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By Root 16937 0

was the feebleness of the denouement, and, generally, of the concluding scenes, as compared with the opening passages. We are not sure, however, that anything like detailed criticism has been attempted in the case — nor do we propose now to attempt it. Nevertheless, the work has interest, not only within itself, but as the first dramatic effort of an author who has remarkably succeeded in almost every other department of light literature than that of the drama. It may be as well, therefore, to speak of it, if not analytically, at least somewhat in detail; and we cannot, perhaps, more suitably commence than by a quotation, without comment of some of the finer passages:

And, though she is a virgin outwardly,

Within she is a sinner, like those panels

Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks

Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary

On the outside, and on the inside Venus. . . . .

I believe

That woman, in her deepest degradation,

Holds something sacred, something undefiled,

Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature,

And, like the diamond in the dark, retains

Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light.. . . . .

And we shall sit together unmolested,

And words of true love pass from tongue to tongue

As singing birds from one bough to another.”

Our feelings and our thoughts

Tend ever on and rest not in the Present,

As drops of rain fall into some dark well,

And from below comes a scarce audible sound, ­

So fall our thoughts into the dark

Hereafter, And their mysterious echo reaches us. . . . .

Her tender limbs are still, and, on her breast,

The cross she prayed to, ere she fell asleep,

Rises or falls with the soft tide of dreams,

Like a light barge safe moored.

Hark! how the large and ponderous mace of Time

Knocks at the golden portals of the day!

The lady Violante bathed in tears

Of love and anger, like the maid of Colchis,

Whom thou, another faithless Argonaut,

Having won that golden fleece, a woman’s love,

Desertest for this Glauce.

I read, or sit in reverie and watch

The changing colour of the waves that break

Upon the idle sea-shore of the mind.

I will forget her. All dear recollections

Pressed in my heart, like flowers within a book,

Shall be tom out and scattered to the winds.

Oh yes! I see it now-

Yet rather with my heart than with mine eyes,

So faint it is. And all my thoughts sail thither,

Freighted with prayers and hopes, and forward urged,

Against all stress of accident, as, in

The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide

Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains.

But there are brighter dreams than those of Fame,

Which are the dreams of Love! Out of the heart

Rises the bright ideal of these dreams,

As from some woodland fount a spirit rises

And sinks again into its silent deeps,

Ere the enamoured knight can touch her robe!

‘Tis this ideal that the soul of Man,

Like the enamoured knight beside the fountain,

Waits for upon the margin of Life’s stream;

Waits to behold her rise from the dark waters,

Clad in a mortal shape! Alas, how many

Must wait in vain! The stream flows evermore,

But from its silent deeps no spirit rises!

Yet I, born under a propitious star,

Have found the bright ideal of my dreams.

Yes; by the Darro’s side

My childhood passed. I can remember still

The river, and the mountains capped with snow;

The villages where, yet a little child,

I told the traveller’s fortune in the street;

The smugglers horse; the brigand and the shepherd;

The march across the moor; the halt at noon;

The red fire of the evening camp, that lighted

The forest where we slept; and, farther back, ­

As in a dream, or in some former life,

Gardens and palace walls.

This path will lead us to it,

Over the wheatfields, where the shadows sail

Across the running sea, now green, now blue,

And, like an idle mariner on the ocean,

Whistles the quail.

These extracts will be universally admired. They are graceful, well expressed, imaginative, and altogether replete with the true poetic feeling. We quote them now, at the beginning of our review,