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Jul. None.

Lor. Then 'twas my fancy. Every passing hour Is crowded with a thousand whisperers; The night has lost its silence, and the stars Shoot fire upon my soul. Darkness itself Has objects for mine eyes to gaze upon, And sends me terror when I pray for sleep In vain upon my knees. Nor ends it here; My greatest dread of all-detection-casts Her shadow on my walk, and startles me At every turn: sometime will reason drag Her frightful chain of probable alarms Across my mind; or, if fatigued, she droops, Her pangs survive the while; as you have seen The ocean tossing when the wind is down, And the huge storm is dying on the waters. Once, too, I had a dream

Jul. The shadows of our sleep should fly with sleep; Nor hang their sickness on the memory.

Lor. Methought the dead man, rising from his tomb, Frowned over me. Elmira at my side, Stretched her fond arms to shield me from his wrath, At which he frowned the more. I turned away, Disgusted, from the spectre, and assayed To clasp my wife; but she was pale, and cold, And in her breast the heart was motionless, And on her limbs the clothing of the grave, With here and there a worm, hung heavily. Then did the spectre laugh, till from its mouth Blood dropped upon us while it cried- Behold! Such is the bridal bed that waits thy love!' I would have struck it (for my rage was up); I tried the blow; but, all my senses shaken By the convulsion, broke the tranced spell, And darkness told me sleep was my tormentor.

JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

The most successful of modern tragic dramatists is MR JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES, whose plays

W. Knowles

have recently been collected and republished in three volumes. His first appeared in 1820, and is founded

on that striking incident in Roman story, the death of a maiden by the hand of her father, Virginius, to save her from the lust and tyranny of Appius. Mr Knowles's Virginius had an extraordinary run of success. He has since published The Wife, a Tale of Mantua, The Hunchback, Caius Gracchus, The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, William Tell, The Love Chace, &c. With considerable knowledge of stage effect, Mr Knowles unites a lively inventive imagination and a poetical colouring, which, if at times too florid and gaudy, sets off his familiar images and illustrations. His style is formed on that of Massinger and the other elder dramatists, carried often to a ridiculous excess. He also frequently violates Roman history and classical propriety, and runs into conceits and affected metaphors. These faults are counterbalanced by a happy art of constructing scenes and plots, romantic, yet not too improbable, by skilful delineation of character, especially in domestic life, and by a current of poetry which sparkles through his plays, 'not with a dazzling lustre-not with a gorgeousness that engrosses our attention, but mildly and agreeably; seldom impeding with useless glitter the progress and development of incident and character, but mingling itself with them, and raising them pleasantly above the prosaic level of common life."*

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[Scene from Virginius."]

APPIUS, CLAUDIUS, and LICTORS.

Appius. Well, Claudius, are the forces At hand?

Claudius. They are, and timely, too; the people Are in unwonted ferment.

App. There's something awes me at
The thought of looking on her father!
Claud. Look

Upon her, my Appius! Fix your gaze upon
Till they are thine. Haste! Your tribunal!
The treasures of her beauty, nor avert it

Haste!

[Appius ascends the tribunal. [Enter NUMITORIUS, ICILIUS, LUCIUS, CITIZENS, VIRGINIUS leading his daughter, SERVIA, and CITIZENS. A dead silence prevails.]

Virginius. Does no one speak? I am defendant here.
Is silence my opponent? Fit opponent
To plead a cause too foul for speech! What brow
Shameless gives front to this most valiant cause,
That tries its prowess 'gainst the honour of

A girl, yet lacks the wit to know, that he
Who casts off shame, should likewise cast off fear-
And on the verge o' the combat wants the nerve
To stammer forth the signal?

[graphic]

App. You had better,

Virginius, wear another kind of carriage;

This is not of the fashion that will serve you.

Vir. The fashion, Appius! Appius Claudius tell me

The fashion it becomes a man to speak in,

Whose property in his own child-the offspring

Of his own body, near to him as is

His hand, his arm-yea, nearer-closer far,

Knit to his heart-I say, who has his property
In such a thing, the very self of himself,
Disputed-and I'll speak so, Appius Claudius;
I'll speak so-Pray you tutor me!

App. Stand forth

Claudius! If you lay claim to any interest
In the question now before us, speak; if not,
Bring on some other cause.

Claud. Most noble Appius

Vir. And are you the man

That claims my daughter for his slave-Look at me And I will give her to thee.

*Edinburgh Review for 1833.

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Num. Will she swear she is her child?
Vir. [Starting forward.] To be sure she will-a
most wise question that!

Is she not his slave? Will his tongue lie for him-
Or his hand steal-or the finger of his hand
Beckon, or point, or shut, or open for him?

To ask him if she'll swear! Will she walk or run,
Sing, dance, or wag her head; do anything
That is most easy done? She'll as soon swear!
What mockery it is to have one's life

In jeopardy by such a bare-faced trick!
Is it to be endured? I do protest
Against her oath !

App. No law in Rome, Virginius,
Seconds you. If she swear the girl's her child,
The evidence is good, unless confronted
By better evidence. Look you to that,
Virginius. I shall take the woman's oath.
Virginia. Icilius!

Icilius. Fear not, love; a thousand oaths
Will answer her.

App. You swear the girl's your child,
And that you sold her to Virginius' wife,
Who passed her for her own. Is that your oath?
Slave. It is my oath.

App. Your answer now, Virginius. Vir. Here it is! [Brings Virginia forward. Is this the daughter of a slave? I know "Tis not with men as shrubs and trees, that by The shoot you know the rank and order of

The stem. Yet who from such a stem would look
For such a shoot. My witnesses are these-
The relatives and friends of Numitoria,
Who saw her, ere Virginia's birth, sustain
The burden which a mother bears, nor feels
The weight, with longing for the sight of it.
Here are the ears that listened to her sighs
In nature's hour of labour, which subsides
In the embrace of joy-the hands, that when
The day first looked upon the infant's face,

And never looked so pleased, helped them up to it,
And blessed her for a blessing. Here, the eyes
That saw her lying at the generous

And sympathetic fount, that at her cry

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You're very ready for a tumult, citizens.

No more of

[Troops appear behind. Lictors, make way to let these troops advance! We have had a taste of your forbearance, masters, And wish not for another.

Vir. Troops in the Forum!

App. Virginius, have you spoken?

Vir. If you have heard me,

I have; if not, I'll speak again.
App. You need not,

Virginius; I had evidence to give,

Which, should you speak a hundred times again,
Would make your pleading vain.

Vir. Your hand, Virginia!

Stand close to me.

App. My conscience will not let me Be silent. 'Tis notorious to you all,

[Aside.

That Claudius' father, at his death, declared me The guardian of his son. This cheat has long Been known to me. I know the girl is not Virginius' daughter.

Vir. Join your friends, Icilius,
And leave Virginia to my care.
App. The justice

I should have done my client unrequired,
Now cited by him, how shall I refuse?

Vir. Don't tremble, girl! don't tremble.
App. Virginius,

[A side.

[Aside.

I feel for you; but though you were my father,
The majesty of justice should be sacred-
Claudius must take Virginia home with him!
Vir. And if he must, I should advise him, Appius,
To take her home in time, before his guardian
Complete the violation which his eyes
Already have begun.-Friends! fellow citizens!
Look not on Claudius-look on your Decemvir!
He is the master claims Virginia!

The tongues that told him she was not my child
Are these the costly charms he cannot purchase,
Except by making her the slave of Claudius,
His client, his purveyor, that caters for
His pleasures-markets for him-picks, and scents,
And tastes, that he may banquet-serves him up
His sensual feast, and is not now ashamed,
In the open, common street, before your eyes-
Frighting your daughters' and your matrons' cheeks
With blushes they ne'er thought to meet-to help
him

To the honour of a Roman maid! my child!
Who now clings to me, as you see, as if
This second Tarquin had already coiled
His arms around her. Look upon her, Romans!
Befriend her! succour her! see her not polluted
Before her father's eyes!-He is but one.
Tear her from Appius and his Lictors while
She is unstained.-Your hands! your hands! your
hands!

Citizens. They are yours, Virginius.

App. Keep the people back

Support my Lictors, soldiers! Seize the girl,
And drive the people back.

Icilius. Down with the slaves!

[The people make a show of resistance; but, upon the advance of the soldiers, retreat, and leave ICILIUS, VIRGINIUS, and his daughter, &c. in the hands of APPIUS and his party.]

Deserted!-Cowards! traitors! Let me free

But for a moment! I relied on you; Had I relied upon myself alone,

I had kept them still at bay! I kneel to you-
Let me but loose a moment, if 'tis only

To rush upon your swords.

Vir. Icilius, peace!

You see how 'tis, we are deserted, left

Alone by our friends, surrounded by our enemies,
Nerveless and helpless.

App. Separate them, Lictors!

Vir. Let them forbear awhile, I pray you, Appius: It is not very easy. Though her arms

Are tender, yet the hold is strong by which

She grasps me, Appius-forcing them will hurt them; They'll soon unclasp themselves. Wait but a little You know you're sure of her!

App. I have not time

To idle with thee; give her to my Lictors.

Vir. Appius, I pray you wait! If she is not
My child, she hath been like a child to me
For fifteen years. If I am not her father,
I have been like a father to her, Appius,
For even such a time. They that have lived
So long a time together, in so near
And dear society, may be allowed

A little time for parting. Let me take
The maid aside, I pray you, and confer

A moment with her nurse; perhaps she'll give me
Some token will unloose a tie so twined

And knotted round my heart, that, if you break it,
My heart breaks with it.

App. Have your wish. Be brief!

Lictors, look to them.

Virginia. Do you go from me?

Do you leave? Father! Father!

Vir. No, my child—

No, my Virginia-come along with me.

Virginia. Will you not leave me? Will you take me with you?

Will you take me home again? O, bless you! bless you!

My father! my dear father! Art thou not
My father?

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[From The Wife, a Tale of Mantua.']
LORENZO, an Advocate of Rome, and MARIANA.
Lorenzo. That's right—you are collected and direct
In your replies. I dare be sworn your passion
Was such a thing, as, by its neighbourhood,
Made piety and virtue twice as rich

As e'er they were before. How grew it? Come,
Thou know'st thy heart-look calmly into it,
And see how innocent a thing it is

Which thou dost fear to show-I wait your answer.
How grew your passion?

Mariana. As my stature grew,

Which rose without my noting it, until
They said I was a woman. I kept watch

From beneath

Beside what seemed his deathbed.
An avalanche my father rescued him,
The sole survivor of a company
Who wandered through our mountains. A long time
His life was doubtful, signor, and he called
For help, whence help alone could come, which I,
Morning and night, invoked along with him;
So first our souls did mingle!

Lorenzo. I perceive: you mingled souls until you mingled hearts?

You loved at last. Was't not the sequel, maid?
Mariana. I loved, indeed! If I but nursed a flower
Which to the ground the rain and wind had beaten,
That flower of all our garden was my pride:
What then was he to me, for whom I thought
To make a shroud, when, tending on him still
With hope, that, baffled still, did still keep up;
I saw, at last, the ruddy dawn of health
Begin to mantle o'er his pallid form,
And glow-and glow-till forth at last it burst
Into confirmed, broad, and glorious day!

Lorenzo. You loved, and he did love?
Mariana. To say he did,

Were to affirm what oft his eyes avouched,
What many an action testified—and yet-
What wanted confirmation of his tongue.
But if he loved, it brought him not content!
'Twas now abstraction-now a start-anon
A pacing to and fro-anon a stillness,
As nought remained of life, save life itself,
And feeling, thought, and motion, were extinct.
Then all again was action! Disinclined
To converse, save he held it with himself;
Which oft he did, in moody vein discoursing,
And ever and anon invoking honour,
As some high contest there were pending 'twixt
Himself and him, wherein ber aid he needed.

Lorenzo. This spoke impediment; or he was bound
By promise to another; or had friends
Whom it behoved him to consult, and doubted;
Or 'twixt you lay disparity too wide
For love itself to leap.

Mariana. I saw a struggle,

But knew not what it was. I wondered still, [Kissing her. That what to me was all content, to him Was all disturbance; but my turn did come. At length he talked of leaving us; at length He fixed the parting day-but kept it notO how my heart did bound! Then first I knew It had been sinking. Deeper still it sank When next he fixed to go; and sank it then To bound no more! He went.

[Stabs her, and draws out the knife. Icilius breaks from the soldiers that held him, and catches her.

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Lorenzo. To follow him

You came to Mantua?

Mariana. What could I do?
Cot, garden, vineyard, rivulet, and wood,
Lake, sky, and mountain, went along with him!
Could I remain behind? My father found
My heart was not at home; he loved his child,
And asked me, one day, whither we should go?
I said, 'To Mantua.' I followed him
To Mantua! to breathe the air he breathed,
To walk upon the ground he walked upon,
To look upon the things he looked upon,

To look, perchance, on him! perchance to hear him,
To touch him! never to be known to him,
Till he was told I lived and died his love.

THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES.

·

The Bride's Tragedy, by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES, published in 1822, is intended for the closet rather than the theatre. It possesses many passages of pure and sparkling verse. The following,' says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, will show the way in which Mr Beddoes manages a subject that poets have almost reduced to commonplace. We thought all similes for the violet had been used up; but he gives us a new one, and one that is very delightful.' Hesperus and Floribel (the young wedded lovers) are in a garden; and the husband speaks:

Hesperus. See, here's a bower
Of eglantine with honeysuckles woven,
Where not a spark of prying light creeps in,
So closely do the sweets enfold each other.
'Tis twilight's home; come in, my gentle love,
And talk to me. So! I've a rival here;
What's this that sleeps so sweetly on your neck!
Floribel. Jealous so soon, my Hesperus? Look
then,

It is a bunch of flowers I pulled for you:
Here's the blue violet, like Pandora's eye,
When first it darkened with immortal life.

is waiting for him in the Divinity path, alone, and is terrified. At last he comes; and she sighs outSpeak! let me hear thy voice, Tell me the joyful news!

and thus he answers

Ay, I am come

In all my solemn pomp, Darkness and Fear,
And the great Tempest in his midnight car,
The sword of lightning girt across his thigh,
And the whole demon brood of night, blind Fog
And withering Blight, all these are my retainers;
How? not one smile for all this bravery?
What think you of my minstrels, the hoarse winds,
Thunder, and tuneful Discord? Hark, they play.
Well piped, methinks; somewhat too rough, perhaps.
Else I might well be scared. But leave this mirth,
Floribel. I know you practise on my silliness,
Or I must weep.

Hesperus. "Twill serve to fill the goblets
The bride-maids are without; well-picked, thou'lt say,
For our carousal; but we loiter here,
Wan ghosts of wo-begone, self-slaughtered damsels
In their best winding-sheets; start not; I bid them
wipe

Their gory bosoms; they'll look wondrous comely;
Our link-boy, Will-o'-the-Wisp, is waiting too
To light us to our grave.

After some further speech, she asks him what he means, and he replies

What mean I? Death and murder, Darkness and misery. To thy prayers and shrift, Earth gives thee back. Thy God hath sent me for thee; Repent and die.

She returns gentle answers to him; but in the end he kills her, and afterwards mourns thus over her body:

:

Dead art thou, Floribel; fair, painted earth, And no warm breath shall ever more disport

Hesperus. Sweet as thy lips. Fie on those taper Between those ruby lips: no; they have quaffed

Have they been brushing the long grass aside,

fingers,

To drag the daisy from its hiding-place,

Where it shuns light, the Danae of flowers,

With gold up-hoarded on its virgin lap?

Life to the dregs, and found death at the bottom,
The sugar of the draught. All cold and still;
Her very tresses stiffen in the air.

Look, what a face! had our first mother worn
But half such beauty when the serpent came,

Floribel. And here's a treasure that I found by His heart, all malice, would have turned to love;

chance,

A lily of the valley; low it lay

Over a mossy mound, withered and weeping,

As on a fairy's grave.

Hesperus. Of all the posy

Give me the rose, though there's a tale of blood
Soiling its name. In elfin annals old

'Tis writ, how Zephyr, envious of his love
(The love he bare to Summer, who since then
Has, weeping, visited the world), once found
The baby Perfume cradled in a violet;
('Twas said the beauteous bantling was the child
Of & gay bee, that in his wantonness
Toyed with a pea-bud in a lady's garland);
The felon winds, confederate with him,
Bound the sweet slumberer with golden chains,
Pulled from the wreathed laburnum, and together
Deep cast him in the bosom of a rose,
And fed the fettered wretch with dew and air.
And there is an expression in the same scene (where
the author is speaking of sleepers' fancies, &c.)
While that winged song, the restless nightingale
Turns her sad heart to music-

which is perfectly beautiful.

The reader may now take a passage from the scene where Hesperus murders the girl Floribel. She

No hand but this, which I do think was once
Cain, the arch murderer's, could have acted it.
And I must hide these sweets, not in my bosom ;
In the foul earth. She shudders at my grasp :
Just so she laid her head across my bosom
When first-oh villain! which way lies the grave?

MISS MITFORD-SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER-
THOMAS NOON TALFOURD.

MISS MITFORD, so well known for her fine prose tales and sketches, has written three tragediesJulian, Rienzi, and The Vespers of Palermo. They were all brought on the stage, but Rienzi' only met with decided success. An equal number of dramas has been produced by another novelist, SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER: these are entitled, The Lady of Lyons, La Valliere, and Richelieu. The first of these pieces is the best, and it seldom fails of drawand romantic play, with passages of fine poetry ing tears when well represented. It is a picturesque and genuine feeling. 'La Valliere' is founded on the court and times of Louis XIV., but it wants prominence of character and dramatic art. Richelieu' is a drama of greater energy and power, but is also loosely constructed. THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, sergeant-at-law, an eloquent English barrister, has written two classic plays, Ion, and The Athenian

Captive, remarkable for a gentle beauty, refinement, and pathos. He has also produced a domestic drama, The Massacre of Glencoe, but it is much inferior to his other productions. Ion' was acted with great success, and published in 1835. It seems an embodiment of the simplicity and grandeur of the Greek drama, and its plot is founded on the old Grecian notion of destiny, apart from all moral agencies. The oracle of Delphi had announced that the vengeance which the misrule of the race of Argos had brought on the people, in the form of a pestilence, could only be disarmed by the extirpation of the guilty race, and Ion, the hero of the play, at length offers himself a sacrifice. The character of Ion-the discovery of his birth, as son of the kinghis love and patriotism, are drawn with great power and effect. The style of Mr Talfourd is chaste and clear, yet full of imagery. Take, for example, the delineation of the character of Ion :

Ion, our sometime darling, whom we prized
As a stray gift, by bounteous Heaven dismissed
From some bright sphere which sorrow may not cloud
To make the happy happier! Is he sent
To grapple with the miseries of this time,
Whose nature such ethereal aspect wears
As it would perish at the touch of wrong!
By no internal contest is he trained
For such hard duty; no emotions rude

Hath his clear spirit vanquished-Love, the germ
Of his mild nature, hath spread graces forth,
Expanding with its progress, as the store
Of rainbow colour which the seed conceals
Sheds out its tints from its dim treasury,
To flush and circle in the flower. No tear
Hath filled his eye save that of thoughtful joy
When, in the evening stillness, lovely things
Pressed on his soul too busily; his voice,
If, in the earnestness of childish sports,
Raised to the tone of anger, checked its force,
As if it feared to break its being's law,
And faltered into music; when the forms
Of guilty passion have been made to live
In pictured speech, and others have waxed loud
In righteous indignation, he hath heard
With sceptic smile, or from some slender vein
Of goodness, which surrounding gloom concealed,
Struck sunlight o'er it: so his life hath flowed
From its mysterious urn a sacred stream,
In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure
Alone are mirrored; which, though shapes of ill
May hover round its surface, glides in light,
And takes no shadow from them.

[Extracts from Ion.']

[Ion being declared the rightful heir of the throne, is waited upon by Clemanthe, daughter of the high priest of the temple,

wherein Ion had been reared in obscurity.]

Ion. What wouldst thou with me, lady?
Clemanthe. Is it so?

Nothing, my lord, save to implore thy pardon,
That the departing gleams of a bright dream,
From which I scarce had wakened, made me bold
To crave a word with thee; but all are fled-
Ion. 'Twas indeed a goodly dream;
But thou art right to think it was no more;
And study to forget it.

Clem. To forget it!

Indeed, my lord, I will not wish to lose What, being past, is all my future hath, All I shall live for; do not grudge me this, The brief space I shall need it.

Ion. Speak not, fair one,

In tone so mournful, for it makes me feel Too sensibly the hapless wretch I am,

That troubled the deep quiet of thy soul
In that pure fountain which reflected heaven,
For a brief taste of rapture.

Clem. Dost thou yet

Esteem it rapture, then? My foolish heart,
Be still! Yet wherefore should a crown divide us!
O, my dear Ion! let me call thee so
This once at least-it could not in my thoughts
Increase the distance that there was between us
When, rich in spirit, thou to strangers' eyes
Seemed a poor foundling.

Ion. It must separate us!
Think it no harmless bauble; but a curse
Will freeze the current in the veins of youth,
And from familiar touch of genial hand,
From household pleasures, from sweet daily tasks,
From airy thought, free wanderer of the heavens,
For ever banish me!

Clem. Thou dost accuse

Thy state too harshly; it may give some room,
Some little room, amidst its radiant cares,
For love and joy to breathe in.

Ion. Not for me;

My pomp must be most lonesome, far removed
From that sweet fellowship of humankind
The slave rejoices in my solemn robes
Shall wrap me as a panoply of ice,
And the attendants who may throng around me
Shall want the flatteries which may basely warm
The sceptral thing they circle. Dark and cold
Stretches the path which, when I wear the crown,
I needs must enter the great gods forbid
That thou shouldst follow in it!

Clem. O unkind!

And shall we never see each other?

Ion. [After a pause.] Yes!

I have asked that dreadful question of the hills
That look eternal; of the flowing streams
That lucid flow for ever; of the stars,
Amid whose fields of azure my raised spirit
Hath trod in glory: all were dumb; but now,
While I thus gaze upon thy living face,

I feel the love that kindles through its beauty
Can never wholly perish: we shall meet
Again, Clemanthe!

Clem. Bless thee for that name;

Pray, call me so again; thy words sound strangely,
Yet they breathe kindness, and I'll drink them in,
Though they destroy me. Shall we meet indeed!
Think not I would intrude upon thy cares,
Thy councils, or thy pomps; to sit at distance,
To weave, with the nice labour which preserves
The rebel pulses even, from gay threads
Faint records of thy deeds, and sometimes catch
The falling music of a gracious word,
Or the stray sunshine of a smile, will be
Comfort enough: do not deny me this;
Or if stern fate compel thee to deny,

Kill me at once!

Ion. No; thou must live, my fair one : There are a thousand joyous things in life, Which pass unheeded in a life of joy As thine hath been, till breezy sorrow comes To ruffle it; and daily duties paid Hardly at first, at length will bring repose To the sad mind that studies to perform them. Thou dost not mark me.

Clem. O, I do! I do!

Ion. If for thy brother's and thy father's sake Thou art content to live, the healer Time Will reconcile thee to the lovely things Of this delightful world-and if another, A happier-no, I cannot bid thee love Another!-I did think I could have said it, But 'tis in vain.

Clem. Thou art my own, then, still?

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