REMARKS ON THE DRAMA OF CAIN, A Mystery. WITHOUT at all entering on the question, how far the prosecution, by the civil power, of publications deemed blasphemous, and therefore criminal, may be recommended by considerations of expediency, and warranted by soundness of wisdom, I will venture to observe, that the ground on which the defence of Cain, a Mystery, was, some time ago, erected by the counsel for its author, has, as it will not prove difficult to elucidate, been injudiciously and unfairly taken. The leading argument, employed by the counsel for the publication of Lord Byron's "Cain, a Mystery," is, that, if it be blasphemous and liable to prosecution, so is the Paradise Lost of Milton. I see, also, by his Lordship's letter to his bookseller, that he designates it a work of entertainment, or of fancy; not of history, or of argument: in brief, it is a drama; and his Lordship remarks, that the expression of the "higher passions" has always been allowable in dramatic cnmpositions. The author gives himself credit, to which he is entitled, for avoiding to introduce the Almighty, as it were, personally, in the course of the dialogue; and he disapproves the want of a similar observance and caution in the Paradise Lost. Every judicious and dispassionate reader will probably agree with his Lordship, in this instance, of critique on that great work. But, to the point. The defence, set up for the publication of "Cain," amounts, in its leading principle, to this: (viz.) that, if it be blasphemous, Paradise Lost is liable to a similar objection, and a similar prosecution; and, that "Cain" is a drama. To my apprehension, no defence for a client ever stood on a less safe foundation; ever occupied a less tenable situation, than does this. But, objection is not argument--or opinion evidence. Yet, in such a case as this, an appeal to the good sense, the feelings, and the consciences, of men, if made successfully, and proposed in simple language, unaided by any address to passion, may be allowed at once to justify such objection, and to warrant such opinion. Thus, I venture to make my appeal to every reader, who shall examine the different impressions left in his mind, after perusing the dialogue carried on in "Cain," and that in Paradise Lost, whether he has not felt, and does not remain conscious, that a course of reverence and piety distinguishes and recommends the latter; while a malign, impious strain of sentiment and argument in the principal personages of the drama, pervades and renders horrible the former. These questions, as I conceive, will hardly fail to obtain the acknowledgment to which they would lead, and which the writer of this article is certainly desirous of presuming ratified by the concurring testimony of men; because, he thinks-nay, further, he is persuaded, that, when answered in the affirmative, they will be answered agreeably to the honourable, the sacred laws, and impress, of justice and of truth. Presuming, in this place, that such general acknowledgment, such concurrence of testimony, is fairly solicited, and will not be |