"threw down their ditties, and drew out their handkerchiefs,"

And fools who came to scoff, remained to weep. But to Lillo's other plays the same objection cannot be made; and we must say we consider them the most forceful of any dramatic writing we have; so much so, indeed, as to be almost more than the audience can bear to see represented before them. Mrs. Inchbald, in her British Theatre, gives the following account of the reception of Fatal Curiosity, on its revival: "Mr. Colman was a warm admirer of Lillo's works, and of this play in particular. He caused it to be rehearsed with infinite care; and from the reception of the two first acts, and part of the third *, he had the hope that it would become extremely popular-but on the performance of a scene which followed soon after, a certain horror seized the audience, and was manifested by a kind of stifled scream."

Arden of Feversham has scarcely less power, and as a whole (though we know it is contrary to the general opinion,) we prefer it even to the other. The character of Alicia is drawn with a terrible reality almost peculiar to this most extraordinary writer;-and we do not know any situation in the whole range of the drama superior to that of Arden and Mosby at chess,-with the fearful suspense with which we wait for the watch-word of death-" Now I take you."

We scarcely know whether it is necessary to say that we are not advocating tragedies too terrible to see ;we are only pointing out the means by which such wonderfully strong effect can be produced-and perhaps, in striving to make his tragedy too powerful, some author

*The play is only in three acts.-ED.

may reach the long-unapproached point of making it powerful enough. To effect this, we repeat that we consider a domestic story and direct language the most probable means. We even think that prose might be preferable to verse,—even blank verse ;-though, when blank verse is written in the severe manner, we have been recommending, it is little more than euphonic prose.

Do we, then, desire that poetry should be banished from dramatic writing? We are the farthest from it in the world. But we consider the real representation of Nature to be the highest of all poetry ?-We regard the foisting in of sugared expressions, to be the substitution of a very inferior kind of poetry for the first and truest— the shewing of human passion. There are some occasions, also, on which "poetic diction" is not out of place;-in some soliloquies, for instance. A soliloquy is an agreed-upon violation of Nature, as the only means of communicating the thoughts of the speaker to the audience. When, therefore, his situation would naturally excite poetic thoughts in his mind, there can be no objection to giving them suitable words. To revert to Othello again, (for as, with some exceptions, it is the perfection of tragedy, we may ever revert to it,)—during the whirlwind of his passion his speech is direct and simple --but his contemplation is imaginative, not passionate— and is correspondingly expressed ;—

Yet I'll not shed her blood;

Nor scar that whiter skin of her's than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster!

Thus he speaks as he gazes on his sleeping wife,and such images are those which would then naturally rise into his mind :—again—

Put out the light, and then-Put out the light!

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

I can again thy former light restore

Should I repent me:-but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,

I know not where is that Promethean heat

That can thy light relumine. When I have pluck'd thy rose
I cannot give it vital growth again,

It needs must wither; I'll smell thee on the tree.

This is poetic diction'-but it is on an occasion and in a circumstance when a man's thoughts would be poetry.

It is the neglect of the occasion-of the characterthat we censure it is the strict and constant observance of them that we would inculcate. To sum our meaning in one word, the author should invariably recollect that it is not he who speaks but the character of his creation.

Of late years, the art of dramatic writing has rapidly declined. It must, indeed, be a very difficult task to write a good tragedy; for how rarely does any production of the present day survive the ordeal of a season? We are far from withholding our tribute of praise from the tragedies of Maturin, 'and Milman, and Cornwall, and Shiel; but granting the fair allowance of merit to each of these writers, we fear their collected weight will go but small way towards sustaining the dramatic character of the age. Indeed, it would seem, that the era of Otway and Rowe was the evening of dramatic literature in England. To this has succeeded a long night; the gloom of which a few brilliant and transitory stars have not been able to dispel.

One of the great defects of modern tragedy consists in the substitution of stage-effect for interest of plot. It is too frequently the practice of our dramatists, to compensate for barrenness of invention by the introduction not only of a profusion of what are technically called situations, but of banquetings, and processions,

and battles, and storms, and such like attractive pageants. This depravity of taste is glaringly apparent in some of the most approved tragedies of later times*. Not that the fault lies wholly with the author; it springs in some measure from the taste of the audience; which, in the present day, so strongly inclines towards stage-pomp and spectacle. But surely these may be confined to melodrame, and tragedy, at least, may be permitted to retain her pure and simple dignities. The age of rope-dancers and dumb animals is happily past; but it will remain a lasting stigma upon the British drama, that in one of our national theatres, where the genius of Shakspeare once bore undisputed sway, a British audience should have tolerated-sanctionednay, applauded-the prancing of horses, and the evolutions of a funambulist!

Another dangerous practice of modern dramatists is, the adaptation of characters to a particular actor or actress. Every writer dwells with delight on the effect which a particular passage of his play will derive from the delivery of a favourite performer. This appears to us a species of dramatic charlatanerie wholly unworthy of a great poet. It argues that prevailing and injudicious feeling of authors, the preference of immediate applause to permanent fame. If characters and speeches be written for a particular time, it will generally follow that their celebrity will be as transient as that of the favourites on whom their effect mainly depends. Such a practice is, moreover, vitally prejudicial to invention and originality.

*The tragedy of Brutus, though, perhaps the best that has been written on that favourite subject, is a strong instance of this. There is scarcely a scene of which the effect does not mainly depend on some striking situation, or gorgeous display.

Of our modern tragic-writers, Maturin undoubtedly ranks among the first. The success of Bertram was brilliant; and though it has one or two strong blemishes, this tragedy must always bear a high character among our acting plays, while the remarkable beauty of the language will ever render it a favourite with the lovers of poetry. We know scarcely any thing more beautiful, in the whole range of dramatic poetry, than the story of Imogine, as she tells it to her attendant. With some few exceptions, it strongly exemplifies our hypothesis of the power which can be given to poetry in dialogue, without the introduction of " poetic diction." In the beautiful and most natural burst, where, on the sudden question of Clotilde, how one who had so loved could wed another, she changes from the third person to the first, and lets fall that she is the heroine of her own story, there is scarcely a word but might have been used in real life-and will any one deny its power?

"How could she wed?-What could she do but wed?—

Hast seen the sinking fortunes of thy house

Hast felt the gripe of bitter shameful want

Hast seen a father on the cold, cold earth

Hast read his eye of silent agony,

That asked relief, yet would not look reproach

Upon his child unkind?

I would have wed disease, deformity,

Yea, clasped Death's grisly form to 'scape from it;

And yet some sorcery was wrought on me,

For earlier things do seem as yesterday,
But I've no recollection of the hour
They gave my hand to Aldobrand."

The expression, "clasped Death's grisly form,” is the only bit of poetic diction in the whole passage-and is not this a blemish on its nature and beauty? Againwhat can be more poetically pathetic than the following lines?-and is not their diction mainly simple ?—