Hear her but speak, and you will swear the spheres | men count it venial to err with their foreMake music for the citizens in heaven." A single specimen more must suffice for Although a most hideous and enormous sin is held up in this tragedy to the popular odium, yet even the goodness of the author's motives can scarce excuse his subject. Still, he has the slight defense that he may have taken the hint from the ancient Greek drama, in which this vice was not of uncommon occurrence. And in this feeling we are borne out by some of the most able critics. The author of the "Pleasures of Hope" held still stronger language in this connection; and the late Charles Lamb, in a note to an extract from this play, says: "Sir Thomas Browne, in the last chapter of his Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, rebukes such authors as have chosen to relate prodigious and nameless sins. The chapter is entitled, Of some relations whose truth we fear. His reasoning is solemn and fine: 'Lastly, as there are many relations whereto we cannot assent, and make some doubt thereof, so there are many relations whose truth we fear, and heartily wish there were no verity therein. Many other accounts like these we meet sometimes in history, scandalous unto Christianity, and even unto humanity; whose not only verities but relations honest minds do deprecate. For of sins heteroclital, and such as want either name or precedent, there is ofttimes a sin even in their histories. We desire no records of such enormities; sins should be accounted new, that thus they may be esteemed monstrous. They omit of monstrosity as they fall from their rarity; for fathers, and foolishly conceive they divide a sin in its society. The pens of men may sufficiently expatiate without these singularities of villany; for, as they increase the hatred of vice in some, so do they enlarge the theory of wickedness in all. And this is one thing that may make latter ages worse than were the former: for the vicious example of ages past poisons the curiosity of these present, affording a hint of sin unto seduceable spirits, and soliciting those unto the imitation of them, whose heads were never so perversely principled as to invent them. In things of this nature silence commendeth history; 'tis the veniable part of things lost, wherein there must never rise a Pancirollus, nor remain any Register but that of Hell.' Pancirollus wrote De Antiquis Perditis, or of the Lost Inventions of Antiquity."" We take leave of this play, for the "Lover's Melancholy," with feelings much akin to those inspired by stepping from a cold, damp charnel-house, into an airy, agreeable garden. This tragi-comedy we have alluded to before: it is undoubtedly a most superior production, containing several passages that would singly suffice to immortalize any man. The plot is also of a graceful character. In it our author delineates with a master's hand the progress and cure of two kinds of insanity, without suffering the interest of the piece to pall for a moment. The reader will agree with Mr. Lamb in regard to the following extract, that "it is as fine as any thing in Beaumont and Fletcher, and almost equals the strife it celebrates." It depicts a contest between a Musician and a Nightingale: the tale on which it is founded is familiar to all classical readers:— tales Menaphon. Passing from Italy to Greece, the Proclaiming (as it seemed) so bold a challenge Nature's best skilled musician, undertakes Spartan boy, who let a beast gnaw out his bowels till he died, without expressing a groan, is a faint bodily image of this dilaceration of the spirit, and excuteration of the inmost mind, which Calantha, with a holy violence against her nature, keeps closely The well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her covered, till the last duties of a Wife and a down; He could not run division with more art Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, er notes, So many voluntaries, and so quick, That there was curiosity and cunning, Music's first martyr) strove to imitate throat Failed in, down dropt she on his lute Queen are fulfilled. Stories of martyrdoms are but of chains and the stake; a little bodily suffering; these torments 'On the purest spirits prey As on entrails, joints, and limbs, With answerable pains, but more intense.' What a noble thing is the soul in its strengths and its weaknesses! Who would be less weak than Calantha? who can be so strong? The expression of this transcendent scene almo bears me in imagination to Calvary and the Cross; and I seem to perceive some analogy between the scenical sufferings which I am here contemplating, and the real agonies of that final completion to which I dare no more than hinta reference." The plot is And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness as follows: Penthea, noble Spartan dame, To see the conqueror upon her hearse To weep a funeral elegy of tears. He looks upon the trophies of his art, betrothed by her father and a mutual love to Orgilus, is, on her father's death, com Then sighed, then wiped his eyes, then sighed and pelled by her brother, Ithocles, to wed cried, 'Alas, poor creature! I will soon revenge We may as well state here, that under the sanction of very competent authority, we have ventured to clip and curtail the foregoing, from a dialogue to a monologue, in order to render it a more perfect excerpt. We now come to the "Broken Heart," which, taken all in all, is undoubtedly Ford's chef d'œuvre. This tragedy, which would have reflected credit upon Shakspeare himself, was first published in 1633, and is dedicated to the heroic Earl Craven. We may be excused for dwelling some time upon it, as it will serve to put forth the masterly genius of its author better than any other of his works. Let us again resort to Mr. Lamb, whose language is incapable of improvement: "I do not know where to find in any play a catastrophe so grand, so solemn, and so surprising as this. This is indeed, according to Milton, 'to describe high passions and high actions.' The fortitude of the Bassanes, a jealous old lord. Ithocles, in time, is enamored of Penthea's friend, the Princess Calantha, and after long intercession, prevails on his sister to exert her influence with Calantha in his favor. Orgilus, however, still retains his implacable anger towards Ithocles, and at length assassinates him, when he had inspired the Princess with so great an attachment that she had consented to marry him. From the many noble passages throughout, we select the following, in strong contrast with Falstaff's well-known ideas on the same subject:«Honor consists not in a bare opinion, By doing any act that feeds content, Brave in appearance, 'cause we think it brave; Such honor comes by accident, not nature; Proceeding from the vices of our passion, which makes our reason drunk: but real honor Is the reward of virtue, and acquired By justice, or by valor, which for basis Hath justice to uphold it. He then fails In honor, who for lucre or revenge With such like, by intrenching on just laws, Commits thefts, treasons, murthers, and adulteries, Whose sovereignty is best preserved by justice.” The scene where Penthea persuades the Princess to accede to her brother's suit is so perfect, that we cannot resist the temptation Glories My glass of life, sweet Princess, hath few minutes Cal. Contemn not your condition, for the proof Pen. Cal. I should have given that too; but instead Cal. What say'st thou ? Pen. Impute not, Heaven-blest lady, to ambition To place before you A faith as humbly perfect as the prayers A perfect mirror, wherein you may see How weary I am of a lingering life, ho count the best a misery. Cal. Indeed Must be a winding-sheet, a fold of lead, Cal. Cal. Now, beshrew thy sadness, Thou turn'st me too much woman. Of a devoted suppliant can endow it: Cal. Shall I answer here, While celebrating the nuptial feast of two of her favorites, Calantha is suddenly notified by one messenger, that the King her father is dead; by another, that Penthea has committed suicide by starvation; and finally Orgilus announces that Ithocles, with whom the Princess had interchanged pledges of mutual love, is cruelly murdered by his hand. The struggle with which the now Queen restrains her emotions amply justifies Mr. Lamb's eulogia. Having meted out to all the actors in her unhappy drama of life their proper dooms, Calantha transfers the crown to her cousin Nearchus, Prince of Argos; and finally, the corpse of Ithocles being brought forward in solemn state, and placed upon the stage, she expires upon the coffin of her lover, with this soliloquy :— Now I turn to thee, thou shadow [Places a ring on the finger of Ithocles.] But it struck home, and here, and in an instant. his conclusion. Sir Walter Scott elegantly expressed the ideas we have sought to convey, in language somewhat as follows: "A character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp is degraded, rather than exalted, by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such is not the recompense which Providence has deemed worthy of suffering merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal doctrine to teach young persons, the most common readers of romance, that rectitude of conduct and of principle are either naturally allied with, or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions or attainment of our wishes. In a word, if a virtuous and self-denied character is dismissed with temporal wealth, greatness, rank, .... the reader will be apt to say, verily virtue has had its reward. But a glance on the great picture of life will show that the duties of self-denial and the sacrifices of passion to principle are seldom thus remunerated, and that the internal consciousness of their high-minded discharge of duty, produces on their own reflections a more adequate recompense, in the form of that peace which the world cannot give, nor take away." Be such mere women, who, with shrieks and out- is the next, in point of time, of our au"Love's Sacrifice," first printed in 1633, cries Can vow a present end to all their sorrows, Yet live to vow new pleasures, and outlive them. They are the silent griefs which cut the heartstrings. Let me die smiling. [Dies.] thor's works. Its general merit is the delineation of the gradual progress of the jealous passion, the virtuous fortitude, and the insatiate revenge in the breasts of his characters. The intriguing, Machiavelian An intelligent critic has suggested that policy of the Italian courts of that age is the catastrophe in this play is far from be- also well depicted. It would seem to have ing faultless; that some distinction should been better received on representation in its be drawn between the fates of the virtuous day than others by the same author to which Calantha and the malignant Orgilus-of the it is decidedly inferior. This temporary trigenerous Penthea and the jealous old Bas- umph was undoubtedly owing to the defersanes. But with all due deference to this ence paid to the low tastes of the canaille, opinion, we beg leave to dissent from it. in the introduction of various vulgar pasTo a noble mind, death in certain circum-sages. Mr. Weber considers the whole play stances is the most precious boon. And setting aside the great moral truth, that ""Tis not the whole of life to live; which perhaps is not peculiarly apropos in an imitation of Shakspeare's Othello; and in truth there is ground for such an insinuation. Ford is well known to have been an ardent admirer of the "harmonious monarch of the mind;" and as we shall presently see, ventured on a still more palpable attempt to rival his great master. We have not marked any passages from this play for quotation, lest we fatigue our readers with unfair specimens of its author's merits. In 1634, Ford seems to have temporarily laid aside his plays in which the higher passions predominated, and "The committed the most egregious blunder of attempting openly to compete with Shakspeare in the Historical Drama. Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck" was probably intended by its author to connect Shakspeare's chain of English historical plays, by coming in between the dramas of Richard the Third and Henry the Eighth. In affirming the poet's failure, we must in candor admit that he labored under disadvantages more than sufficient to appall any ordinary mind. He would undoubtedly have better consulted his fame, had he never deserted that line of dramatic composition which evidently constitutes his forte. The auditories of those days did not receive "Perkin Warbeck" with any great degree of favor: nevertheless, testimonies of the regard in which it was held by several of the literati of the time (among others, we may refer to the celebrated Dr. Donne) still exist in their works. It was reprinted in 1715 and in 1745, by the friends of the House of Hanover, to excite and foster ill feeling against the Jacobite cause; albeit the author had dedicated it to that famous Earl of Newcastle whose staunch adherence to the Stuart cause during the Great Rebellion has tended more to immortalize him than his literary productions have done. The final act possesses much real merit: several of the speeches are very grand, and worthy of Shakspeare. What utter contempt is shown by Warbeck to the suggesgestion of his predecessor in rebellion, Lambert Simnel, that he should sue for pardon to King Henry VII.: "For pardon? Hold, my heartstrings, whilst contempt Of injuries in scorn may bid defiance To this base man's foul language! Thou, poor vermin, How dar'st thou creep so near me? Thou an earl? From the base beadle's whip, crowned all thy hopes. cuss the question whether his claimsbacked as they were by Margaret of Burgundy, the aunt of York, and by James IV. of Scotland-were genuine or false. Yet the passion that makes him in his deathagonies reaffirm his title could not have been other than real courage inspired either by a conviction of truth, or by a singularly gross self-deception. Let us proceed to the passage itself:— Oxford. Look behold ye, To wait on you in death. pointed Warbeck. your followers. ap Why, Peers of England, A minute's storm, or not so much to tumble We will venture to assert that a large majority of those readers who methodically peruse Shakspeare from beginning to end, have regretted and do regret the omission of any history of the reign of Henry VII.; and he who is lost in the bald, flat narrative of Lord Bacon will sympathize with them. But Shakspeare must have seen the great inapplicability of that reign to theatrical purposes; this renders the attempt of Ford more chivalric, if we may be allowed so to style it, to venture on a flight at which Shakspeare hesitated. Our author probably held with Montrose, twenty years after: |