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Fel. Oh, Felisarda ?_

If thou didst own less virtue I might prove
Unkind, and marry thee: but being so rich
In goodness, it becomes me not to bring
One that is poor in every worth, to waste
So excellent a dower: be free, and meet
One that hath wealth to cherish it-I shall
Undo thee quite; but pray for me, as I,

That thou mayst change for a more happy bridegroom;
I dare as soon be guilty of my death,

As make thee miserable by expecting me.
Farewell! and do not wrong my soul, to think
That any storm could separate us two,

But that I have no fortune now to serve thee.
Fel. This will be no exception, sir, I hope,
When we are both dead, yet our bodies may
Be cold, and strangers in the winding sheet,

We shall be married when our spirits meet.'-vol. i. pp. 246–252. Scenes like this are interspersed throughout the whole of the intermediate compositions which form nearly two-thirds of Shirley's dramas. They bear considerable resemblance to some of Calderon's plays, those which are not in his more serious vein, but more elevated and poetical than those Capo y Espada comedies, from which the later English comic writers borrowed so largely. There is the same disregard of probability, (this, however, the animation and activity of the scene scarcely allow us time to detect, or inclination to criticize)—the same love of disguises, princesses in the garb of pages, princes who turn out to be changelings, and humbler characters who turn out to be princes, everybody in love, and everybody in love with the wrong personuntil, by some unexpected dénouement, they all fall into harmonious and well-assorted couples-and a general marriage winds up the whole piece. Like the great Spanish dramatist, Shirley delights in throwing his leading characters into the most embarrassing situations-their constancy is exposed to the rudest trials; sometimes he has caught the high chivalrous tone of self-devotion, the sort of voluntary martyrdom of love which will surrender its object, either at the call of some more commanding duty, or for the greater glory and happiness of its mistress. We would direct particular attention to The Grateful Servant.'

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There is still another class of drama in which Shirley is extremely successful, though here, likewise, the skill of the author is rather shown in the general conduct of his piece, than in the striking execution of single parts. It is a poetic comedy of English and domestic manners, mingled with serious, sometimes with

pathetic

pathetic scenes. To this class belong the Lady of Pleasure, Hyde Park, the whimsical play of Love in a Maze, the Constant Maid, the Gamester, the Example, and one or two others. Shirley's comic, like his tragic powers, are rather fertile and various than rich and original; he is easy and playful rather than broad and vigorous. Of course, even his more serious and tragic plays are relieved, according to the invariable practice of his school, by the humours of the clown or the buffoon. In some of the romantic tragic-comedies, as in the Sisters, a play which we cannot but think might succeed on the modern stage, the main interest is altogether comic; and even in this last class, the comedy of Manners, occur many of those passages of gentle and quiet sweetness, which are characteristic of Shirley. As a satirical painter of manners, as a playful castigator of the fashions, the follies, the humours of the day, he is to Jonson what, in his serious efforts, he is to Fletcher. In all such pictures the very excellence, in some degree, endangers the lasting popularity; the more accurately the resemblance of the poet's own times is drawn, the more alien it is to the habits and feelings of modern days; in precise proportion that such pieces are valuable to the antiquarian, they are obsolete and unintelligible to the common reader. Much, therefore, of the zest and raciness of the following scene must, of course, be lost; it is from the Lady of Pleasure, a play which, but for one wanton and unnecessary blemish, might be quoted almost throughout as a very curious and lively description of fashionable manners in the days of Charles I. Aretina, the wife of Sir Thomas Bornwell, is the Lady Townley, or the Lady Teazle, of an older date :

Steward. Be patient, Madam; you may have your pleasure.
Lady Bornwell. "Tis that I came to town for. I would not
Endure again the country conversation,

To be the lady of six shires! The men,
So near the primitive making, they retain
A sense of nothing but the earth; their brains,

And barren heads standing as much in want
Of ploughing as their ground. To hear a fellow
Make himself merry and his horse, with whistling
Sellinger's Round! To observe with what solemnity

They keep their wakes, and throw for pewter candlesticks!
How they become the morris, with whose bells
They ring all in to Whitsun-ales; and sweat,
Through twenty scarfs and napkins, till the hobby-horse
Tire, and the Maid Marian, dissolv'd to a jelly,
Be kept for spoon meat!

Stew. These, with your pardon, are no argument

To

To make the country life appear so hateful;
At least to your particular, who enjoy'd
A blessing in that calm, would you be pleas'd
To think so, and the pleasure of a kingdom;
While your own will commanded what should move
Delights, your husband's love and power join'd
To give your life more harmony. You liv'd there
Secure, and innocent, beloved of all;

Prais'd for your hospitality, and pray'd for:
You might be envied; but malice knew
Not where you dwelt. I would not prophesy,
But leave to your own apprehension,
What may succeed your change.

Lady B. You do imagine,

No doubt, you have talk'd wisely, and confuted
London past all defence.

Your master should

Do well to send you back into the country,

With title of superintendent-bailiff.

Stew.

How, Madam!

Enter Sir THOMAS BORNWELL.

Born. How now? What's the matter?

Stew. Nothing, Sir.

Born. Angry, sweetheart?

Lady B. I am angry with myself,

To be so miserably restrain'd in things,
Wherein it doth concern your love and honour
To see me satisfied.

Born. In what, Aretina,

Dost thou accuse me? Have I not obey'd
All thy desires? against mine own opinion
Quitted the country, and removed the hope
Of our return, by sale of that fair lordship
We lived in? changed a calm and retired life
For this wild town, compos'd of noise and charge?
Lady B. What charge, more than is necessary for
A lady of my birth and education?

Born. Your charge of gaudy furniture, and pictures
Of this Italian master, and that Dutchman;

Your mighty looking-glasses, like artillery,

Brought home on engines; the superfluous plate,
Antique and novel; vanities of tires;

Four-score pound suppers for my lord your kinsman,
Banquets for t' other lady aunt, and cousins,
And perfumes that exceed all: train of servants,
To stifle us at home, and shew abroad

More motley than the French or the Venetian,

About your coach, whose rude postillion
Must pester every narrow lane, till passengers

And tradesmen curse your choking up their stalls ;

And

And common cries pursue your ladyship,
For hindering of their market.

Lady B. Have you done, sir?

Born. I could accuse the gaiety of your wardrobe,
And prodigal embroideries, under which

Rich satins, plushes, cloth of silver, dare

Not shew their own complexions; your jewels,
Able to burn out the spectators' eyes,

And shew like bonfires on you by the tapers:
I could urge something more.

Lady B. Pray do, I like

Your homily of thrift.

Born. I could wish, madam,

You would not game so much.

Lady B. A gamester too!

Born. But are not come to that acquaintance yet,
Should teach you skill enough to raise your profit.
You look not through the subtilty of cards,
And mysteries of dice; nor can you save
Charge with the box, buy petticoats and pearls,
And keep your family by the precious income;
Nor do I wish you should: my poorest servant
Shall not upbraid my tables, nor his hire,
Purchas'd beneath my honour. You make play
Not a pastime but a tyranny, and vex
Yourself and my estate by it.

Lady B. Good! proceed.

Born. Another game you have, which consumes more

Your fame than purse; your revels in the night,

Your meetings call'd THE BALL, to which repair,

As to the court of pleasure, all your gallants,

And ladies, thither bound by a subpoena
Of Venus, and small Cupid's high displeasure;
'Tis but the Family of Love translated
Into more costly sin!

Lady B. Have you concluded?
Born. I have done; and howsoever

My language may appear to you, it carries
No other than my fair and just intent
To your delights, without curb to their modest
And noble freedom.-vol. iv., pp. 5-10.

We conclude with a few observations on this editio princeps' of Shirley. The plays, as we have before observed, were collected, arranged, and edited by the late Mr. Gifford; and his was a task of no light labour-for never had unhappy author suffered so much from careless and ignorant printers as Shirley. Some errors of the press, which have either crept into this edition or have remained uncorrected, show that the keen eye of that most

accurate

accurate scholar was somewhat bedimmed before his work was concluded; but the fame of Shirley is deeply indebted to the collector of his dramas. Many passages of poetry, which had been crowded into halt and disjointed prose, have been brought back, as near as possible, to their original harmonious flow in some places, the sense, which might have appeared irrevocably lost, by the dislocation of sentences and the transposition of lines, has been restored by conjectural emendations, both bold and felicitous; in others, where words or lines have been lost, the hiatus is marked, and the reader is spared much unprofitable waste of time, in endeavouring to elucidate the meaning of vocables which might seem cast at random from the types.* No one, in short, who has not attempted to acquaint himself with the beauties of Shirley's drama, through the old quartos, can appreciate the luxury of reading them in the clearer letter, and more genuine text of the present edition. Mr. Dyce has performed his humbler task as editor of the poems, with his accustomed ability; and, on the whole, it is no fault of the edition, if justice be not at length fairly done to the merit of Shirley. One of his cotemporary poets ventured to prophesy,

That ages yet to come shall hear and see,

When dead, thy works a living elegy.

For the first time, in the nineteenth century, this elegy has been removed from the obscure and inaccessible quarter where it had long mouldered unseen; it has been transcribed in legible characters; and fully asserts the claim of this last of our Elizabethan dramatists, to be admitted to a high place among the second class of the poetical hierarchy of England.

ART. II.-Mémoires de René Le Vasseur, de la Sarthe, ex-Conventionnel. 4 vols. Paris. 1829-1832.

THE

HESE Mémoires profess to be written by one Le Vasseur, an old Jacobin and regicide, who is still, or lately was alive, and are preceded by an introduction and a biographical notice avowedly from the pen of an editor, M. Achille Roche. We had not, however, read half-a-dozen pages of the Mémoires before we began to suspect that they were not the actual composition of Le Vasseur-that this was a fresh instance of French fabrication, and

* In the fine and eloquent tragedy of Chabot, the obscurity of Chapman's manner, the hardness of which his contemporaries called his full and heightened style,' is greatly increased by the incorrectness of the press. This play, as bearing the name of Shirley in its title-page, conjoined with that of Chapman, ought not to have been omitted: yet it is very difficult to assign any part of it to Shirley; even the comic scenes are more in Chapman's close and pregnant manner than in the light and airy style of Shirley.

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