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valled, in earlier or in later times;-and places | excessive simplicity. It is in vain to expect the them, in our estimation, in the very highest praises of such people; for they never praise ; and foremost place among ancient or modern and it is truly very little worth while to poets. disarm their censure. It is only the praises of the real lovers of poetry that ever give it true fame or popularity-and these are little affected by the cavils of the fastidious. Yet the genius of most modern writers seems to be rebuked under that of those pragmatical and insignificant censors. They are so much afraid of faults, that they will scarcely venture upon beauties; and seem more anxious in general to be safe, than original. They dare not indulge in a florid and magnificent way of writing, for fear of being charged with bombast by the cold-blooded and malignant. They must not be tender, lest they should be laughed at for puling and whining; nor discursive and fanciful like their great predecessors, under pain of being held out to derision, as ingenious gentlemen who have dreamed that the gods have made them poetical!

It is in these particulars that the inferiority of their recent imitators is most apparent-in the want of ease and variety-originality and grace. There is, in all their attempts, whatever may be their other merits or defects, an air of anxiety and labour-and indications, by far too visible, at once of timidity and ambition. This may arise, in part, from the fact of their being, too obviously and consciously, imitators. They do not aspire so much to rival the genius of their originals, as to copy their manner. They do not write as they would have written in the present day, but as they imagine they themselves would have written two hundred years ago. They revive the antique phraseology, repeat the venerable oaths, and emulate the quaint familiarities of that classical period-and wonder that they are not mistaken for new incarnations of its departed poets! One great cause why they are not, is, that they speak an unnatural dialect, and are constrained by a masquerade habit; in neither of which it is possible to display that freedom, and those delicate traits of character, which are the life of the drama, and were among the chief merits of those who once exalted it so highly. Another bad effect | of imitation, and especially of the imitation of unequal and irregular models in a critical age, is, that nothing is thought fit to be copied but the exquisite and shining passages;from which it results, in the first place, that all our rivalry is reserved for occasions in which its success is most hopeless; and, in the second place, that instances, even of occasional success, want their proper grace and effect, by being deprived of the relief, shading, and preparation, which they would naturally have received in a less fastidious composition; and, instead of the warm and native and evervarying graces of a spontaneous effusion, the work acquires the false and feeble brilliancy of a prize essay in a foreign tongue-a collection of splendid patches of different texture and pattern.

Thus, the dread of ridicule, which they have ever before their eyes, represses all the emotions, on the expression of which their success entirely depends; and in order to escape the blame of those to whom they can give no pleasure, and through whom they can gain no fame, they throw away their best chance of pleasing those who are capable of relishing their excellences, and on whose admiration alone their reputation must at all events be founded. There is a great want of magnanimity, we think, as well as of wisdom, in this sensitiveness to blame; and we are convinced that no modern author will ever write with the grace and vigour of the older ones, who does not write with some portion of their fearlessness and indifference to censure. Courage, in short, is at least as neces sary as genius to the success of a work of imagination; since, without this, it is impossible to attain that freedom and self-pos. session, without which no talents can ever have fair play, and, far less, that inward confidence and exaltation of spirit which must accompany all the higher acts of the understanding. The earlier writers had probably less occasion for courage to secure them these At the bottom of all this-and perhaps as advantages; as the public was far less critical its most efficient cause-there lurks, we sus- in their day, and much more prone to admirapect, an unreasonable and undue dread of tion than to derision: But we can still trace criticism;-not the deliberate and indulgent in their writings the indications both of a criticism which we exercise, rather for the proud consciousness of their own powers and encouragement of talent than its warning-privileges, and of a brave contempt for the but the vigilant and paltry derision which is perpetually stirring in idle societies, and but too continually present to the spirits of all who aspire to their notice. There is nothing so certain, we take it, as that those who are the most alert in discovering the faults of a work of genius, are the least touched with its beauties. Those who admire and enjoy fine poetry, in short, are quite a different class of persons from those who find out its flaws and defects --who are sharp at detecting a plagiarism or a grammatical inaccuracy, and laudably industrious in bringing to light an obscure passage sneering at an exaggerated one-or wondering at the meaning of some piece of

cavils to which they might expose themselves. In our own times, we know but one writer who is emancipated from this slavish awe of vulgar detraction-this petty timidity about being detected in blunders and faults and that is the illustrious author of Waverley; and the other novels that have made an era in our literature as remarkable, and as likely to be remembered, as any which can yet be traced in its history. We shall not now say how large a portion of his success we ascribe to this intrepid temper of his genius; but we are confident that no person can read any one of his wonderful works, without feeling that their author vas utterly careless of the re

proach of small imperfections; disdained the inglorious labour of perpetual correctness, and has consequently imparted to his productions that spirit and ease and variety, which reminds us of better times, and gives lustre and effect to those rich and resplendent passages to which it left him free to aspire.

As Plays, we are afraid we must also say that the pieces before us are wanting in interest, character, and action—at least we must say this of the three last of them-for there is interest in Sardanapalus-and beauties besides, that make us blind to its other defects. There is, however, throughout, a want of dramatic effect and variety; and we suspect there is something in the character or liab of Lord Byron's genius which will render this unattainable. He has too little sympathy with the ordinary feelings and frailties of humanity, to succeed well in their representation-"His soul is like a star, and dwells apart." It does not "hold the mirror up to nature," nor catch the hues of surrounding objects; but, like a kindled furnace, throws out its intense glare and gloomy grandeur on the narrow scene which it irradiates. He has given us, in his other works, some glorious pictures of nature

Lord Byron, in some respects, may appear not to have been wanting in intrepidity. He has not certainly been very tractable to advice, nor very patient of blame. But this, in him, we fear, is not superiority to censure, but aversion to it; and, instead of proving that he is indifferent to detraction, shows only, that the dread and dislike of it operate with more than common force on his mind. A critic, whose object was to give pain, would | desire no better proof of the efficacy of his inflictions, than the bitter scorn and fierce defiance with which they are encountered; and the more vehemently the noble author pro--some magnificent reflections, and some intests that he despises the reproaches that have been bestowed on him, the more certain it is that he suffers from their severity, and would be glad to escape, if he cannot overbear, them. But however this may be, we think it is certain that his late dramatic efforts have not been made carelessly, or without anxiety. To us, at least, they seem very elaborate and hard-wrought compositions; and this indeed we take to be their leading characteristic, and the key to most of their peculiarities.

Considered as Poems, we confess they appear to us to be rather heavy, verbose, and inelegant--deficient in the passion and energy which belongs to the other writings of the noble author-and still more in the richness of imagery, the originality of thought, and the sweetness of versification for which he used to be distinguished. They are for the most part solemn, prolix, and ostentatious lengthened out by large preparations for catastrophes that never arrive, and tantalizing us with slight specimens and glimpses of a higher interest, scattered thinly up and down many weary pages of declamation. Along with the concentrated pathos and homestruck sentiments of his former poetry, the noble author seems also, we cannot imagine why, to have discarded the spirited and melodious versification in which they were embodied, and to have formed to himself a measure equally remote from the spring and vigour of his former compositions, and from the softness and flexibility of the ancient masters of the drama. There are some sweet lines, and many of great weight and energy; but the general march of the verse is cumbrous and unmusical. His lines do not vibrate like polished lances, at once strong and light, in the hands of his persons, but are wielded like clumsy batons in a bloodless affray. Instead of the graceful familiarity and idiomatical melodies of Shakespeare, they are apt, too, to fall into clumsy prose, in their approaches to the easy and colloquial style; and, in the loftier passages, are occasionally deformed by low and common images, that harmonize but ill with the general solemnity of the diction.

imitable delineations of character: But the same feelings prevail in them all; and his portraits in particular, though a little varied in the drapery and attitude, seem all copied from the same original. His Childe Harold, his Giaour, Conrad, Lara, Manfred, Cain, and Lucifer-are all one individual. There is the same varnish of voluptuousness on the surface-the same canker of misanthropy at the core, of all he touches. He cannot draw the changes of many-coloured life, nor transport himself into the condition of the infinitely diversified characters by whom a stage should be peopled. The very intensity of his feelings-the loftiness of his views the pride of his nature or his genius-withhold him from this identification; so that in personating the. heroes of the scene, he does little but repeat himself. It would be better for him, we think, if it were otherwise. We are sure it would be better for his readers. He would get more fame, and things of far more worth than fame, if he would condescend to a more extended and cordial sympathy with his fellow-creatures; and we should have more variety of fine poetry, and, at all events, better tragedies. We have no business to read him a homily on the sinfulness of pride and uncharity; but we have a right to say, that it argues a poorness of genius to keep always to the same topics and persons; and that the world will weary at last of the most energetic pictures of misanthropes and madmen-outlaws and their mistresses!

A man gifted as he is, when he aspires at dramatic fame, should emulate the greatest of dramatists. Let Lord Byron then think of Shakespeare-and consider what a noble range of character, what a freedom from mannerism and egotism, there is in him! How much he seems to have studied nature; how little to have thought about himself; how seldom to have repeated or glanced back at his own most successful inventions! Why indeed should he? Nature was still open before him, and inexhaustible; and the freshness and variety that still delight his readers, must have had constant atractions for him. self. Take his Hamlet, for instance. What

after stage-effect-if he is not haunted with the visible presentment of the persons he has created-if, in setting down a vehement invective, he does not fancy the tone in which Mr. Kean would deliver it, and anticipate the long applauses of the pit, then he may be sure that neither his feelings nor his genius are in unison with the stage at all. Why, then, should he affect the form, without the power of tragedy? He may, indeed, produce a mystery like Cain, or a far sweeter vision, like Manfred, without subjecting himself to the censure of legitimate criticism: But if, with a regular subject before him, capable of all the strength and graces of the drama, he does not feel himself able or willing to draw forth its resources so as to affect an audience with terror and delight, he is not the man we want-and his time and talents are wasted here. Didactic reasoning and eloquent description will not compensate, in a play, for a dearth of dramatic spirit and invention: and besides, sterling sense and poetry, as such, ought to stand by themselves, without the unmeaning mockery of a dramatis personæ.

a character is there!-how full of thought spirit of the drama-if he has no hanketing and refinement, and fancy and individuality! "How infinite in faculties! In form and motion how express and admirable! The beauty of the universe, the paragon of animals!" Yet close the play, and we meet with him no more--neither in the author's other works, nor any where else! A common uthor who had hit upon such a character, would have dragged it in at every turn, and worn it to very tatters. Sir John Falstaff, again, is a world of wit and humour in himself. But except in the two parts of Henry IV., there would have been no trace of such a being, had not the author been "ordered to continue him" in the Merry Wives of Windsor. He is not the least like Benedick, or Mercutio, or Sir Toby Belch, or any of the other witty and jovial personages of the same author-nor are they like each other. Othello is one of the most striking and powerful inventions on the stage. But when the play closes, we hear no more of him! The poet's creation comes no more to life again, under a fictitious name, than the real man would have done. Lord Byron in Shakespeare's place, would have peopled the world with black Othellos! What indications are there of Lear in any of his earlier plays? What traces of it in any that he wrote afterwards? None. It might have been written by any other man, he is so little conscious of it. He never once returns to that huge sea of sorrow; but has left it standing by itself, shoreless and unapproachable! Who else could have afforded not to have "drowned the stage with tears" from such a source? But we must break away from Shakespeare, and come at last to the work before us.

As to Lord Byron's pretending to set up the Unities at this time of day, as "the law of literature throughout the world," it is mere caprice and contradiction. He, if ever man was, is a law to himself—“a chartered libertine;"-and now, when he is tired of this unbridled licence, he wants to do penance within the Unities! This certainly looks very like affectation; or, if there is any thing sincere in it, the motive must be, that, by getting rid of so much story and action, in order to simplify the plot and bring it within the prescribed limits, he may fill up the blank In a very brief preface, Lord Byron renews spaces with long discussions, and have nearly his protest against looking upon any of his all the talk to himself! For ourselves, we plays, as having been composed "with the will confess that we have had a considerable most remote view to the stage "-and, at the contempt for those same Unities, ever since same time, testifies in behalf of the Unities, we read Dennis' Criticism on Cato in our as essential to the existence of the drama-boyhood-except indeed the unity of action, according to what "was, till lately, the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so, in the more civilised parts of it." We do not think those opinions very consistent; and we think that neither of them could possibly find favour with a person whose genius had a truly dramatic character. We should as soon expect an orator to compose a speech altogether unfit to be spoken. A drama is not merely a dialogue, but an action: and necessarily supposes that something is to pass before the eyes of assembled spectators. Whatever is peculiar to its written part, should derive its peculiarity from this consideration. Its style should be throughout an accompaniment to action-and should be calculated to excite the emotions, and keep alive the attention, of gazing multitudes. If an author does not bear this continually in his mind, and does not write in the ideal presence of an eager and diversified assemblage, he may be a poet perhaps, but assuredly he never will be a dramatist. If Lord Byron really does not wish to impregnate his elaborate scenes with the living

which Lord Byron does not appear to set much store by. Dr. Johnson, we conceive, has pretty well settled this question and if Lord Byron chooses to grapple with him, he will find that it requires a stronger arm than that with which he puts down our Laureates. We shall only add, that when the moderns tie themselves down to write tragedies of the same length, and on the same simple plan, in other respects, with those of Sophocles and Eschylus, we shall not object to their adhering to the Unities; for there can, in that case, be no sufficient inducement for violating them. But, in the mean time, we hold that English dramatic poetry soars above the Unities, just as the imagination does. The only pretence for insisting on them is, that we suppose the stage itself to be, actually and really, the very spot on which a given action is peform ed; and, if so, this space cannot be removed to another. But the supposition is manifestly quite contrary to truth and experience. The stage is considered merely as a place in which any given action ad libitum may be performed; and accordingly may be shifted, and is

so in imagination, as often as the action reques it. That any writer should ever have insisted on such an unity as this, must appear sufficiently preposterous; but, that the defence of it should be taken up by an author whose plays are never to be acted at all, and which, therefore, have nothing more than a nominal reference to any stage or locality whatever, must strike one as absolutely incredible.

It so happens, however, that the disadvantage, and, in truth, absurdity of sacrificing higher objects to a formality of this kind, is strikingly displayed in one of these dramas THE TWO FOSCARI. The whole interest here turns upon the younger of them having returned from banishment, in defiance of the law and its consequences, from an unconquerable longing after his native country. Now, the only way to have made this sentiment palpable, the practicable foundation of stupendous sufferings, would have been, to have presented him to the audience wearing out his heart in exile-and forming his resolution to return, at a distance from his country, or hovering, in excruciating suspense, within sight of its borders. We might then have caught some glimpse of the nature of his motives, and of so extraordinary a character. But as this would have been contrary to one of the Unities, we first meet with him led from "the Question," and afterwards taken back to it in the Ducal Palace, or clinging to the dungeon-walls of his native city, and expiring from his dread of leaving them; and therefore feel more wonder than sympathy, when we are told in a Jeremiad of wilful lamentations, that these agonising consequences have resulted, not from guilt or disaster, but merely from the intensity of his love for his country. But we must now look at the other Tragedies; and on turning again to SARDANAPALUS, we are half inclined to repent of the severity of some of our preceding remarks, or to own at least that they are not strictly applicable to this performance. It is a work beyond all question of great beauty and power; and though the heroine has many traits in common with the Medoras and Gulnares of Lord Byron's undramatic poetry, the hero must be allowed to be a new character in his hands. He has, indeed, the scorn of war, and glory, and priestcraft, and regular morality, which distinguishes the rest of his Lordship's favourites; but he has no misanthropy, and very little pride-and may be regarded, on the whole, as one of the most truly good-humoured, amiable, and respectable voluptuaries to whom we have ever been presented. In this conception of his character, the author has very wisely followed nature and fancy rather than history. His Sardanapalus is not an effeminate, worn-out debauchee, with shattered nerves and exhausted senses, the slave of indolence and vicious habits; but a sanguine votary of pleasure, a princely epicure, indulging, revelling in boundless luxury while can, but with a soul so inured to voluptuousness, so saturated with delights, that pain and danger, when they come uncalled for, give him neither concern nor dread;

he

and he goes forth, from the banquet to the battle, as to a dance or measure, attired by the Graces, and with youth, joy, and love for his guides. He dallies with Bellona as her bridegroom-for his sport and pastime; and the spear or fan, the shield or shining mirror, become his hands equally well. He enjoys life, in short, and triumphs over death; and whether in prosperous or adverse circumstances, his soul smiles out superior to evil. The Epicurean philosophy of Sardanapalus gives him a fine opportunity, in his conferences with his stern and confidential adviser, Salemenes, to contrast his own imputed and fatal vices of ease and love of pleasure with the boasted virtues of his predecessors, War and Conquest; and we may as well begin with a short specimen of this characteristic discussion. Salemenes is brother to the neglected queen; and the controversy originates in the monarch's allusion to her.

"Sard. Thou think'st that I have wrong'd the queen: is't not so?

Sale. Think! Thou hast wrong'd her! Sard. Patience, prince, and hear me, She has all power and splendour of her station, The homage and the appanage of sovereignty. Respect, the tutelage of Assyria's heirs, I married her, as monarchs wed-for state, And loved her, as most husbands love their wives. If she or thou supposedst I could link me Like a Chaldean peasant to his mate, Ye knew nor me, nor monarchs, nor mankind. Sale. I pray thee, change the theme; my blood disdains Complaint, and Salemenes' sister seeks not Reluctant love, even from Assyria's lord! Nor would she deign to accept divided passion With foreign strumpets and lonian slaves. The queen is silent.

Sard. And why not her brother? Sale. I only echo thee the voice of empires, Which he who long neglects not long will govern. Sard. The ungrateful and ungracious slaves!

they murmur

Because I have not shed their blood, nor led them
Or whiten with their bones the banks of Ganges;
To dry into the desert's dust by myriads,
Nor decimated them with savage laws,
Nor sweated them to build up pyramids,
Or Babylonian walls.

Sale.

Yet these are trophies More worthy of a people and their prince And lavish'd treasures, and contemned virtues. Than songs, and lutes, and feasts, and concubines,

Sard. Oh! for my trophies I have founded cities: There's Tarsus and Anchialus, both built In one day-what could that blood-loving betame, My martial grandam, chaste Semiramis, Do more-except destroy them? Sale.

'Tis most rue ;

I own thy merit in those founded cities,
Built for a whim, recorded with a verse
Which shames both them and thee to coming ages.
Sard. Shame me! By Baal, the cities, thoug

well built,

Are not more goodly than the verse! Say what
Thou wilt against the truth of that brief record,
Why, those few lines contain the history
Of all things human; hear- Sardanapalus
The king, and Son of Anacyndaraxes,
In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus.
Eat, drink, and love! the rest's not worth a fillip.
For a king to put up before his subjects!
Sale. A worthy moral, and a wise inscription,
Sard. Oh, thou wouldst have me doubtless set
up edicts-

Obey the king-contribute to his treasure-
Recruit his phalanx-spill your blood at bidding-
Fall down and worship, or get up and toil.'
Or thus Sardanapalus on this spot
Slew fifty thousand of his enemies.

These are their sepulchres, and this his trophy.'
I leave such things to conquerors; enough
For me, if I can make my subjects feel
The weight of human misery less, and glide
Ungroaning to the tomb; I take no licence
Which I deny to them. We all are men.
Sale. Thy sires have been revered as gods-
Sard.
In dust
And death-where they are neither gods nor men.
Talk not of such to me! the worms are gods;
At least they banqueted upon your gods,
And died for lack of farther nutriment.
Those gods were merely men; look to their issue-
I feel a thousand mortal things about me,
But nothing godlike-unless it may be
The thing which you condemn, a disposition
To love and to be merciful; to pardon
The follies of my species, and (that's human)
To be indulgent to my own."-pp. 18-21.

But the chief charm and vivifying angel of the piece is MYRRHA, the Greek slave of Sardanapalus-a beautiful, heroic, devoted, and ethereal being-in love with the generous and infatuated monarch-ashamed of loving a barbarian-and using all her influence over him to ennoble as well as to adorn his existence, and to arm him against the terrors of its close. Her voluptuousness is that of the heart-her heroism of the affections. If the part she takes in the dialogue be sometimes too subdued and submissive for the lofty daring of her character, it is still such as might become a Greek slave-a lovely Ionian girl, in whom the love of liberty and the scorn of death, was tempered by the consciousness of what she regarded as a degrading passion, and an inward sense of fitness and decorum with reference to her condition. The development of this character and its consequences form so material a part of the play, that most of the citations with which we shall illustrate our abstract of it will be found to bear upon it.

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Salemenes, in the interview to which we have just alluded, had driven "the Ionian minion" from the royal presence by his reproaches. After his departure, the Monarch again recalls his favourite, and reports to her the warning he had received. Her answer lets us at once into the nobleness and delicacy of her character.

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Sard.

Ay, from dark plots and snares

Myr. Fear!-I'm a Greek, and how should I
fear death?

A slave, and wherefore should I dread my freedom?
Sard. Then wherefore dost thou turn so pale?
Myr.
I love--

Sard. And do not I? I love thee far-far more
Than either the brief life or the wide realm,
Which, it may be, are menaced: yet I blanch not.
Myr.
When he who is their ruler
Forgets himself, will they remember him?
Sard. Myrrha !

Myr. Frown not upon me: you have smiled
Too often on me, not to make those frowns
Bitterer to bear than any punishment
Which they may augur.-King, I am your subject!
Master, I am your slave! Man, I have loved you!-
Loved you, I know not by what fatal weakness,
Although a Greek, and born a foe to monarchs-
A slave, and hating fetters-an Ionian,
And, therefore, when I love a stranger, more
Degraded by that passion than by chains!
Still I have loved you. If that love were strong
Enough to overcome all former nature,
Shall it not claim the privilege to save you!

And what I seek of thee is love-not safety.
Sard. Save me, my beauty! Thou art very fair,
Myr. And without love where dwells security?
Sard. I speak of woman's love.

of human life must spring from woman's breast;
Myr.
The very first
Your first small words are taught you from her lips,
Your first tears quench'd by her, and your last
sighs

Too often breathed out in a woman's hearing,
When men have shrunk from the ignoble care
Of watching the last hour of him who led them.
The very chorus of the tragic song
Sard. My eloquent Ionian! thou speak'st music!
I have heard thee talk of as the favourite pastime
Of thy far father-land. Nay, weep not-calm thee.
Myr. I weep not-But I pray thee, do not speak
About my fathers, or their land!

Sard.

Thou speakest of them.

Yet oft

Myr. True-true! constant thought Will overflow in words unconsciously; But when another speaks of Greece, it wounds me. Sard. Well, then, how wouldst thou save me, as [founders.

thou saidst?

Myr. Look to the annals of thine empire's Sard. They are so blotted over with blood, I

cannot.

[ed. But what wouldst have? the empire has been foundI cannot go on multiplying empires. Myr. Preserve thine own. Sard.

At least I will enjoy it. Come, Myrrha, let us on to the Euphrates; The hour invites, the galley is prepared, And the pavilion, deck'd for our return. In fit adornment for the evening banquet, Shall blaze with beauty and with light, until It seems unto the stars which are above us Itself an opposite star; and we will sit Crown'd with fresh flowers likeMyr. Victims. Sard.

No, like sovereigns, The shepherd kings of patriarchal times, Who knew no brighter gems than summer wreaths. And none but tearless triumphs. Let us on." pp. 31-36.

The second act, which contains the details of the conspiracy of Arbaces, its detection by

From Medes-and discontented troops and nations. the vigilance of Salamenes, and the too rash

I know not what-a labyrinth of things-
A maze of mutter'd threats and mysteries:
Thou know'st the man-it is his usual custom.
But he is honest. Come, we'll think no more on't-
But of the midnight festival.

Myr.

'Tis time

To think of aught save festivals. Thou hast not
Spurn'd his sage cautions?
Sard.
What?-and dost thou fear?

and hasty forgiveness of the rebels by the King, is. on the whole, heavy and uninteresting. Early in the third act, the royal ban quet is disturbed by sudden tidings of trea son and revolt; and then the reveller blazes out into the hero, and the Greek blood of Myrrha mounts to its proper office!

The

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