Chapter XVII: Introduction: To Cain

Cain was begun at Ravenna, July 16, and finished September 9, 1821 (_vide_ MS. M.). Six months before, when he was at work on the first act of _Sardanapalus_, Byron had "pondered" _Cain_, but it was not till _Sardanapalus_ and a second historical play, _The Two Foscari_, had been written, copied out, and sent to England, that he indulged his genius with a third drama--on "a metaphysical subject, something in the style of _Manfred_" (_Letters_, 1901, v. 189).

Goethe's comment on reading and reviewing _Cain_ was that he should be surprised if Byron did not pursue the treatment of such "biblical subjects," as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (_Conversations, etc._, 1879, p. 62); and, many years after, he told Crabb Robinson (_Diary_, 1869, ii. 435) that Byron should have lived "to execute his vocation ... to dramatize the Old Testament." He was better equipped for such a task than might have been imagined. A Scottish schoolboy, "from a child he had known the Scriptures," and, as his _Hebrew Melodies_ testify, he was not unwilling to turn to the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration. Moreover, he was born with the religious temperament. Questions "of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate," exercised his curiosity because they appealed to his imagination and moved his spirit. He was eager to plunge into controversy with friends and advisers who challenged or rebuked him, Hodgson, for instance, or Dallas; and he responded with remarkable amenity to the strictures and exhortations of such orthodox professors as Mr. Sheppard and Dr. Kennedy. He was, no doubt, from first to last a _heretic_, impatient, not to say contemptuous, of authority, but he was by no means indifferent to religion altogether. To "argue about it and about" was a necessity, if not an agreeable relief, to his intellectual energies. It would appear from the Ravenna diary (January 28, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 190,191), that the conception of Lucifer was working in his brain before the "tragedy of Cain" was actually begun. He had been recording a "thought" which had come to him, that "at the very height of human desire and pleasure, a certain sense of doubt and sorrow"--an _amari aliquid_ which links the future to the past, and so blots out the present--"mingles with our bliss," making it of none effect, and, by way of moral or corollary to his soliloquy, he adds three lines of verse headed, "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 son's sons shall live for evermore."

In these three lines, which were not inserted in the play, and in the preceding "thought," we have the key-note to _Cain_. "Man walketh in a vain shadow"--a shadow which he can never overtake, the shadow of an eternally postponed fruition. With a being capable of infinite satisfaction, he is doomed to realize failure in attainment. In all that is best and most enjoyable, "the rapturous moment and the placid hour," there is a foretaste of "Death the Unknown"! The tragedy of _Manfred_ lies in remorse for the inevitable past; the tragedy of _Cain_, in revolt against the limitations of the inexorable present.

The investigation of the "sources" of _Cain_ does not lead to any very definite conclusion (see _Lord Byron's Cain und Seine Quellen_, von Alfred Schaffner, 1880). He was pleased to call his play "a Mystery," and, in his Preface (_vide post_, p. 207), Byron alludes to the Old Mysteries as "those very profane productions, whether in English, French, Italian, or Spanish." The first reprint of the _Chester Plays_ was published by the Roxburghe Club in 1818, but Byron's knowledge of Mystery Plays was probably derived from _Dodsley's Plays_ (ed. 1780, l., xxxiii.-xlii.), or from John Stevens's Continuation of Dugdale's _Monasticon_ (_vide post_, p. 207), or possibly, as Herr Schaffner suggests, from Warton's _History of English Poetry_, ed. 1871, ii. 222-230. He may, too, have witnessed some belated _Rappresentazione_ of the Creation and Fall at Ravenna, or in one of the remoter towns or villages of Italy. There is a superficial resemblance between the treatment of the actual encounter of Cain and Abel, and the conventional rendering of the same incident in the _Ludus Coventriae_, and in the _Mistere du Viel Testament_; but it is unlikely that he had closely studied any one Mystery Play at first hand. On the other hand, his recollections of Gessner's _Death of Abel_ which "he had never read since he was eight years old," were clearer than he imagined. Not only in such minor matters as the destruction of Cain's altar by a whirlwind, and the substitution of the Angel of the Lord for the _Deus_ of the Mysteries, but in the Teutonic domesticities of Cain and Adah, and the evangelical piety of Adam and Abel, there is a reflection, if not an imitation, of the German idyll (see Gessner's _Death of Abel_, ed. 1797, pp. 80, 102).

Of his indebtedness to Milton he makes no formal acknowledgment, but he was not ashamed to shelter himself behind Milton's shield when he was attacked on the score of blasphemy and profanity. "If _Cain_ be blasphemous, _Paradise Lost_ is blasphemous" (letter to Murray, Pisa, February 8, 1822), was, he would fain believe, a conclusive answer to his accusers. But apart from verbal parallels or coincidences, there is a genuine affinity between Byron's Lucifer and Milton's Satan. Lucifer, like Satan, is "not less than Archangel ruined," a repulsed but "unvanquished Titan," marred by a demonic sorrow, a confessor though a rival of Omnipotence. He is a majestic and, as a rule, a serious and solemn spirit, who compels the admiration and possibly the sympathy of the reader. There is, however, another strain in his ghostly attributes, which betrays a more recent consanguinity: now and again he gives token that he is of the lineage of Mephistopheles. He is sometimes, though rarely, a mocking as well as a rebellious spirit, and occasionally indulges in a grim _persiflage_ beneath the dignity if not the capacity of Satan. It is needless to add that Lucifer has a most lifelike personality of his own. The conception of the spirit of evil justifying an eternal antagonism to the Creator from the standpoint of a superior morality, may, perhaps, be traced to a Manichean source, but it has been touched with a new emotion. Milton's devil is an abstraction of infernal pride--

"Sole Positive of Night!
Antipathist of Light!
Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod--
The one permitted opposite of God!"

Goethe's devil is an abstraction of scorn. He "maketh a mock" alike of good and evil! But Byron's devil is a spirit, yet a mortal too--the traducer, because he has suffered for his sins; the deceiver, because he is self-deceived; the hoper against hope that there is a ransom for the soul in perfect self-will and not in perfect self-sacrifice. Byron did not uphold Lucifer, but he "had passed that way," and could imagine a spiritual warfare not only against the _Deus_ of the Mysteries or of the Book of Genesis, but against what he believed and acknowledged to be the Author and Principle of good.

_Autres temps, autres m[oe]urs!_ It is all but impossible for the modern reader to appreciate the audacity of _Cain_, or to realize the alarm and indignation which it aroused by its appearance. Byron knew that he was raising a tempest, and pleads, in his Preface, "that with regard to the language of Lucifer, it was difficult for me to make him talk like a clergyman," and again and again he assures his correspondents (_e.g._ to Murray, November 23, 1821, "_Cain_ is nothing more than a drama;" to Moore, March 4, 1822, "With respect to Religion, can I never convince you that _I_ have no such opinions as the characters in that drama, which seems to have frightened everybody?" _Letters_, 1901, v. 469; vi. 30) that it is Lucifer and not Byron who puts such awkward questions with regard to the "politics of paradise" and the origin of evil. Nobody seems to have believed him. It was taken for granted that Lucifer was the mouthpiece of Byron, that the author of _Don Juan_ was not "on the side of the angels."

Little need be said of the "literature," the pamphlets and poems which were evoked by the publication of _Cain: A Mystery_. One of the most prominent assailants (said to be the Rev. H. J. Todd (1763-1845), Archdeacon of Cleveland, 1832, author _inter alia_ of _Original Sin_, _Free Will_, etc., 1818) issued _A Remonstrance to Mr. John Murray, respecting a Recent Publication_, 1822, signed "Oxoniensis." The sting of the _Remonstrance_ lay in the exposure of the fact that Byron was indebted to Bayle's _Dictionary_ for his rabbinical legends, and that he had derived from the same source his Manichean doctrines of the _Two Principles, etc._, and other "often-refuted sophisms" with regard to the origin of evil. Byron does not borrow more than a poet and a gentleman is at liberty to acquire by way of raw material, but it cannot be denied that he had read and inwardly digested more than one of Bayle's "most objectionable articles" (_e.g._ "Adam," "Eve," "Abel," "Manichees," "Paulicians," etc.). The _Remonstrance_ was answered in _A Letter to Sir Walter Scott, etc._, by "Harroviensis." Byron welcomed such a "Defender of the Faith," and was anxious that Murray should print the letter together with the poem. But Murray belittled the "defender," and was upbraided in turn for his slowness of heart (letter to Murray, June 6, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 76).

Fresh combatants rushed into the fray: "Philo-Milton," with a _Vindication of the "Paradise Lost" from the charge of exculpating "Cain: A Mystery_," London, 1822; "Britannicus," with a pamphlet entitled, _Revolutionary Causes, etc., and A Postscript containing Strictures on "Cain," etc._, London, 1822, etc.; but their works, which hardly deserve to be catalogued, have perished with them. Finally, in 1830, a barrister named Harding Grant, author of _Chancery Practice_, compiled a work (_Lord Byron's "Cain," etc., with Notes_) of more than four hundred pages, in which he treats "the proceedings and speeches of Lucifer with the same earnestness as if they were existing and earthly personages." But it was "a week too late." The "Coryphaeus of the Satanic School" had passed away, and the tumult had "dwindled to a calm."

_Cain_ "appeared in conjunction with" _Sardanapalus_ and _The Two Foscari_, December 19, 1821. Last but not least of the three plays, it had been announced "by a separate advertisement (_Morning Chronicle_, November 24, 1821), for the purpose of exciting the greater curiosity" (_Memoirs of the Life, etc._ [by John Watkins], 1822, p. 383), and it was no sooner published than it was pirated. In the following January, "_Cain: A Mystery_, by the author of _Don Juan_," was issued by W. Benbow, at Castle Street, Leicester Square (the notorious "Byron Head," which Southey described as "one of those preparatory schools for the brothel and the gallows, where obscenity, sedition, and blasphemy are retailed in drams for the vulgar"!).

Murray had paid Byron L2710 for the three tragedies, and in order to protect the copyright, he applied, through counsel (Lancelot Shadwell, afterwards Vice-Chancellor), for an injunction in Chancery to stop the sale of piratical editions of _Cain_. In delivering judgment (February 12, 1822), the Chancellor, Lord Eldon (see _Courier_, Wednesday, February 13), replying to Shadwell, drew a comparison between _Cain_ and _Paradise Lost_, "which he had read from beginning to end during the course of the last Long Vacation--_solicitae jucunda oblivia vitae_." No one, he argued, could deny that the object and effects of _Paradise Lost_ were "not to bring into disrepute," but "to promote reverence for our religion," and, _per contra_, no one could affirm that it was impossible to arrive at an opposite conclusion with regard to "the Preface, the poem, the general tone and manner of _Cain_." It was a question for a jury. A jury might decide that _Cain_ was blasphemous, and void of copyright; and as there was a reasonable doubt in his mind as to the character of the book, and a doubt as to the conclusion at which a jury would arrive, he was compelled to refuse the injunction. According to Dr. Smiles (_Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 428), the decision of a jury was taken, and an injunction eventually granted. If so, it was ineffectual, for Benbow issued another edition of _Cain_ in 1824 (see Jacob's _Reports_, p. 474, note). See, too, the case of Murray _v_. Benbow and Another, as reported in the _Examiner_, February 17, 1822; and cases of Wolcot _v_. Walker, Southey _v_. Sherwood, Murray _v_. Benbow, and Lawrence _v_. Smith [_Quarterly Review_, April, 1822, vol. xxvii. pp. 120-138].

"_Cain_," said Moore (February 9, 1822), "has made a sensation." Friends and champions, the press, the public "turned up their thumbs." Gifford shook his head; Hobhouse "launched out into a most violent invective" (letter to Murray, November 24, 1821); Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh_, was regretful and hortatory; Heber, in the _Quarterly_, was fault-finding and contemptuous. The "parsons preached at it from Kentish Town to Pisa" (letter to Moore, February 20, 1822). Even "the very highest authority in the land," his Majesty King George IV., "expressed his disapprobation of the blasphemy and licentiousness of Lord Byron's writings" (_Examiner_, February 17, 1822). Byron himself was forced to admit that "my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain" (_Don Juan_, Canto XI. stanza lvi. line 2). The many were unanimous in their verdict, but the higher court of the few reversed the judgment.

Goethe said that "Its beauty is such as we shall not see a second time in the world" (_Conversations, etc._, 1874, p. 261); Scott, in speaking of "the very grand and tremendous drama of _Cain_," said that the author had "matched Milton on his own ground" (letter to Murray, December 4, 1821, _vide post_, p. 206); "_Cain_," wrote Shelley to Gisborne (April 10, 1822), "is apocalyptic; it is a revelation never before communicated to man."

Uncritical praise, as well as uncritical censure, belongs to the past; but the play remains, a singular exercise of "poetic energy," a confession, _ex animo_, of "the burthen of the mystery, ... the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world."

For reviews of _Cain: A Mystery_, _vide ante_, "Introduction to _Sardanapalus_," p. 5; see, too, _Eclectic Review_, May, 1822, N.S. vol. xvii. pp. 418-427; _Examiner_, June 2, 1822; _British Review_, 1822, vol. xix. pp. 94-102.

For O'Doherty's parody of the "Pisa" Letter, February 8, 1822, see _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, February, 1822, vol. xi. pp. 215-217; and for a review of Harding Grant's _Lord Byron's Cain, etc._, see _Fraser's Magazine_, April, 1831, iii. 285-304.

TO

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.,

THIS MYSTERY OF CAIN

IS INSCRIBED,

BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND

AND FAITHFUL SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.[86]