of love between brother and sister. Brandes "attributes these cases, as well as that in the Revolt of Islam and Rosalind and Helen, to the influence of Wilhelm Meister. It is just as easy to believe, however, that Byron, at least, received this idea from Gessner, for while he was taking so much from Abels Tod, he may just as well have taken this, too. Gessner has represented the marriages between brothers and sisters in the first family, as natural and right. Byron does the same and Adah is grieved to know that it cannot always be so in their children. She asks:

"What is the sin which is not

Sin in itself? Can circumstances make sin
Or virtue?"

Act I, Scene I.

The revolutionary movement carried to an extreme, could easily lead to such a conclusion. Liberty meant to both Byron and Shelley the severance of every restraint laid down by custom, which limited their freedom. Godwin refused to believe in the marriage tie. Just how far Gessner influenced this extreme aspect of the revolutionary school, it is hard to say. That his influence was unintentional in this respect, there is no doubt; for a belief in such a theory would have been the farthest from his thoughts. Nevertheless, the picture which he draws, even though it was intended only for the first years of the world's existence, could easily be transferred to modern times by one whose imagination was sufficiently active. There was a restlessness felt everywhere, and dissatisfaction with existing institutions. This was accompanied by a longing for, and belief in, an ideal state of existence. In the Conversations of Lord Byron with Lady Blessington she writes:

"Byron wished for that Utopian state of perfection which experience teaches us it is impossible to attain-the simplicity and good faith of savage life, with the refinement and intelligence of civilization." Possessed with such a longing, it is easy to understond how Gessner's picture of patriarchal simplicity and innocence could take a strong hold on his mind, without his realizing it.

"Die Hauptströmungen der Litteratur des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Übersetzt und eingeleitet von A. Stodtman, 1872-'76.

In the work on Cain und seine Quellen," by Alfred Schaffner, little credit is given to the influence of Gessner on Byron's Mystery. The two parallel passages are quoted which had been cited by Dr. Schirmacher in his Cain, a Mystery by Lord Byron, but these are regarded by Schaffner as of no weight. Yet Schaffner himself admits that in both works Abel is the same character, "der redselige Sittenprediger." We quote from him:

"Den denkbar verschiedensten dichterischen Intentionen ist hier dasselbe Gebilde entsprungen; allerdings geht bei Gessner die thränenselige Geschwätzigkeit Abels mitunter über das Maass des Erlaubten hinaus, aber hievon abgesehen ist auch der Byronische Abel keine sympatischere Figur als jener."

As to the passages cited by Schirmacher there is little that need be said. The first,

"Oh thou beautiful

And unimaginable ether! and
Ye multiplying masses of increased
And still-increasing lights!"

Act II, Scene 1.

etc.

is compared to the passage in the Death of Abel where Cain, dreaming of the future, sees a "blumige Flur, klare Quellen,* Schaffner sees in these passages a similarity "nur ganz äusserlich erweist."

It seems to me, on the other hand, there is no similarity, as far as the wording is concerned, and no likeness whatever in the character of the landscape which is pictured. The similarity which exists is not "äusserlich," but one far more important. The similarity lies in the use that has been made of the landscape. In each case, it is introduced to draw Cain away from his real life and to picture in his mind, by means of a delusion, an imaginary state which shall make him so dissatisfied with his present condition that he will revolt aganst it.

Another passage cited in Byron is the following:

"Strassburg, 1880.

Königsberg, 1863 (Programme).

45

"Vierter Gesang.

45 Act II, Scene II.

"Alas the hopeless wretches!

They too must share my sire's fate, like his sons;
Like them, too, without having shared the apple;
Like them, too, without the so dear-bought knowledge!"

These lines are compared with the passage in Gessner where Eve at the sight of a dead bird laments that she has brought misery to every creature. Schaffner says:

"Bei Eva ist es eine Regung reuvollen Mitleids, die ihr die Selbstanklage auspresst;-Cains Worte sind nur eine neue Variation seines ewigen Themas: Death and no knowledge!"

We do not

This explanation, however, is not satisfactory. question the fact that Byron used the same idea for a different dramatic purpose than that for which Gessner had employed it; but the important fact in our discussion is, that the same idea does exist in both passages--that bird and beast have been made to suffer through the sin of our first parents.

Schaffner says moreover:

"Es erscheint doch etwas gewagt, aus diesen beiden einzigen Stellen denn weiter 'Aehnlichkeiten' aufzufinden ist uns nicht gelungen auf eine Beeinflussung Byron's durch das ältere Gedicht zu schliessen." Even a cursory reading of the two works would seem sufficient to reveal "weitere Aehnlichkeiten" than the two single passages quoted above. The chief point of similarity lies, not in the language-for that reason the citing of parallel passages is not altogether satisfactory-but in the portraiture of the characters themselves. We recognize them still, even in their Byronic dress; their patriarchal atmosphere has been unchanged; and much of the incident was suggested by the Death of Abel.

The dissertation by Friedrich Blumenthal on Lord Byron's Mystery "Cain" and its Relation to Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Gessner's "Death of Abel" furnishes us no new material. As has and Englische Studien, "9 there is no

been said in both Anglia

49

reference whatever in this thesis to the works on Byron, which had

Abels 7od, Zweiter Gesang.

"Program der Oberrealschule zu Oldenburg, 1891. 12 p. 4°.

Beiblatt, Bd. 3, 90.

Vol. 16, p. 310.

previously been published. The author simply tells the story of the Mystery and then expresses his own opinions regarding the influence of Milton and Gessner upon this drama. He finds no similarity between the Death of Abel and Cain: a Mystery except in the character of Abel, and a few points of resemblance in Cain's wife, as she is drawn by the two poets.

In Heaven and Earth much of the pride and defiance of Cain is retained in the character of Aholibamah. Speaking of Cain, she says:

"Shall I blush for him

From whom we had our being? Look upon
Our race; behold their stature and their beauty,
Their courage, strength, and length of days."

Part I, Scene 3.

We have shown that in his pride, Byron's Cain resembles the Cain of Gessner.

Special interest attaches to the sketch of the second part, as given by Medwin.50 Adah and Aholibamah had been carried away by the angels Azaziel and Samiasa.

"They, in the meantime, continue their aerial voyage, everywhere denied admittance in those floating islands over the sea of space, and driven back by guardian-spirits of the different planets, till they are at length forced to alight on the only peak of the earth uncovered by water. Here a parting takes place between the lovers." The fallen angels are then called away, the ark comes near, and Japhet pleads with Noah to save the sisters, at least Adah. The Patriarch is inexorable and she is swept by a wave from the rock. Byron complicates the situation by introducing many lovers, but it is worth noting the fact that in Gessner's Sündflut the last beings to survive the flood were two lovers who perish in each other's arms.

In Manfred we meet again that element of remorse which was so important a feature of the Death of Abel. In Coleridge's Remorse relief is found through the love of a brother; in Gessner's Death of Abel, through the love of Cain's wife. Manfred seeks it in Nature, but like the Cain of Coleridge's Wanderings, he fails

50 Conversations of Byron, 1824.

to find it. Manfred was written four years previous to Cain: a Mystery, but even then the poet was strongly influenced by the thought which he later expressed in the character of Cain:

"The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life."

Act I, Scene 1.

In his longing for self-oblivion Manfred is like Gessner's Cain. Manfred beseeches the Spirit to give him this "oblivion" and "forgetfulness, 51 but he does not find it in their hidden realms.

Cain prays:

"Umhülle mich, schwarzes Dunkel!

Verbirg mich vor den Augen der Natur!"

Fünfter Gesang.

Yet he knows that even in the remotest places of the earth he will not find forgetfulness, and it is that which he craves:

"Wenn dann der Schlaf Schreknisse von schwarzen Flügeln über mich ausstreut, dann wird sein Bild vor mir streben mit zerschmettertem Haupt und Blut-triefelnden Loken."

Fünfter Gesang.

In Lord Byron's Preface to Cain he said he remembered nothing of the Death of Abel except "that Cain's wife was called Mehala and Abel's Thirza." He did not use these names in his Mystery, yet he employs the name of the latter in a poem written in October, 1811, called To Thyrza. The name must have had a fascination for him. We quote the following from Coleridge's edition of Byron:

"On one occasion he showed Lady Byron a beautiful tress of hair, which she understood to be Thyrza's. He said he had never mentioned her name and that now she was gone his breast was the sole depository of that secret. 'I took the name of Thyrza from Gessner. She was Abel's wife.""

BERTHA REED,

Woman's College, Baltimore.

(To be Continued.)

61 Act I, Scene I.