elected Cardinals, and of a purer church; and it shall be ere long remembered as dream and fable, that the representative of my Cid" could not rest in consecrated ground.

As if they saw their dangers, and their glories,
And did partake with them in their rewards,
All that have any spark of Roman in them,
The slothful arts laid by, contend to be
Like those they see presented.

SECOND SENATOR. He has put

The consuls to their whisper.

PARIS. But 'tis urged

That we corrupt youth, and traduce superiors.
When do we bring a vice upon the stage,
That does go off unpunished? Do we teach,
By the success of wicked undertakings,
Others to tread in their forbidden steps?
We show no arts of Lydian panderism,
Corinthian poisons, Persian flatteries,
But mulcted so in the conclusion, that
Even those spectators, that were so inclined,
Go home changed men. And for traducing such
That are above us, publishing to the world
Their secret crimes, we are as innocent

As such as are born dumb. When we present
An heir, that does conspire against the life

Of his dear parent, numbering every hour

He lives, as tedious to him; if there be

Among the auditors one, whose conscience tells him

He is of the same mould,-WE CANNOT Help it.

Or, bringing on the stage a loose adulteress,

That does maintain the riotous expense

Of her licentious paramour, yet suffers

The lawful pledges of a former bed

To starve the while for hunger; if a matron,
However great in fortune, birth, or titles,

Cry out, "Tis writ for me!-WE CANNOT HELP IT,

Or, when a covetous man's expressed, whose wealth

In Germany these questions have already been fairly weighed, and those who read the sketches of her great actors, as given by Tieck, know that there, at least, they took with the best minds of their age and country their proper place.

And who, that reads Joanna Baillie's address to Mrs. Siddons, but feels that the fate, which placed his birth in another age from her, has robbed him of full sense of a kind of greatness whose absence none other can entirely supply.

*

The impassioned changes of thy beauteous face,
Thy arms impetuous tost, thy robe's wide flow,
And the dark tempest gathered on thy brow,
*hat time thy flashing eye and lip of scorn
Down to the dust thy mimic foes have borne;
Remorseful musings sunk to deep dejection,
The fixed and yearning looks of strong affection;

Arithmetic cannot number, and whose lordships
A falcon in one day cannot fly over;

Yet he so sordid in his mind, so griping

As not to afford himself the necessaries

To maintain life, if a patrician,

(Though honored with a consulship) find himself
Touched to the quick in this,-WE CANNOT HELP IT.
Or, when we show a judge that is corrupt,

And will give up his sentence, as he favors
The person, not the cause; saving the guilty
If of his faction, and as oft condemning
The innocent, out of particular spleen;
If any in this reverend assembly,

Nay, even yourself, my lord, that are the image
Of absent Cæsar, feel something in your bosom
That puts you in remembrance of things past,
Or things intended,-'TIS NOT IN US TO HELP IT.
I have said, my lord, and now, as you find cause,
Or censure us, or free us with applause.

Thy varied accents, rapid, fitful, slow,

Loud rage, and fear's snatch'd whisper, quick and low,
The burst of stifled love, the wail of grief,

And tones of high command, full, solemn, brief;
The change of voice and emphasis that threw
Light on obscurity, and brought to view
Distinctions nice, when grave or comic mood,
Or mingled humors, terse and new, elude
Common perception, as earth's smallest things
To size and form the vesting hoar-frost brings.

*

*

from the mental world can never fade,
Till all, who've seen thee, in the grave are laid.
Thy graceful form still moves in nightly dreams
And what thou wert to the rapt sleeper seems,
While feverish fancy oft doth fondly trace
Within her curtained couch thy wondrous face;
Yea, and to many a wight, bereft and lone,
In musing hours, though all to thee unknown,
Soothing his early course of good and ill,

With all thy potent charm thou actest still.

Perhaps the effect produced by Mrs. Siddons is still more vividly shown in the character of Jane de Montfort, which seems modelled from her. We have no such lotus cup to drink. Mademoiselle Rachel indeed seems to possess as much electric force as Mrs. Siddons, but not the same imposing individuality. The Kembles and Talma were cast in the royal mint to commemorate the victories of genius. That Mrs. Siddons even added somewhat of congenial glory to Shakspeare's own conceptions, those who compare the engravings of her in Lady Macbeth and Catherine of Arragon, with the picture drawn in their own minds from acquaintance with these beings in the original, cannot doubt; the sun is reflected with new glory in the majestic river.

Yet, under all these disadvantages there have risen up often, in England, and even in our own country, actors who gave a reason for the continued existence of the theatre, who sustained the ill-educated, flimsy troop, which commonly fills it, and provoked both the poet and the playwright to turn their powers in that direction.

The plays written for them, though no genuine dramas, are not without value as spectacle, and the opportunity, however lame, gives freer play to the actor's powers, than would the simple recitation, by which some have thought any attempt at acting whole plays should be superseded. And under the starring system it is certainly less painful, on the whole, to see a play of Knowles's than one of Shakspeare's; for the former, with its frigid diction, unnatural dialogue, and academic figures, affords scope for the actor to produce striking effects, and to show a knowledge of the passions, while all the various beauties of Shakspeare are traduced by the puppets who should repeat them, and the being closer to nature, brings no one figure into such bold relief as is desirable when there is only one actor. Virginius, the Hunchback, Metamora, are plays quite good enough for the stage at present; and they are such as those who attend the representations of plays will be very likely to write.

Another class of dramas are those written by the scholars and thinkers, whose tastes have been formed, and whose ambition kindled, by acquaintance with the genuine English dramatists. These again may be divided into two sorts. One, those who have some idea to bring out, which craves a form more lively than the essay, more compact than the narrative, and who therefore adopt (if Hibernicism may be permitted) the dialogued monologue to very good purpose. Such are Festus, Paracelsus, Coleridge's Remorse, Shelley's Cenci; Miss Baillie's plays, though meant for action, and with studied attempts to vary them by the lighter shades of common nature, which, from her want

of lively power, have no effect, except to break up the interest, and Byron's are of the same class; they have no present life, no action, no slight natural touches, no delicate lines, as of one who paints his portrait from the fact; their interest is poetic, nature apprehended in her spirit; philosophic, actions traced back to their causes; but not dramatic, nature reproduced in actual presence. This, as a form for the closet, is a very good one, and well fitted to the genius of our time. Whenever the writers of such fail, it is because they have the stage in view, instead of considering the dramatis personæ merely as names for classes of thoughts. Somewhere betwixt these and the mere acting plays stand such as Maturin's Bertram, Talfourd's Ion, and (now before me) Longfellow's Spanish Student. Bertram is a good acting play, that is, it gives a good opportunity to one actor, and its painting, though coarse, is effective. Ion, also, can be acted, though its principal merit is in the nobleness of design, and in details it is too elaborate for the scene. Still it does move and melt, and it is honorable to us that a piece constructed on so high a motive, whose tragedy is so much nobler than the customary forms of passion, can act on audiences long unfamiliar with such religion. The Spanish Student might also be acted, though with no great effect, for there is little movement in the piece, or development of character; its chief merit is in the graceful expression of single thoughts or fancies; as here,

All the means of action

The shapeless masses, the materials,

Lie every where about us. What we need
Is the celestial fire to change the flint
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.
That fire is genius! The rude peasant sits
At evening in his smoky cot, and draws
With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall.
The son of genius comes, foot-sore with travel,
And begs a shelter from the inclement night.