ing her weakness, conceals himself so as to overhear what passes. The King enters and finds Evadne; she evades his dishonourable propositions, by calling his attention, with mysterious and solemn pathos, to the statues of her family, which stood in the chamber. At length she comes to one statue, and asks the King if he knew it. It was her father's, who had been the King's tutor, and died by a stroke aimed at the King in battle. She embraces the statue, and invokes the spirit of her father. The King is moved-abandons his base wishes -Colonna comes forth, embraces his sister, and is reconciled to the King. Ludovico is approaching-Colonna places the King behind the statues, and Evadne retires. Ludovico enters, and is told by Colonna that the King is dead. His joy and ambition burst forth tumultuously He tells Colonna he shall die the death of a murderer, orders the guards to advance and seize him, when suddenly the King appears before him; Ludovico is confounded-recovers himself-and tries the success of hypocrisy. He is spurned by the King is roused to the vengeance of despair -makes an attempt to kill the King, and is himself killed by Colonna, and the play

concludes.

This sketch, which is otherwise tolerably distinct and intelligible, omits to mention, that in the last scene we are made to understand that Vicentio was not killed, and that the lovers are to be united under the auspices of the repentant king, who takes Colonna to his counsels in the place of Ludovi

Co.

To the plot of this play, and the incidents by which it is worked out, it gives us great pleasure to be able to offer almost unqualified praise. It has quite enough of unity for all the purposes of the drama. The guilty ambition of Ludovico is the spring which sets every part in motion every incident flows naturally and intelligibly from its immediate and assigned cause, and all conduce to bear him on nearer and nearer towards the object of his desires-the crown-till at length, in the last scene, he is on the point of seizing it--but at the very moment when he seems to feel its golden round upon his brow, and in imagination presses the sceptre in his grasp, retribution falls on him like a thunderbolt, and closes his career.The events on which the chief interest of the piece depends are brought about with great skill. They are every one made "probable to thinking.' It is impossible for Vicentio to resist the evidence which Ludovico

offers him of Evadne's falsehood, when coupled with the changing of the picture-it is impossible for Colonna to refuse the office which Ludovico forces upon him of killing the king-and it is impossible for the king himself,young and not wholly depraved as he is, to withstand the appeal which Evadne makes to him, in the shadowy presence of her great and glorious ancestors. The minor incidents, toothe treachery of Olivia-the combat between Colonna and Vicentio-the intended sacrifice of his hand which Vicentio makes to Olivia, &c., all are absolutely essential to the progress of the plot, and yet none have the appearance of being forced or out of place.

But we must here repeat an opinion we have before expressed, that plot should be quite a secondary consideration in appreciating the value of a tragedy as a literary work--and a tragedy that does not aspire to rank as a literary work is not worthy the name, and its author, whatever they may call him in the green-room, is not a poet. In a tragedy, properly so called, we require a language perfectly sensible and unaffected, particularly in the more passionate parts-and yet, at the same time, lifted above the ordinary forms of speech by the musical arrangement of its words and phrases, by the presence of lofty and appro priate poetical imagery, and by the total absence of every thing vulgar or conventional. We require a just and vigorous conception of character, and a passionate and consistent development of it-and, lastly, a tone of sentiment not caught from observation of the actual feelings of our "visible diurnal" life, but formed by deep and silent meditation on the mysterious world which exists in the poet's own soul, and on the ultimate destinies of our common nature. Give us but these and we can compound for the absence of all minor perfections, such as plot, unity of time and place, probability, and so forth. Nobody seeks for, or cares to point out the innume◄ rable petty sins of Shakspeare and the elder dramatists in this sort, because the nobler essentials existed in them in all their power and glory-and where these are absent, nobody, but French critics and managers of theatres, cares a jot for any thing else.

We have seen that Mr Sheil's plot

is excellent; and, certainly, for the mere purposes of theatrical representa tion, this is a very important point. It remains for us to examine how far he has fulfilled the other and more essential demands on a tragic poet. And first with respect to his characters :Under this head we are happy to offer him nearly as much praise as is due for the construction of his plot. Though they are not conceived with much depth or originality, they are all, without exception, delineated and brought out with considerable truth, distinctness, and variety; and all his persons have characters-which is, comparatively, saying a great deal for them in the present state of our dramatic literature. Ludovico is a proud and aspiring, but subtle and calculating villain; full of strong passions, but making them all subserve to his ruling one-ambition. Colonna is high-minded by nature and education; but rash and inconsiderate in his love, as well as his hatred. Proud, and even vain, of his noble ancestry; but loving his sister, and eager to revenge her wrongs, more for herself than for the name she bears. Vicentio is a lover, but an Italian. Devoted to Evadne, while he believes that she is true to him; but when he thinks her false, more anxious to vindicate his fame than to remember his affection. But Evadne is the charm of the piece. She is a woman in the truest and strictest yet most delightful sense of the term. Love, trusting and enduring love, is the very breath of her existence. She has deliberately chosen Vicentio to be the lord of her life-the home and temple of her thoughts and affections-and nothing can turn them aside from their course. He may discard her, but she cannot forsake him. Her love is not to be put on or off like an opinion or a garment. It is not a thing subject to the chances and changes of time and circumstances. It is as permanent as her life, because a part of it. Vicentio inflicts upon her the deepest injury that such a woman can suffer,—he doubts and disbelieves her faith. After this, insult and desertion are but secondary griefs. Still, however, she does not love him the less-perhaps the more. At least, her love becomes more apparent the less apparent hope there is of its requital. Her being is more than ever absorbed in it; be

cause, before, it could lean happily and securely upon him, but now it has no strength or support but within itself.-This character has nothing new in it. It belongs, we believe, exclusively to the dramatists of the age of Elizabeth-the only period of our own literature, or perhaps of any other, in which the female character was properly appreciated and understood. But we sincerely thank Mr Sheil for bringing it forward now. It was never more wanted before the public eye.

Reason and refinement have become temporary lords of the ascendant, and banished it from towns and cities; but nothing can destroy it, because its ideal image is enshrined in the breast of every true poet that lives, and its living and perennial roots are fixed in the very heart of nature herself.

Of the remaining part of this tragedy, we are sorry not to be able to speak with so much praise as we have done of the plot and characters. Of the tone of sentiment by which it is pervaded, it would carry us much beyond our limits if we were to do more than speak negatively. It has no decided character-not sufficient elevation of thought-it is not pitched in a lofty key-it gives no echo to the imagination ;-in one word, it is not poetical-we mean with reference to tragedy: its music is not tragic. We fear to be unintelligible or misunderstood in saying no more than thisbut we cannot go more deeply into the subject at present.

Of the language of this play we are obliged to speak with still more censure. It is every where disfigured by marks of feebleness and haste, and in parts sinks into mere vulgarity. The imagery is frequently harsh and extravagant, or far-fetched and affected, or made up of mere common-places. There is very little of that native power and originality, which is so conspicuous in the elder dramatists; and still less of that noble simplicity, that free and full reliance on nature, which gives to their works such inexhaustible freshness and beauty. Mr Sheil has undoubtedly a poetical mind; but he appears, at present, to owe all his fund of available and practical poetry (if we may so speak) to books

and those not the best. But his language is not without beauties. We shall give a few examples of these,

world!". p. 57.

It would be much more easy than it would be pleasant or necessary, to multiply examples of this kind. But we are compelled to give a few, in proof of the justice of our censure; and because they are exactly characteristic of the defects of Mr Sheil's style. Besides these, we meet with such mere vulgarisms as "You have got a heart," &c. 24. "Ha! hast thou got a soul?" 81. And again, "Whose hearts are a large heap of cankers." p. 5. "This testimony has conjured All other circumstances in one vast heap Of damned certainty.” Both these expressions are repeated in several other places.

We now most willingly quit the ungracious task of pointing out defects, and hasten to contrast them VOL. IV.

with beauties.-The following is our first introduction to Evadne, who is anxiously expecting the arrival of Vicentio.

"EVADNE discovered looking at a picture.

Evad. 'Tis strange he comes not! thro'

the city's gates

His panting courser passed, before the sun Had climbed to his meridian, yet he comes not!

Methinks the very throbbings of my heart
With slow distinctness mete the hours away,
As heavily as to a sick man's ear

Time's monitor beneath his pillow strikes,
Before the dawn of daylight.-Ah! Vicentio,
To know thee near me, yet behold thee not,
Is sadder than to think thee far away;
For I had rather that a thousand leagues
Of mountain ocean should dissever us,
Than thine own heart, Vicentio." p. 22.

This is very pleasingly writtenthe rythm strikes us as being very graceful and melodious.-What follows is still better. Evadne is not yet aware that Vicentio thinks her false to him, and she says,

66 You look altered.

Vic. But you do not look altered--would you did!

Let me peruse the face where loveliness Stays, like the light after the sun is set. Sphered in the stillness of those heaven-blue

eyes,

Smooth as the brow of Pallas, seems a temple
The soul sits beautiful; the high white front,
Sacred to holy thinking !”—
p. 26.

We cannot refuse ourselves the pleasure of transcribing Evadne's prayer for the happiness of Vicentio and Olivia, to whom he is about to be united.

Evad. May you be happy with that happier maid,

That never could have loved you more than I do,

But may deserve you better. May your days,
Like a long stormless summer, glide away,
And peace and trust be with you. May
you be

The after patterns of felicity,
That lovers, when they wed, may only wish
To be as blest as you were. Loveliness
Dwell round about you like an atmosphere
Of our soft southern air, where every flower
In Hymen's yellow wreath may bloom and

blow.

Let nature with the strong domestic bond
Of parent tenderness unite your hearts
In holier harmony; and when you see
What you both love, more ardently adore!
And when at last you close your gentle lives,
Blameless as they were blessed, may you fall
of two sweet roses on an autumn eve,
Into the grave as softly as the leaves
Beneath the small sighs of the western wind,
Drop to the earth together!"
4 X

And throw it off?"

p. 67.

Sciarrha, in the old play, exclaims on the same occasion,

"I do not think but all the ashes of
My ancestors do swell in their dark urns,
At this report of Amidea's shame :-
It is their cause as well as mine; and should
Heaven suffer the Duke's sin to pass un-
punished,

Their dust must of necessity conspire
To make an earthquake in the temple.".
Act II. Scene I.

We point out these coincidences without the slightest intention of detracting from Mr Sheil's claims to originality. Indeed they, and the others which occur, are of too little importance to have any effect of that kind. And, to say the truth, we can hardly tell what our own object is in pointing them out at all; unless, indeed, we should venture to confess (for we cannot keep a secret)-that we thought it might give a more critical air to the conclusion of our remarks for it has always been part of the metier of a critic, to at least seem to know more than his neighbours.

We have scarcely left ourselves room to say a word of the performers in this tragedy, and yet they deserve the very highest praise. It would be difficult for a play to be better acted throughout. Mr Macready's Ludovico displayed finished judgment in every part; and some passages of it were very fine-particularly those in which he resumes his naturally haughty and ambitious character, after he has been hypocritically humble before the king. There were some bursts of passion, too, in which his fine, rich, sepulchral voice produced an admirable effect. Mr Young played Colonna in a fine, free, loose oriental style; and he gave the declamatory parts with great power. If we must find fault, his performance was perhaps rather too careless and off-hand.-The young and

we mean to strengthen rather than qualify our praise. A perfect woman is one who possesses all the better qualities of her nature, and no more. As her form would be less lovely if it had wings to lift it from the earth, so her

mind and manners are less attractive when they possess powers and qualities that belong to another sex, and, Mrs consequently, to another nature. Siddons was a glorious godlike creature, to be gazed and wondered at like the stars of heaven. We looked at her, as we do at them, with a mysterious and distant reverence, as a thing beyond our proper sphere. But Miss O'Neil is something perhaps still better. She, like ourselves, is "of the earth, earthly"-but, like the flowers about our path, she beautifies the ground on which we walk ;-and we need not fear to gaze on her, as we do on them, with mere human feelings of delight and love.-We do not know how it is that we have put off, from time to time, giving our opinion at length, on this charming actressunless it be, that we doubt our power of doing justice to what we feel on the subject. We must shortly endeavour to devote a separate paper to it, when we shall have to speak of this character in particular, which is better suited to her powers than any she has yet played, except, perhaps, Juliet and Desde

mona.

DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

BRUTUS Continues to attract an audience to this theatre, which is saying more of it than could be said of any other drama on the list of stock-pieces, if the experiment were to be tried. We have seen it two or three times, and are confirmed in the opinion we expressed of its merits. They are all confined to the character of Brutus, and even that owes all its attractions to the acting of Mr Kean. His splendid talents make us consent to a falsification both of history and of nature of Roman nature: for his Brutus, it