portions would
of course be omitted, and the character denuded of them would then
more fully justify the idea which I have formed of it, than it may
perhaps to many readers do at present, hidden as it is, both in shape
and contour, under an excess of ornament.

That the character of Myrrha was also drawn from life, and that the
Guiccioli was the model, I have no doubt. She had, when most
enchanted by her passion for Byron--at the very time when the drama
was writ