Both oracles partake the same mystic character and allude obscurely to the same fearful and overwhelming event.
The character of Arbaces, the Egyptian Magus, is peculiarly after Bulwer's own heart—for he is an entire, thorough, irredeemable demon, who weeps over venomous reptiles and kills innocent men: but a very large portion of his mystic discourse, which appears on pages 81-2-3-4 of volume first, is borrowed, as customary, without even an apologetic allusion, from Moore's Epicurean. We leave that poet to reclaim his property, and proceed to assert the identity of our own. In the novel, Arbaces beguiles Ione into his house, with the resolution to possess her by fraud or violence. In the poem, the priest of Isis inveigles the virgin of Pompeii into his lascivious temple with the same intent. Both the priest and Arbaces, having conquered every obstacle, are rapidly advancing to the accomplishment of their evil designs, when they are interrupted, and their victims rescued by the very same awful occurrence;
"At that awful moment," says Bulwer, "the floor shook under them with a rapid and convulsive throe—a mightier spirit than that of the Egyptian was abroad! a giant and crushing power, before which sunk into sudden impotence his passion and his arts. It woke—it stirred—that dread Demon of the Earthquake," etc.11
| "I woo no longer, thou art in my grasp, And by the Immortals I disown, thou shalt"— |
Says our unsainted priest of Isis, when the victim cries exultingly—
| "'It comes! the temple reels and crashes—Jove! I thank thee! Vesta! let me sleep with thee!' And on the bosom of the earthquake rocked The statues and the pillars, and her brain Whirled with the earth's convulsions, as the maid Fell by a trembling image and upraised A prayer of gratitude; while through the vaults, In fear and ghastly horror, fled the priest, Breathing quick curses mid his warning cries For succor; and the obscene birds their wings Flapped o'er his pallid face, and reptiles twined In folds of knotted venom round his feet. Yet on he rushed—the blackened walls around Crashing—the spectral lights hurled hissing down The cold green waters; and thick darkness came To bury ruin!" |
11 Vol. i. p. 159.
The denouement of the scene is the same in the novel and the poem—a statue, hurled from its pedestal, strikes the unhallowed violator to the earth. There is no scene in Baron more actually transcribed from the Andrian of Terence than this from 'The Last Night of Pompeii!' But the scene in the amphitheatre, where the Christian Olinthus and the lover Glaucus are doomed to perish by the fangs of the famished lion, is still more strikingly similar than any in the novel, except the description of the destruction. Arbaces, actuated by unholy love of Ione, is the author of the disgrace and ruin of both these personages; and the prætor Diomede, in the poem, resolves to sacrifice Pansa to the African lion, because he loves and determines to possess Mariamne. The earlier scenes in the amphitheatre are the same; four gladiators are represented in sanguinary strife, and two as having perished, ere the command is given to bring the Christian and lover on the arena, and to loose the Numidian lion. In neither instance, however, will the noble beast attack his destined victim; but shrinks and cowers in utter terror, though goaded on to his dreadful feast. We now solicit a careful comparison of the scenes which succeed, with those which, nearly two years before Mr. Bulwer's book was conceived, we had wrought out with no slight study, and presented to our unregarding countrymen.
The closing scene in the Pompeiian amphitheatre, as represented in 'The Last Days of Pompeii:'
"'Behold how the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the avenging Orcus burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!'"