There is something spiritually fine in this conception of the terror or presentiment of coming evil.  The poet rises to the sublime in making Lucifer first inspire Cain with the knowledge of his immortality—­a portion of truth which hath the efficacy of falsehood upon the victim; for Cain, feeling himself already unhappy, knowing that his being cannot be abridged, has the less scruple to desire to be as Lucifer, “mighty.”  The whole speech of Lucifer, beginning,

Souls who dare use their immortality,

is truly satanic; a daring and dreadful description given by everlasting despair of the Deity.

But, notwithstanding its manifold immeasurable imaginations, Cain is only a polemical controversy, the doctrines of which might have been better discussed in the pulpit of a college chapel.  As a poem it is greatly unequal; many passages consist of mere metaphysical disquisition, but there are others of wonderful scope and energy.  It is a thing of doubts and dreams and reveries—­dim and beautiful, yet withal full of terrors.  The understanding finds nothing tangible; but amid dread and solemnity, sees only a shapen darkness with eloquent gestures.  It is an argument invested with the language of oracles and omens, conceived in some religious trance, and addressed to spirits.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Removal to Pisa—­The Lanfranchi Palace—­Affair with the Guard at Pisa—­Removal to Monte Nero—­Junction with Mr Hunt—­Mr Shelley’s Letter

The unhappy distrusts and political jealousies of the times obliged Lord Byron, with the Gambas, the family of the Guiccioli, to remove from Ravenna to Pisa.  In this compulsion he had no cause to complain; a foreigner meddling with the politics of the country in which he was only accidentally resident, could expect no deferential consideration from the government.  It has nothing to do with the question whether his Lordship was right or wrong in his principles.  The government was in the possession of the power, and in self-defence he could expect no other course towards him than what he did experience.  He was admonished to retreat:  he did so.  Could he have done otherwise, he would not.  He would have used the Austrian authority as ill as he was made to feel it did him.

In the autumn of 1821, Lord Byron removed from Ravenna to Pisa, where he hired the Lanfranchi palace for a year—­one of those massy marble piles which appear

“So old, as if they had for ever stood—­ So strong, as if they would for ever stand!”

Both in aspect and character it was interesting to the boding fancies of the noble tenant.  It is said to have been constructed from a design of Michael Angelo; and in the grandeur of its features exhibits a bold and colossal style not unworthy of his genius.

The Lanfranchi family, in the time of Dante, were distinguished in the factions of those days, and one of them has received his meed of immortality from the poet, as the persecutor of Ugolino.  They are now extinct, and their traditionary reputation is illustrated by the popular belief in the neighbourhood, that their ghosts are restless, and still haunt their former gloomy and gigantic habitation.