This is imagined in the true tone of Epicurean virtue, and it rises to magnanimity when he adds in compassionate scorn,

Oh, men! ye must be ruled with scythes, not sceptres,
And mow’d down like the grass, else all we reap
Is rank abundance and a rotten harvest
Of discontents infecting the fair soil,
Making a desert of fertility.

But the graciousness in the conception of the character of Sardanapalus, is not to be found only in these sentiments of his meditations, but in all and every situation in which the character is placed.  When Salamenes bids him not 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.