"Enters mine Aunt, alle flurried, and bushing her Voice, 'Oh, Neice, he whom you wot of is here, but knoweth not you are at Hand, nor in London. Shall I tell him?' But I gasped, and held her back by her Skirts; then with a suddain secret Prayer, or Cry, or maybe, Wish, as 'twere, darted up into Heaven for assistance. I took no Thought what I shoulde speak when confronted with him, but opening the Door between us, he then standing with his Bick towards it, rushed forth and to his Feet-there sank, in a Gush of Tears; for not one Word could I proffer. nor soe much as look up. A quick Hand was laid on my head, on my shoulder--as quicklie removed....and I was aware of the Door being hurridlie opened and shut, and a Man hasting forth; but 'twas only my Uncle. Meantime, my Husband, who had at first uttered a suddian Cry or Exclamation, had now left me, sunk on the Ground as I was, and retired a Space, I know not whither, but methinks he walked hastilie to and fro. Thus I remained, agonized in Tears, unable to recal one Word of the humble appeal I had pondered in my Journey, or to have spoken it, though I had known everie Syl.able by Rote; yet not wishing myself, even in that Suspense, Shame and Anguish elsewhere than where I was cast, at mine Husband's feet. Or ever I was aware, he had come up, and caught me to his Breast; then, holding me back so as to look me in the Face, sayd, in Accents I shall never forget, Much I could say to reproach, but will not! Henceforth let us onlie recall this dark Passage of our deeplie sinful lives, to quicken us to God's Mercy in affording us this Re-union. Let it deepen our Penitence, enhance our Gratitude." Then, suddaiulic covering up his Face with his Hands, he gave two or three Sobs; and for some few Minutes could not refrain himself; but, when at length he uncovered his Eyes and looked down on me with Goodnes and Sweetness, 'twas like the Sun's cleare shining after Raine."-Pp. 246, 249. Not only did Milton forgive his wife thus generously and sincerely; he also forgave her father and mother, and afterwards supported the whole family on their being driven from home by the success of the republican arms. Yet his case is one of those referred to as evidence that poets and literary men make disagreeable, if not cruel husbands. Such men, we are told, are too much absorbed in books and in their own thoughts to devote those attentions to their wives which the latter have a right to expect. But since Milton had three wives, none of whom made any complaint against him but the first; and that she acknowledged in the end, nay proved to the world that it was she, and not he, who was to blame, should. we not rather regard his conduct as an illustration of his own fine precepts on the cultivation of the intellect? "How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose; And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets BELLES-LETTRES. The Queen Mother and Rosamond. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINburne, Author of "Atalanta in Calydon," &c. 16ino., pp. 232. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866. It is easy enough to write in a tragical manner; there is good authority for the opinion that it may be done so as to make not only men, but angels weep, without any genius, and with but little talent; and yet, perhaps, there is nothing more difficult than to produce a good tragedy. Sufficient proof of this may be found in the fact that not more than a dozen, including ancients and moderns, have entirely succeeded 'in doing so. But shall we rank Mr. Swinburne among this dozen? By no means. Shall we rank him in the second class which numbers some two dozen? The answer to this too must be a negative; so would the third and fourth question: but the fifth might be an affirmative. That, is we might rank our author among the five hundred who have written some very passable performances which they have called tragedies. By this we may seem disposed to depreciate his merits, but such is not the case; nor do we mean by it that either "The Queen Mother," or "Rosa" mond" is destitute of merit, or not worth reading. If we said so, we should neither do him nor ourselves justice. We have read several passages in each piece with pleasure; and we have no doubt that our readers will give a similar verdict. But is this anything inconsistent with the theory that Mr. Swinburne is but a fifth-rate tragic dramatist? In our opinion, if he were but sure of that grade, he might well congratulate himself. Here and there, in "The Queen Mother," there are some fine thoughts; nay, sometimes we meet with passages which, if they are not true poetry, may easily be mistaken for it even by connoisseurs who do not happen to be in a critical mood. More passages are at least pleasing to the general reader; nor are they wanting in interest, or unworthy of comparison with some to be found in the productions of dramatists who enjoy a world-wide fame. But these are too isolated; they do not strike us as belonging to the piece in which they occur as a whole. In short, neither "The Queen Mother" nor Rosamond" can be regarded as a consistent whole. For the present we will confine ourselves to the former; and our general impression of it is that while it contains, as we have said, some good thoughts, it neither begins nor ends in a natural manner. Where there is most room for pathos there is least of it to be had; and if we occasionally meet with a pathetic strain, something near what we might expect, it is pretty sure to be spoiled by some untoward expression. Love, when well managed, is a very good thing in a tragedy, as well as elsewhere; but Mr. Swinburne expects too much from it, and yet handles it so awkwardly as to prevent it from performing its legitimate duty in an appropriate or natural manner. So much for general impressions; now let us come to particulars, and see how far we shall be borne out by such specimens of the performance itself as we can conveniently make room for and find time to select. "The Queen Mother" is a tragedy in five acts, founded on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's day; the scene is laid in Paris, and the time is from the 22d to the 24th of August, 1572. In the very first scene the king is introduced making love to one of the maids of honor, and there are very few scenes in the whole tragedy in which that does not seem to be his principal business. Sometimes he is made to talk rather foolishly, but at other times much more wisely than is consistent with his general character; and his mistress occasionally changes her character in a manner equally unaccountable. Yet, as we have intimated, each hits on a happy train of thought now and then, and gives expression to some good sentiments, stale though they may be in the main. Thus, for example, when Charles commences his attempt at the seduction of Denise de Maulévrier, in the first scene of the first act, asking, "Why did you break from me?" &c., she answers him as follows, showing what a bad thing it would have been to have done otherwise : "Because I would not have a touch of you Upon me somewhere; or a word of yours The least kiss ever put upon your lips Would throw me this side heaven, to live there. What, Am I to lose my better place i' the world, Be stripped of my girdled maiden's gown And clad loose for the winter's tooth to hurt, Gets no man praise: we are so more than poor, The dear'st of all our spoil would profit you Less than mere losing; so most more than weak, It were but shame for one to smite us, who Could but weep louder."-p. 11. The king, in reply to this fine speech, swears very gallantly, but under the circumstances, rather unroyally, "By God's head I'd give you half my blood to wash your feet."—p. 12. Henry and Margaret of Navarre have a colloquy in the second scene, which is of a somewhat different character; for they speak principally of hate instead of love. But the speech of the lady is rather long, royal though she be. It contains some good thoughts, but becomes rather equivocal towards the close. As it is, however, a pretty fair specimen, upon the whole, of our author's tragic vein, we transcribe it in full: "Mar. I never saw yet how you love and hate. Are you turned bitter to me? all old words Buried past reach for grief to feed upon As on dead friends? nay, but if this be, too, Stand you my friend; there is no crown i' the world So good as patience; neither is any peace That God puts in our lips to drink as wine, Than that sweet souled endurance which makes clean The iron hands of anger. A man being smitten It must be admitted that the thoughts on patience are not only good in themselves, but forcibly and poetically expressed. But we have not time to linger here; we pass hurriedly to the fourth scene, which is laid in Admiral Coligny's house. The hero is made to speak of his wound in rather an unheroic manner, and La Rochefaucauld replies in a way rather suggestive of Job's comforters, but without the solemn, graceful dignity and appropriate imagery of the latter. La Rochefaucauld, indeed, uses imagery, too, but it savors too much of the aviary and the stable. "La R. Take better thoughts to you; The king is steady; and the Guise wears eyes Of such green anger and suspicious light And pinches whiter her thin face; Tavannes And wags his head more than its use was; yea, The main set draws our way now the steel bit Keeps hard inside their mouths; yea, they pull straight."-p. 33. Finally, when the massacre commences, the tragic expression grows feeble rather than strong, although there is no lack of tragic words. Indeed, there is enough of these to melt the most obdurate; but the difficulty is that they are put together in an unskilful way. The catastrophe is the worst, however; in spite of all the bloodshed it makes a nearer approach to the ridiculous than to the sublime, since it turns on the accidental shooting of the king's mistress by his majesty's own hand: "Why, I have slain The chiefest pearl o' the world, the perfect rule To measure all sweet things; now even to unseat God Were a slight work. The wounded lady revives and delivers a pretty long speech; but there is not much tenderness or pathos in it, although she dies advising her lover to pretend what is not true in order to vindicate himself. "Say I have slain myself, And the thought clears you; be not moved thereat; For though I slew a something that you loved, I did it lovingly."-p 171. The last who speaks is Catherine de' Medici; nor is there anything very characteristic in what she says. In order that our readers may judge for themselves whether we are right or not in the opinion that the tragedy ends rather farcically, we transcribe Catherine's closing speech in extenso. "Ca. (to Tav.) Come hither, sir; as you respect my grace, Lay your good care on him, that in waste words His mood gall not himself. For this girl slain, Her funeral privacy of rite shall be Our personal care; though her deserts were such As crave no large observance, yet our pity Shall almost cover the default in them With all smooth grace that grace may do to her. You to my son, and you, this way with me; The weight of this harsh dawn doth bruise my sense, There is nothing instructive in this; nothing that excites either horror or pity; neither a good example, nor a good precept is presented to us. It seems to us that if the author was unable to hit on a more suitable catastrophe than the death of Denise, he ought to have committed her funeral oration to somebody else rather than to Catherine. Under all the circumstances it would have been natural enough for the king to mourn her death; but even he would not have been justified in giving it this prominence. In short, Mr. Swinburne "o'ersteps the modesty of nature." Had Denise been the cause of the massacre there might have been some reason at least poetical justice--in ending the tragedy with her death; but instead of that she was opposed to it from the beginning. We feel bound to repeat, however, that although "The Queen Mother" is a failure, considered as a tragedy, it is well worth reading as an historical poem, in which much accuracy of statement, or fidelity of portraiture is not expected; far, therefore, from discouraging any body from examining it, we would advise all to do so, assuring them, that if they have sometimes |