ignore or severely
censured (e.g. writers in the _Critical_, _European_, and _Gentleman's_
Magazines) the allusions to an incestuous passion between Manfred and
Astarte. Shelley, in a letter to Mrs. Gisborne, November 16, 1819,
commenting on Calderon's _Los Cabellos de Absalon,_ discusses the
question from an ethical as well as critical point of view: "The incest
scene between Amon and Tamar is perfectly tremendous. Well may Calderon
say, in the person of the former--

Si sangre sin fuego hiere
Qua fara sangre con fuego.'

Incest is, like many other incorrect things, a very poetical
circumstance. It may be the defiance of everything for the sake of
another which clothes itself in the glory of the highest heroism, or it
may be that cynical rage which, confounding the good and the bad in
existing opinions, breaks through them for the purpose of rioting in
selfishness and antipathy."--_Works of P. B. Shelley,_ 1880, iv. 142.]

[ax] {100} ----_and some insaner sin_.--[MS. erased.]

[128] [Compare _Childe Harold,_ Canto III. stanza v. lines 1, 2.]

[129] {102}This iris is formed by the rays of the sun over the lower
part of the Alpine torrents; it is exactly like a rainbow come down to
pay a visit, and so close that you may walk into it: this effect lasts
till noon. ["Before ascending the mountain, went to the torrent (7 in
the morning) again; the Sun upon it forming a _rainbow_ of the lower
part of all colours, but principally purple and gold; the bow moving as
you move; I never saw anything like this; it is only in the Sunshine"
(_Letters_, 1899, iii, 359).]

[130] ["Arrived at the foot of the Mountain (the Yung frau, i.e. the
Maiden); Glaciers; torrents; one of these torrents _nine hundred feet_
in height of visible descent ... heard an Avalanche fall, like thunder;
saw Glacier--enormous. Storm came on, thunder, lightning, hail; all in
perfection, and beautiful.... The torrent is in shape curving over the
rock, like the _tail_ of a white horse streaming in the wind, such as it
might be conceived would be that of the '_pale_ horse' on which _Death_
is mounted in the Apocalypse. It is neither mist nor water, but a
something between both; it's immense height ... gives it a wave, a
curve, a spreading here, a condensation there, wonderful and
indescribable" (ibid., pp. 357, 358).]

[ay] {103}_Wherein seems glassed_----.--[MS. of extract, February 15,
1817.]

[131] {104}[Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. st