reviews were unfavourable. For instance, the Critical Review (December, 1816, Series V. vol. iv. pp. 567-581) detected the direct but unacknowledged influence of Wordsworth on thought and style; and the Portfolio (No. vi. pp. 121-128), in an elaborate skit, entitled "Literary Frauds," assumed, and affected to prove, that the entire poem was a forgery, and belonged to the same category as The Right Honourable Lord Byron's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, etc.

For extracts from these and other reviews, see Kölbing, Prisoner of Chillon, and Other Poems, Weimar, 1896, excursus i. pp. 3-55.

[7]

[7]

SONNET ON CHILLON  

Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind![1]

Eternal

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art:

For there thy habitation is the heart—

The heart which love of thee alone can bind;

And when thy sons to fetters are consigned—

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,

Their country conquers with their martyrdom,

And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.

Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,

And thy sad floor an altar—for 'twas trod,

Until his very steps have left a trace

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,

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