Lucifer. Cain. And cannot ye both reign then?—is there Enough? - why should ye differ? Lucifer. Cain. But one of you makes evil. Lucifer. Cain. [not We both reign. Which? Thou! for If thou canst do man good, why dost thou not? Lucifer. And why not he who made? I made ye Ye are his creatures, and not mine. [not; Cain. Then leave us His creatures, as thou say'st we are, or show me Thy dwelling, or his dwelling. Lucifer. I could show thee Both; but the time will come thou shalt see one Of them for evermore. (1) Cain. And why not now? Lucifer. Thy human mind hath scarcely grasp to gather The little I have shown thee into calm (1) [In Lord Byron's Diary for January 28. 1821, we find the following entry: "Thought for a speech of Lucifer, in the Tragedy of Cain. 'Were Death an evil, would I let thee live? Fool! live as I live-as thy father lives, And thy sons' sons shall live for evermore!'"-E] And clear thought; and thou wouldst go on aspiring Cain. Of death? Then I dread it less, Lucifer. That is the prelude. Cain. Now that I know it leads to something definite. Lucifer. And now I will convey thee to thy world, Where thou shalt multiply the race of Adam, Eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, sleep, and die. Cain. And to what end have I beheld these things Which thou hast shown me? Lucifer. Didst thou not require (1) ["It would be to no purpose," says Archbishop Tillotson, "to suppose two such opposite principles. For, admit that a being infinitely mischievous were infinitely cunning, and infinitely powerful, yet it could do no evil, because the opposite principle, of infinite goodness, being also infinitely wise and powerful, they would tie up one another's hands: so that upon this supposition, the notion of a deity would signify just nothing; and, by virtue of the eternal opposition and equality of these pinciples, they would keep one another at perpetual bay; and, being an equ.' match for one another, instead of being two deities, they would be two idols, le to do neither good nor evil."-See also Archbishop King's Origin of Evil, ch. ii.; and Boswell's Johnson, Croker's edit. vol. ii. p. 348. "Moral evil," said the Doctor, "is occasioned by free will, which implies choice between good and evil. With all the evil that there is, there is no man but would rather be a free agent, than a mere machine without the evil; and what is best for each individual must be best for the whole. If a man would rather be the machine, I cannot agree with him."] Knowledge? And have I not, in what I show'd, Cain. Nothing. Alas! I seem Lucifer. And this should be the human sum Of knowledge, to know mortal nature's nothingness ; Bequeath that science to thy children, and 'Twill spare them many tortures. Cain. Haughty spirit! Thou speak'st it proudly; but thyself, though proud, Hast a superior. Lucifer. No! By heaven, which He Holds, and the abyss, and the immensity Of worlds and life, which I hold with him—No! Homage he has from all—but none from me : In highest heaven. Through all eternity, All, all, will I dispute! And world by world, He as a conqueror will call the conquer'd Were I the victor, his works would be deem'd The only evil ones. And you, ye new And scarce-born mortals, what have been his gifts Cain. But few; and some of those but bitter. Back Evil and good are things in their own essence, One good gift has the fatal apple given your own. (2) [They disappear. (1) [Whatever we enjoy is purely a free gift from our Creator; but that we enjoy no more, can never sure be deemed an injury, or a just reason to question his infinite benevolence. All our happiness is owing to his goodness; but that it is no greater, is owing only to ourselves; that is, to our not having any inherent right to any happiness, or even to any existence at all. This is no more to be imputed to God, than the wants of a beggar to the person who has relieved him that he had something, was owing to his benefactor; but that he had no more, only to his own original poverty. JENYNS.] (2) [As to the question of the origin of evil, which is the burthen of this misdirected verse, Lord Byron has neither thrown any new light upon it, nor darkened the previous knowledge which we possessed. It remains just where it was, in its mighty, unfathomed obscurity. His Lord ACT III. SCENE I. The Earth, near Eden, as in Act I. Enter CAIN and ADAH. Adah. Hush! tread softly, Cain. Cain. I will; but wherefore? Adah. Our little Enoch sleeps upon yon bed Of leaves, beneath the cypress. Cain. Cypress ! 'tis A gloomy tree, which looks as if it mourn'd O'er what it shadows; wherefore didst thou choose it For our child's canopy? ship may, it is true, have recapitulated some of the arguments with a more concise and cavalíer air than the old schoolmen or fathers; but the result is the same. There is no poetical road to metaphysics. In one view, however, which our rhapsodist has taken of the subject, we conceive he has done well. He represents the temptations held out to Cain by Satan, as constantly succeeding and corresponding to some previous discontent and gloomy disposition in his own mind; so that Lucifer is little more than the personified demon of his imagination: and further, the acts of guilt and folly into which Cain is hurried are not treated as accidental, or as occasioned by passing causes, but as springing from an internal fury, a morbid state akin to phrensy, a mind dissatisfied with itself and all things, and haunted by an insatiable, stubborn longing after knowledge rather than happiness, and a fatal proneness to dwell on the evil side of things rather than the good. We here see the dreadful consequences of not curbing this disposition (which is, after all, perhaps, the sin that most easily besets humanity,) exemplified in a striking point of view; and we so far think, that the moral to be derived from a perusal of this Mystery is a valuable one. JEFFREY.] |