The domestic interest of that narrative is supplied by the story of Cleonice a story which, brie?y told by Plutarch, suggests one of the most tragic situations it is possible to conceive. The pathos and terror of this dark, weird episode in a life which history herself invests with all the character of romance, long haunted the imagination of Byron, and elicited from Goethe one of the most whimsical illustrations of the astonishing absurdity into which criticism sometimes tumbles, when it o'erleaps itself and falls 0 the other. Writing of Manfred and its author, he says: There are, properly speaking, two females whose phantoms forever haunt him and which, in this piece also, perform principal parts. One under the name of Astarte, the other without form or actual presence, and merely a voice. Of the horrid occur rence which took place with the former, the following is re lated: When a bold and enterprising young man, he won the affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered the amour, and murdered his wife. But the murderer was the same night found dead in the street, and there was no one to whom any suspicion could be attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and {lime spirits lzazmlea' lzim all lzis life affer. This romantic incident is rendered highly probable by innumerable allusions to it in his poems as, for instance.
