Note 121 — Scene II.—Hades.

[Matthew Arnold (Poetry of Byron, 1881, p. xxii.) quotes these lines as an instance of Byron's unknowingness and want of humour. It cannot be denied that he leaves imbedded in his fabric lumps of unshapen material, which mar the symmetry of his art. Lucifer's harangue involves a reference to "hard words ending in ism." The spirit of error, not the Manichæan heresy, should have proceeded out of his lips.]