The Deformed Transformed; A DRAMA. (1) ADVERTISEMENT. THIS production is founded partly on the story of a novel called The Three Brothers, (2) published many years ago, from which M. G. Lewis's Wood Demon was also taken-and partly on the Faust of the great Goethe. The present publication contains the two first Parts only, and the opening chorus of the third. The rest may perhaps appear hereafter. DRAMATIS PERSONE. STRANGER, afterwards CESAR. ARNOLD. BOURBON. PHILIBERT. CELLINI. BERTHA. OLIMPIA. Spirits, Soldiers, Citizens of Rome, Priests, Peasants, etc. (1) This drama was begun at Pisa in 1821, but was not published till January, 1824. Mr. Medwin says, "On my calling on Lord Byron one morning, he produced the Deformed Transformed. Handing it to Shelley, as he was in the habit of doing his daily compositions, he said'Shelley, I have been writing a Faustish kind of drama: tell me what you think of it.' After reading it attentively, Shelley returned it. Well,' said Lord B. how do you like it?' 'Least,' replied he, of any thing I ever saw of yours. It is a bad imitation of Faust; and besides, there are two entire lines of Southey's in it.' Lord Byron changed colour immediately, and asked hastily, What lines?' Shelley repeated, And water shall see thee, And fear thee, and flee thee.' They are in the Curse of Kehama. His Lordship instantly threw the poem into the fire. He seemed to feel no chagrin at seeing it consume-at least his countenance betrayed none, and his conversation became more gay and lively than usual. Whether it was hatred of Southey, or respect for Shelley's opinion, which made him commit the act that I considered a sort of suicide, was always doubtful to me. I was never more surprised than to see, two years afterwards, The Deformed Transformed announced (supposing it to have perished at Pisa); but it seems that he must have had another copy of the manuscript, or that he had rewritten it perhaps, without changing a word, except omitting the Kehama lines. His memory was remarkably retentive of his own writings. I believe he could have quoted almost every line he ever wrote." Mrs. Shelley, whose copy of The Deformed Transformed lies before us, has written as follows on the fly-leaf : — "This had long been a favourite subject with Lord Byron. I think that he mentioned it also in Switzerland. 1 copied it -he sending a portion of it at a time, as it was finished, to me. At this time he had a great horror of its being said that he plagiarised, or that he studied for ideas, and wrote with difficulty. Thus, he gave Shelley Aikin's edition of the British Poets, that it might not be found in his house by some English lounger, and reported home: thus, too, he always dated when he began and when he ended a poem, to prove hereafter how quickly it was done. I do not think that he altered a line in this drama after he had once written it down. He composed and corrected in his mind. I do not know how he meant to finish it; but he said hina that the whole conduct of the story was already conte It was at this time that a brutal paragraph alluding wi lameness appeared, which he repeated to me, lest I th hear it first from some one else.-No action of Lord Fr life-scarce a line he has written-but was influenced ya personal defect."—L.E. (2) The Three Brothers is a romance, published in 191 the work of a Joshua Pickersgill, junior. It is one of the high-flown histories, in which "terror petrific or annis tive" (we use Mr. P.'s own phraseology) waylays us at even page. The present story is that of a misshapen youth, acquires beauty and strength by a compact with the re of mankind. The tenure by which he holds these gifts bloodshed, to be perpetrated on some occasion not yet és closed, for the drama is unfinished. In some points of res racter and situation he is not wholly unlike the Black D of Mucklestane Moor, and we could almost suspect that the painter of that personage had condescended, like Lord By. to adopt a thought from the forgotten legend of the Brothers." Croly. -- L. E. (3) A clever anonymous critic thus sarcastically pres his notice of this poem: "The reader has, no dì. often heard of the Devil and Dr. Faustus: this is but a " birth of the same unrighteous couple, who are christese however, by the noble hierophant who presides over the infernal ceremony, Julius Cæsar and Count Arnold. The drama opens with a scene between the latter, who is t • "The Black Dwarf I have read with great pleasure, and perfecti understand now why my sister and aunt are so very positive in the very erroneous persuasion that it must have been written by If you knew me as well as they do, you would have fallen, perhaps y into the same mistake." Lord Byron to Mr. M.-L. E. "The ideal being who is here presented as residing a solita and haunted by a consciousness of his own deformity, and a my cion of his being generally subjected to the scorn of his fellowan is not altogether imaginary. An individual existed many years sa under the author's observation, which suggested such a charact This poor unfortunate man's name was David Ritchie, a native t Tweed-dale. He was the son of a labourer in the slate-qua Strobo, and must have been born in the misshapen form which exhibited, though he sometimes imputed it to ill usage when in 2 fancy. He was a brushmaker at Edinburgh, and had wandered 2several places, working at his trade, from all which he was cha by the disagreeable attention which his hideous singularity of fost and face attracted wherever he came." Sir Walter Scott-LE You nursed me-do not kill me! Yes-I nursed thee, That monstrous sport of nature. (1) But get hence, Arn. I will; but when I bring it, As the free chase they follow, do not spurn me: Bert. [Exit BERTHA. -She is gone, and I [must do I would fulfil it, could I only hope A kind word in return. What shall I do? Even to this hateful aspect. Let me wash [ARNOLD goes to a spring, and stoops to wash his hand: he starts back. They are right; and Nature's mirror shows me, And shall I live on, A burden to the earth, myself, and shame ARNOLD begins to cut wood: in doing this he Vile form-from the creation, as it hath wounds one of his hands. My labour for the day is over now. Actarsed be this blood that flows so fast; For double curses will be my meed now At home-What home? I have no home, no kin, [me! To share their sports or pleasures. Must I bleed too appearance a well-disposed young man, of a very deformperson, and his mother: this good lady, with somewhat es maternal piety about her than adorns the mother-ape the fable, turns her dutiful incubus of a son out of doors father wood. Arnold, upon this, proceeds incontinently >kill himself, by falling, after the manner of Brutus, on wood-knife: he is, however, piously dissuaded from this uilty act, by-whom, does the reader think? A monk, erhaps, or a methodist preacher ? no ;-but by the Devil self, in the shape of a tall black man, who rises, like A African water-god, out of a fountain. To this stranger, fter the exchange of a few sinister compliments, Arnold, thout more ado, sells his soul, for the privilege of wearng the beautiful form of Achilles. In the midst of all this ardity, we still, however, recognise the master-mind of great poet: his bold and beautiful spirit flashes at inErvals through the surrounding horrors, into which he schosen to plunge after Goethe, his magnus Apollo."— E. The green bough from the forest. [ARNOLD places the knife in the ground, with the point upwards. Now 'tis set, And I can fall upon it. Yet one glance Now, knife, stand firmly, as I fain would fall! (3) brat.' As all that he had felt strongly through life was, in (I)" Lord Byron's own mother, when in ill humour with him, used to make the deformity in his foot the subject of taunts and reproaches. She would (we quote from a letter written by one of her relations in Scotland) pass from passionate caresses to the repulsion of actual disgust; then devour him with kisses again, and swear his eyes were as beautiful as his father's." Quar. Rev.-L. E. (2) This is now generally believed to be a vulgar error; the smallness of the animal's mouth rendering it incapable of the mischief laid to its charge. For a very amusing controversy on the subject, see Gent. Mag. vols. lxxx, and lxxxi. -L. E. (3) Arnold is known to us, before his temptations, only as a hunchback weary of scoffs and buffets, and more sensible of his natural disadvantages than deformed persons Unless you keep company With him (and you seem scarce used to such high Arn. Do you dare you To taunt me with my born deformity? Stran. Were I to taunt a buffalo with this Both beings are more swift, more strong, more mighty The gifts which are of others upon man.. Arn. Give me the strength then of the buffalo's foot, And patient swiftness of the desert-ship, Thy fiendish sarcasm with a saintly patience. Arn. (with surprise.) Thou canst ? Perhaps. Would you aught else? Arn. Thou mockest me. Stran. Not I. Why should I mock What all are mocking? That's poor sport, methinks. usually are. In a fit of passion, which resembles the splenetic resentment of Mother Sawyer in Ford's Witch of Edmonton, rather than the consuming discontent and vague aspirations of Faust, he prepares for self destruction. The great force of the scenes which ensue lies in the Devil's comments and repartees." " Croly.-L. E. Come as ye were, That our eyes may behold The model in air Of the form I will mould, Bright as the Iris When ether is spann'd; But be it so! Shadow, pass on! [The phantom of Julius Cæsar disappears. Such his desire is, [Pointing to ARNOLD. Left graves enough, and woes enough, and fame Such my command! Demons heroic Demons who wore The form of the stoic Or sophist of yore- To each high Roman's picture, Up to your duty This is the hour! [Various Phantoms arise from the waters, and pass in succession before the Stranger and ARNOLD. Arn. What do I see? Stran. The black-eyed Roman, with The eagle's beak between those eyes which ne'er B-held a conqueror, or look'd along The land he made not Rome's, while Rome became His, and all theirs who heir'd his very name. (1) Arn. The phantom's bald; my quest is beauty. Could I Inherit but his fame with his defects! Stran. His brow was girt with laurels more than hairs. You see his aspect―choose it, or reject. can but promise you his form; his fame fast be long sought and fought for. Arn. More than enough to track his memory; I' the sun. Behold another! Arn. [A second phantom passes. Who is he? I will fight too, To promise that; but you may try, and find it at not as a mock Cæsar. Let him pass; fis aspect may be fair, but suits me not. Stran. Then you are far more difficult to please Than Cato's sister, or than Brutus' mother, Cleopatra at sixteen-an age When love is not less in the eye than heart. le phenomenon alluded to by Lord Byron, see Sir David rewster's Natural Magic, p. 128.-L. E. (1) "Full in the passage of each spacious gate, The sage historians in white garments wait; Pope. Temple of Fame.-L. E. 2) In one of Lord Byron's MS. Diaries we find the fol hwing passage :—“ Alcibiades is said to have been success The greatest panegyric that Cæsar ever met with is," says r. Warton, "from Lord Bacon, in the Advancement of Learning, B-LE One cannot help being struck with Lord Byron's choice of a faFrite among the heroic names of antiquity. The man who was cated by Pericles, and who commanded the admiration as well the affection of Socrates; whose gallantry and boldness were al ys as undisputed as the pre-eminent graces of his person and anners; who died at forty-five, after having been successively the light and hero of Athens, of Sparta, of Persia;-this most versa. e of great men has certainly left to the world a very splendid retation. But his fathe is stained with the recollections of a most rogate and debauched course of private life, and of the most com. ete and flagrant contempt of public principle; and it is to be hoped sat there are not many men who could gravely give to the name of Alabiades a preference, on the whole, over such a one as that of Arn. No. I was not born for philosophy, Though I have that about me which has need on't. Let him fleet on. Stran. Be air, thou hemlock-drinker! [The shadow of Socrates disappears: another rises. ful in all his battles'-but what battles? Name them! If you mention Cæsar, or Hannibal, or Napoleon, you at once rush upon Pharsalia, Munda, Alesia, Cannæ, Thrasymene, Trebia, Lodi, Marengo, Jena, Austerlitz, Friedland, Wagram, Moskwa: but it is less easy to pitch upon the victories of Alcibiades; though they may be named too, though not so readily as the Leuctra and Mantinæa of Epaminondas, the Marathon of Miltiades, the Salamis of Themistocles, and the Thermopylae of Leonidas. Yet, upon the whole, it may be doubted whether there be a name of antiquity which comes down with such a general charm as that of Alcibiades. Why? I cannot answer. Who can?"-L. E. (3) The outside of Socrates was that of a satyr and buffoon, but his soul was all virtue, and from within him came such divine and pathetic things, as pierced the heart, and drew tears from the hearers." Plato.-L. E. an Epaminondas or a Leonidas, or even of a Miltiades or a Hannibal. But the career of Alcibiades was romantic: every great event in which he had a share has the air of a personal adventure; and, whatever might be said of his want of principle, moral and political, nobody ever doubted the greatness of his powers and the brilliancy of his accomplishments. By the gift of nature, the handsomest creature of his time, and the possessor of a very extraordinary genius, he was, by accidents or by fits, a soldier,-a hero,-an orator,-and even, it should seem, a philosopher; but he played these parts only because he wished it to be thought that there was no part which be could not play. He thought of nothing but himself. His vanity entirely commanded the direction of his genius, and could even make him abandon occasionally his voluptuousness for the very opposite extreme; which last circumstance, by the way, was probably one of those that had hit Lord Byron's fancy-as indeed it may be suspected to have influenced his behaviour." Lockhart.-L. E. (1) "His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm As beautiful and clear as the amber waves Arn. I gaze upon him As if I were his soul, whose form shall soon Envelop mine. Stran. You have done well. The greatest Arn. Why not? Stran. Glorious ambition! I love thee most in dwarfs! A mortal of Philistine stature would have gladly pared His own Goliath down to a slight David: But thou, my manikin, wouldst soar a show Rather than hero. Thou shalt be indulged, If such be thy desire; and yet, by being A little less removed from present men In figure, thou canst sway them more; for all Would rise against thee now, as if to hunt A new-found mammoth; and their cursed engines, Their culverins, and so forth, would find way Through our friend's armour there, with greater eas Than the adulterer's arrow through his heel, Which Thetis had forgotten to baptize In Styx. Arn. Then let it be as thou deem'st best. [seest Stran. Thou shalt be beauteous as the thing the (2) "The beauty and mien of Demetrius Poliorcetes wer so inimitable, that no statuary or painter could hit off likeness. His countenance had a mixture of grace and dig nity, and was at once amiable and awful, and the unsa dued and eager air of youth was blended with the majesty of the hero and the king. There was the same happy ture in his behaviour, which inspired, at the same time both pleasure and awe. In his hours of leisure, a mus agreeable companion; in his talk, and every species of ea tertainment, of all princes the most delicate; and yet, wher business called, nothing could equal his activity, bis gence, and despatch. In which respect he imitated Bacchas most of all the gods; since he was not only terrible in wa but knew how to terminate war with peace, and turn with the happiest address to the joys and pleasures which that inspires." Plutarch.-L. E. |
