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received great excitement from the friend Gall-that is, if I can gain adsplendid edition of Annibal Caro's Vir-mittance, the crowd at the door of his gil, lately printed at Rome, at the ex- lecture-room being far more numerous pence of the Duchess of Devonshires than at that of the opera on the night There are two literary societies here, of a favourite ballet. Wishing you for instructing subscribers by lectu- over this gloomy month, and begging ring; the one is the Athenee of old, of you to take pity on your Parisian celebrated under the name of Lycee, subscribers, a

where La Harpe read his famous Believe me, respected Sir, course; the other is a new establishin

ment, presided over by the Viscounts to

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de Chateaubriant, and is considered Paris, Nov. 26. -ef de to tin wit
rather superior to its rival. For a sub-cat
scription of six Napoleons, you may P. S. Louis is said to be something
acquire a knowledge of all the sciences
in a few weeks, and a precious brain
you must possess, even to remember
the bare catalogue of the various olo-
gies to be learned. It would be too
much for my weak brain, so I shall
confine my attendance to your old

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ruffled in temper for these some days back, enraged with the Chambers and the English interest, and resolved to maintain the Duc de Richelieu in the ministry. This nobleman is by gratitude, as well as by other ties, strongly attached to the interests of Russia eluč, Jani ai duru sdi 11.9 THE ANCIENT WORLD, sair as great a devils as Moloch? Is the Pedlar, with all his affability, like the archangel Raphael? Why, tried by such a test, these, the greatest poets of our time, sink into mere slovenly versifiers, as inferior to the Transcend

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LYNDSAY'S DRAMAS OF Is our drama ever to be restored? Why not? But then we must consider with ourselves what we mean by its restoration. If we wonder why this age does not produce Shakespeares, to be consistent, we should also wonder why it does not produce Spensers and Mil-ants in natural endowment, as in all tons and Popes. Let us begin then the skill and mastery of arta, Pya * with demanding no more for the dramatic genius of the nation, than from its other power, as exhibited in the best poetry of our age, and perhaps we shall not be disappointed in our reasonable expectations. We are a most poetical people, unquestionably; and our poets are, many of them," tall fellows," but place those whom we call giants by the side of the Great of Old, and their altitude will be some what diminished. We think under a delusion. Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, and Southey, have impressed the public mind vividly and deeply; in our pleasure and our pride, we forget the possibility of our being all dwindled together, and seeing the intellects of these above the ordinary stature, we never think of questioning their title to join the ranks of the immortals. But read a single page of Paradise Lost-or a canto of the Fairy Queen, and what becomes of the Lady What then is the wonder? Nothing of the Lake-the Corsair or the Ex-more than this that within these last cursion? Is Helen Douglas to walk twenty years, or thereabouts, a numby the side of Una? Is the Cor- ber of men, of intellect and genius,

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Now, we conceive, that this very short and simple statement does very much dispel the mystery, and that if we have no great dramatic poetry at present rising up among us, it is owing to the same causes, whatever these may be, that have prevented us from producing any great poetry of any kind at all. This may sound arrogantly, but it is said humbly. We love, delight in, and admire the poetry of this age, pregnant as it is with passion, and tinged almost universally with a pure and beautiful spirit. But till one mighty poem is produced in Britain, we ought to be shy in comparing ourselves with our ancestors; and were our eyes broadly open to the truth, we should hear less of our inferiority in the drama, and more of our inferiority in those other departments of poetry, in which we easily imagine ourselves to have excelled.

Dramas of the Ancient World. By David Lyndsay. Edinburgh: Printed for William Blackwood; and T. Cadell, London.

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have, in this country, devoted them selves to poetry, with very great success, but that they have not hitherto made many attempts in dramatic composition. There is nothing surprising in this, any more than there would have been, had dramatic composition been all the rage. There are not always deep, predisposing causes, for every thing that occurs in the history of literature; and of all cants, the cant of philosophical criticism is the most contemptible. The Schlegels are the great critical canters of modern Europe. They account for every thing. An idiot cannot drivel out an elegy, but they will give you a reason for it in the juncture of the times. Nor, according to them, could the idiot have drivelled his elegy, but at the very era in which he flourished his pen. But the truth is, that idiots of all kinds are to be found at all times, in the literature of all nations, --though we are willing to grant to the Schlegels, that there may be seasons and scenes peculiarly favourable to their production. ́·

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Would it appear miraculous, and subversive of all certainty in moral reasoning, if, during the next twenty years, all our poetry was to be dramatic? Certainly not. We take hold of a little bit of time and surely twenty years is a mere patch-and are insensibly brought to consider it as a great cycle. But twenty years is but as an hour in the literature of a people, whether it be progressive or stationary; and how like a huge dunce would the Public appear, if, during its blubbering bewailment over the exhibition of dramatic genius, up were to leap a score of play-wrights, each with a dozen deep tragedies in either hand? The great dunce would in five minutes aver, that he had never said that dramatic genius was extinct-but that it had merely been taking a protracted #siesta—and that she always had expected to see it taking to its legs again, after such a comfortable nap. Suppose twenty years ago, some speculator mvhad announced his belief that all poetical genius whatever was dead in this ricountry; and that he had given sufficient reasons for adopting that creed. The truth is, that such speculators did open their mouths, and lustily bray out to that effect. The Edinburgh Review did stretch its leather sides alinost to bursting, in vituperation of

all modern poetry, while gentlemen with cracked voices and no ears, did join in chorus. We forget the causes assigned for the dearth but they were supposed perfectly adequate. Nothing could be held coarser than the cant of the first Critic of the age; and for some years, almost eleven millions of people believed the poetry which they read, not to be poetry, because it was proved not to be so by intellect ; and of course, the mere testimony of the senses was held to be fallacious. But we now confess, that if not poetry, it is something so extremely like it, that we are willing to let it pass for such ; and the greatest Critic of the age himself, gives way to the popular delusion, and contentedly cheers the events which he formerly would have thrown to the canine race.

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No conclusion, therefore, it is manifest, can be drawn by any sensible person, either for or against the dramatic genius of this age, from the present state of our literature. We have no noble acting play produced among us lately. But Baillie, Byron, Coleridge, Wilson, and Milman, have all written dramas in which as much power is shewn, as perhaps in any other department of poetry. Baillie is a woman, and thence weak in many things; but her Basil may be read with as little dissatisfaction after a play of Massinger's, as Rokeby after the Fairy Queen. Byron's Manfred is a magnificent drama-and his Doge is stately and austere. Coleridge's Remorse is full of the deep metaphysics of passion. Wilson's City of the Plague, though lax and inartificial, is in the highest possible degree dramatic, and full of terror and pathos and Milman's Fall of Jerusalem, though laboured and cumbrous, possesses the soul with a mournful and elevating interest. Now, all these poets more or less dramatic

inore or less poetical more or less passionate-do exhibit just as close an approach to the spirit and virtue, of the Drama of England, in its days of glory, as the best poetry of the same, or other writers, does to the spirit and virtue of the great poetry of England. Lest this should be denied we beg leave to qualify this supposition by saying, that if there be a difference in the two cases, it is a difference of degree not of kind-and certainly not such a difference as leaves any impression of wonder on the mind.

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There is nothing, therefore, to be wondered at or to be explained, respecting our dramatic genius. With the exception of Byron-no living poet acknowledged to possess first-rate powers has attempted the dramaand yet they have all eminently succeeded. We say eminently-for Basil, Remorse, the City of the Plague, and the Fall of Jerusalem, affect the mind as strongly as any other modern poetry whatever ; and yet none of them seem to be equal to what the genius of their respective authors might produce. Had all our great poets tried the drama, and failed in it or had our inferior poets all tried it, and written mere stuff-then there would have been something puzzling in the case, and we should certainly have called on the Schlegels to explain it But, as it is, it so happens that only one poet, deemed great, has written dramas, and very good ones; and several other poets, not deemed great, have also written dramas, and very good ones; and from these premises it does certainly not seem a very lawful deduction, that the present age is unaccountably deficient in dramatic genius.

The truth is, that, every now and then, some senseless clamour or another, is set up about the state of literature, and for a time prevails. "Give us dramas," is now all the cry. At first it was only the cry of the Cockneys; and, indeed, none but Cockneys have bestirred themselves at the cry. But the voice of the town is not the voice of the country. Prigs will be preaching-and nothing but conceit cometh out of Cockaigne. What an emasculated band of dramatists have deployed upon our boards! A pale-faced, sallow set, like the Misses of some Cockney boarding-school, taking a constitutional walk, to get rid of their habits of eating lime out of the wall. Shiel, Howard, Payne, Molly Procter, Virginia Knowles, and that Irish gentleman, who conceived "The Bridal Night" to be a tragedy in five acts. My conscience-but there is a Milesian for you with a vengeance! How prettily the sentimentalists simper as they go! The tear is in every eye, and the drop at every nose! Pray who is that smock-faced eunuch, mincing his way in the procession?"The author of THE SUCCESSFUL GEDY!!!" We can no more.

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But the procession of the Misses Molly has past by-and we again look upon men. Now men do not come forward at the Cockney cry. Who des manded Childe Harold? Who were mutinous for Marmion? Who asked for the Scotch Novels, and they came? Who ordered Wordsworth to write his exquisite Lyrical Ballads, and they were written? Their own souls instigated these men to their work. God created these poets-and they were true to their nature. Cockneys also have been created, and they are true to theirs. But it was reserved to the spirit of atheism of an age, to talk of a Cockney writing a tragedy. When the mind ceases to believe in a Providence, it can believe in any thing else; but the pious soul feels that while to dream, even in sleep, that a Cockney had written a successful tragedy, would be repugnant to reason; certainly a more successful comedy could not be imagined, than the utter destruction of Cockaigne and all its inhabitants. An earthquake, or a shower of lava, would be too complimentary to the Cockneys; but what would you think of a shower of soot from a multitude of foul chimneys, and the smell of gas from exploded pipes? Something might be made of the idea.

When Byron published his drama the Doge-these authors of successful tragedies, forsooth, and all their Cockney cronies of the daily or weekly press, declared that his Lordship had no dramatic genius-that he never forgot himself. They had themselves shewn that it is easy for a man to forget himself, and yet be no dramatic genius. But the truth is, that these mongrel and doggrel drivellers have an instinctive abhorrence of a true poet; and they all ran cut like so many curs baying at the feet of the Pegasus on which Byron rode. One kick was enough for one critic. What could they know or feel of Manfred, since they never saw Kean in that character?-They cannot conceive a drama acted on the theatre of the Alps, with storm-clouds for a curtain, stars for lamps, and an orchestra of cataracts. and the eulogists of homely, and fireside, and little back-parlour incest, what could they imagine of the unseduceable spirit of the spotless Angiolina, happy in the guardian affection of her father's noble friend ?-When Elliston, ignorant of what one gentle

man owes to another, or driven by stupidity to forget it, brought the Doge on the stage, how crowed the Bantam Cocks of Cockaigne to see it damned! The hen-like cackle of the chicken hearted tragedian was heard in pit and gallery, and folly shook its bells on the alleged failure of a great genius, in what he had never attempted.

But Manfred and the Doge are not dead; while all that small fry have disappeared in the mud, and are dried up like so many tadpoles in a ditch, under the summer drowth.

Lord Byron," quoth Mr Leigh Hunt, has about as much dramatic genius as OURSELVES!!" He might as well have said, Lucretia had about as much chastity as my own heroine in Rimini ;" or, "Sir Philip Sydney was about as much of the gentleman as myself!"

Now, gentle reader, the hints you have been perusing about dramatic genius and so forth, were jotted down by us as materials for an introduction to a critique on Lord Byron's new volume. But unluckily for us, and for our Magazine, Mr Murray has published on a most absurd day of the month, and we must go to press without his Lordship. Accordingly, we have not taken the trouble of writing a regular introduction to a critique which is not to exist; but have merely strung a few thoughts together, of which the redder may make the most he can, though at the same time we are confident that they are extremely shrewd and judicious.

However, though we have not Lord Byron's volume, we have another in hand, which comforts us, in some degree, under the disappointment, and from which we think some extracts may be given, not equal certainly to the best things that may be to be found in the Mystery," but far above mediocrity, and decisive of this author being a man of talents and of genius; his name is David Lyndsay, and that is all we know of him, except that he once or twice sent us some dramatic sketches for this Magazine.

We write, therefore, now, as indeed always, without fear or favour; and the extracts will speak for themselves. If we were not the most incorruptible of critics, we do not very well know how we should manage with literary men in general. There is scarcely an author of any merit, in any depart

VOL. X.

ment, who is not a contributor to our Work; but that circumstance has no influence on our judgment; and when a clever contributor writes a bad book, we tell him so without any scruple, not doubting that he will write a good one the next time. At first we gave offence by our candour; and indeed neither Mr Brougham nor Sir James Macintosh have written in this Maga zine for some years; but they were so much accustomed to praise themselves in the Edinburgh Review, that our strict justice was not found by them to be palatable so that they write now, we believe, almost exclusively in that Work, and its illustrious coadju tor, the Morning Chronicle.

The "Dramas of the Ancient World" are not arranged in chronological order, and are entitled, "The Deluge, the Plague of Darkness, the Last Plague, Rizpah, Sardanapalus, the Destiny of Cain, the Death of Cain, and the Nereid's Love.”

"The Destiny of Cain," and "The Death of Cain," are, as it were, two parts of one dramatic poem. It opens with a scene in the country at sunrise, where a band of youths and maidens are assembled to watch the great luminary, and to hail its appearance with gratulatory hymns.While these innocent and happy beings are engaged in poetical responses, an alarm is given, and

"A YOUTH enters hastily.

Break off! break off
Your sacred ceremonies, holy songs;
Descend this mountain, for a stranger step
Pollutes its holiness!A giant form
Of demon grandeur doth ascend its steep,"
With threatening gestures, and with rolling

eyes

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he comes !

His eye doth bear pollution.-Shun it !-
Fly!"

It is Cain the Murderer, and the hymning troop disperse in horror and consternation. Cain, whose doom it is to wander forever over the earth, and to find no rest on its bosom, which quakes and shudders as soon as he pauses in his flight, breaks forth into the following passionate exclamation:

"Lonely and sad, one victim. I will on, Pursue, destroy ;-I will walk o'er this earth,

And leave the track of footsteps dyed in blood;

I will sweep off all living from her face, And be but one !-alone! Azura shunn'd

me,

Fled from my horror-breathing sight, and sought

The bosom of her father.-What is there Now left of hope for me, not peace!-Ha, power!

What if I spare these gaudy sons of joy, Who sing away their lives in gentle shades, And live their master!-Yes, dominion shall

Blot out remembrance, and softer thoughts Be banish'd by its powers. Hope and love Died with the murder'd Abel !-Rage and strength

Live with the wanderer Cain. Come, abjects, come!

Wretches, return! provoke me not to tear Your fear-bound bodies from the dreary

caves

Where ye' lie crouching! Trust not my fierce hands;

They that spared not a brother, will not pause

To dash your dainty forms against the rocks,

Spoiling the symmetry of those light limbs, And leaving them a bleeding lump of clay, Like his who horrible remembrance, die ! Let me a moment rest-one moment stay In these soft groves untortur'd!-Hark! the roar

Of the denying thunder, and the earth

Shakes, while I pause upon her breast.
On! on!

Not here my place of refuge!"

The next scene opens on the coast, and the time is evening; so that the imagination has to feel that Cain had all day long been driven onwards in his frantic career, and from an inland region had reached the sea. Jared, a Patriarch, and his sons and daughters, have just finished their day's labour, and are about to retire to the well-earned banquet of the night, when the murderer appears, and concealing the bloody sign that flames upon his brow, he entreats permission to rest a while in these fields of peace.

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