Noble Henriquez, thy too stubborn virtue.—
Living or dead, brave man, thou must be honoured.-
To all that is most great and admirable

Thou art akin. I have no words to speak

The thoughts I have of thee,-thou noble man!

But in the following speech of the King, the tone of feeling is yet more exaggerated and misplaced:

His life, indeed, we must despair to save;

But infamy is from his name removed,

As Heaven from Hell-yea, his proud house shall boast

Of this its noble malefactor, more

Than all its trophied chiefs.

When at the bar he stood arraigned, and pled,

Proving his secret guilt against himself,

Ne'er rose his form so nobly on the mind
E'en in his days of triumph.-

But when the fatal sentence was pronounced,
He raised his head and sent a look to Heaven
Of proud appeal and solemn thankfulness:
A look of pious hope, so dignified,

He seemed like some fallen seraph, that again
Was on his way to bliss.-

Rescue! far more than rescue! his proud house
The very implements of execution

Will henceforth in their banners proudly wave.

There is a great deal more of this. (See pp. 351, 353, 362, 364,) which is all responded to by a kindred sentiment of Henriquez.

And I can take a good man by the hand,

And feel we are akin.

To which Carlos's description of his conduct (p. 362) agrees, just previous to his execution :

He with two ancient camp-mates and your liegeman,
Conversed with kindlier, more enliven'd freedom
Than he was wont: spoke of their old adventures,
Praised many a valiant heart fallen in the field,
And of the fate of others did inquire

With kindly interest, &c.

Throughout, the mind of Henriquez is not directed to his murdered victim, the pale and bleeding corse of Juan does not haunt him and for ever rise before him; he does not dwell on his having cut off Juan from life, from enjoyment, from happiness ;-but he thinks only of himself, and of regaining, by an act of self devotion, the good opinion of the world.

We will not go so far as to say that our objection will be generally considered as just; but if it is, it must certainly be fatal to the successful design of the drama. Nor do we like the melodramatic termination. Feeling arises to such an intensity, that the tedium of the dumb show and funeral procession must be revolting. The story is hardly perfect, as far as Leonora is concerned, who must be left to future misery. The language is poetical and pleasing; in the descriptive parts, picturesque and elegant with a little quaintness and want of flexibility, but much improved upon the style of the former plays, and certainly more natural than the dressed and artificial language of the tragic stage previous to Miss Baillie's time. The speech of Antonio to Mencia, when he is in prison on suspicion (p. 314), is too flowery and elaborate; but the one we shall give of Henriquez is both natural and beautiful:

The morn!-and what have I to do with morn?
The reddening sky, the smoking camp, the stir
Of tented sleepers, rousing to the call

The snorting steeds, in harness newly dight,
Did please my fancy once. Among the sweetness
Of my still native woods, when through the mist
They showed at early dawn their stately oaks,
Whose darkening forms did gradually appear
Like slow approaching friends, known doubtfully;
These pleased me once in better days-but now
My very soul within me is abhorrent

Of every pleasant thing; and that which cheers
The stirring soldier or the waking hind,

That which the traveller blesses, and the child
Greets with a shout of joy, as from the door
Of his pent cot he issues to the air,
Does but increase my misery.

I loathe the light of Heaven; let the night,
The hideous unbless'd night, close o'er me now,
And close for ever!-

P. 260. Is the following designed as a pun?

Inez. Be sure thou tell to no one for what guest
This chamber is prepared.—

Blas. But if I should, I should not break my word,
I guess'd it out myself.

MARTYR.-This may be called a pleasing poem, rather than a good play; at any rate, it would fall under the character of the ȧvayivwOTIKOL, those that are better in perusal than action; there is very little of the Oos in it. The descriptive parts in it are very good, as that, p. 409, in the speech of Cordonius: First far beneath us woody peaks appear'd,' &c.; though it is too full in detail, and too long, a fault Miss Baillie only redeems by the truth and spirit of her sketches. Portia is a character in which the authoress excels; we wish we could give room for the song from her p. 427: The lady in her early bower,' &c. The scene between Cordonius and Sulpicius is very fine. We think, however, that if Cordonius sincerely viewed and deeply felt the truths of Christianity, he would naturally have been desirous of impressing them on Portia, whom he so devotedly loved, and whom he must have grieved to leave in a dangerous and fatal error; but there is no struggle in his mind as to her faith, or sorrow at leaving her in the darkness and sin of Pagan idolatry. Portia's last interview with Cordonius might have ended in her conversion. There is rather an exaggerated strain of sentiment and expression throughout this piece, to which, perhaps, the subject led. The end is not skilfully managed; indeed, the manner of Cordonius's death is hardly probable. We never read of such a death of any of the gladiators, or the victims to the cruelty of the amphitheatre: but we do not know a better, unless a different death had been chosen for the Martyr, when he might have died without degradation.

SEPARATION.-What passion does this play present? for we can only trace in it the presence of repentance-consequent on a base and cruel murder, committed by hatred, ambition, and avarice. We have the same objection to make to Garcio, as we before did to Henriquez under the same circumstances: that the dreadful enormity of this crime is not sufficiently felt, nor is it truly expiated by the public death of the one, and the self-devotion of the other. We grant that there are expressions of remorse and sorrow; but it is not by expression that 'a shedder of blood' can cleanse his con

science (the griefs that are talked of are always light); the dreadful tossings of remorse, the groanings of despair, must be heard through the dark and secret caverns of the heart; not form the subject of narrative and detailed communication as this does :-and then, as to the forgiveness of society-it is a thing not to be supposed, nor hoped, nor sought; the brand of guilt is indelible: the natural instinct shudders at the approach of the man of blood it is in vain to talk of self-devotion as of Henriquet, or of an act of courage terminated by an accidental death as of Garcio, blotting out the guilty deed, and restoring the criminal to his place in society: this crime, like the forfeiture of innocence in a female, is irreparable. We must express our great surprise at the whole of Garcio's interview with his wife, and his excuse for the murder of her brother, and her reception of it!! One of his pleas was, that he had been used in the battle field to see dead and dying men! (p. 56.):

my hapless youth

In bloody, savage, predatory war
Was rais'd-

and thus seeing his enemy, his wife's brother, sleeping

Love, fortune, honour,—all within the purchase
Of one fell stroke, I rais'd my arm and gave it.

To which the Countess replies,

Fearful temptation !!

We confess that this is to our minds most singular. What was the temptation? One that happens to hundreds and thousands for ever and ever :—a brother of the lady one is wooing, opposes the marriage- and strongly opposes it he is in possession of the title and estates of the family; the disappointed lover one day finds him asleep, and, acted upon by revenge and avarice, murders him in his sleep; and when he confesses this to his wife, she replies- Fearful temptation!' and he is so little conscious of his guilt, that he is astonished at his wife's saying, they must part:-"'T were monstrous! 't were unholy, longer to live with thee.' We do not know, being among the 'ruris amatores,' how this scene was received by the London audience, but we should have presumed with astonishment and dislike. We do not like the second interview between Garcio and the Countess, pp. 66 to 70; we think it unnatural, and we are sorry to see her horror and indignation giving way and because he tells her he has passed a bad night, she adds—

Alas! thy frame will feel, I fear, too soon

The scathe of years. Sorrow and sickness then
Will bow thee down, while cold unkindly strangers
Neglect thy couch, nor give thee needful succour.

And she adds (for the tables are now turned, and she is endeavouring to reconcile him to himself) :

Oh! think not so! he shall be taught to love thee!

He shall be taught to lisp thy name, and raise

His little hands to Heaven for blessings on thee,

As one most dear, though absent.

Then she embraces him and weeps on his neck; though just before she

had said

And I have been the while thy bosom's mate,

Pressing in plighted love the bloody hand
That slew my brother!-

We also ask, how is it that Garcio (p. 44) never suspected the cause of his wife's coolness ?—Would it not be the very first feeling that would rise to his conscious guilt? Whereas he throws it all on the sullenness of his wife's disposition, or her guilt:

- It cannot be !

In act she is not false;-but if her heart,

Where every kind and dear affection dwells-
If it be changed, &c.

and he never reflects on the possibility of her having discovered his guilt. Again, at p. 90, what time is supposed to have clapsed since Garcio turned hermit?-Considerable, one must presume; for already, it is said (p. 90), all the peasants round, I trow,

Set by his prayers good store: e'en mothers leave
The very cradle of their dying infants

To beg them. Wives, whose husbands are at sea,
Or absent, or in any jeopardy,

Hie to his call to crave his intercession.

Now this character could not have been acquired under a considerable time, and yet that is not supposed in the drama; nor is any hint given of any interval elapsing previous to Act V.; in fact it could not, from the disposition of the other events. This is not well managed. Lastly, in the case of Henriquez and Garcio, we do not consider the commission of such crimes probable; for they do not arise from a mind depraved by a long course of guilty actions, maddened as Macbeth by ambition, or base and cruel as Richard; but they are the involuntary outbreaks of passion, bursting at once like lightning from the cloud, and instantly followed by darkness and misery: a noble mind, like Henriquez, would have been better trained; and in that noble disposition, those fiery passions '-those demoniac acts of frantic guilt-would find no room. It is an unnatural and unauthorised combination of qualities, which we believe our old dramatists, true to nature, never recognised; if they had, they would have considered it as an accident to reject, not a general law to recognize and unfold. We should be very sorry to be unjust to Miss Baillie's great merits; but we speak candidly our opinion, whether wrong or right, and we cannot help thinking there is something of the taste of the German school in these plays, in great crimes being committed without probable cause, and by persons possessing high virtues; and secondly, in a too easy forgiveness of that which human opinion and feeling cannot, must not, pardon. These errors are carried to the highest absurdity in that insufferably dull and false play, the Stranger; false to all sound judgment, to all virtuous feeling, to all correct principle, and to all good taste.-We must now be brief.

-

PHANTOM.-This play is of a more varied character; with lighter passages interspersed. The descriptions are faithful and excellent; see pages 210 and 300; but that the interest should be thrown on two characters, Emma and Basil Gordon, who are not dramatis personæ and never appear, is surely a defect; and the fabrication of the plot is imperfect; in fact, nothing is advanced or is worked out of the whole play; and it leaves off much where it began. The persons are all extremely amiable ; the sentiments very pleasing; the language very elegant; and much of the poetry beautiful. The descriptions of Nature are as fresh and sparkling as Nature herself. Here Miss Baillie is always excellent but it really is no Drama.

The BRIDE. We cannot call this our favourite play, or consider it a happy story. Rasinga would not (judging by the general laws of nature) have so easily relinquished his second wife; and the whole change in his disposition turns on the child's speech (p. 362), after Rasinga had withstood his wife, his brother, and Juan: nor do we like a plot which hinges on such sudden changes in the moral feelings and wills of the characters: they are far too easy and vulgar a resource to be used by skilful dramatists. A plot should be worked out of action and incident; not by alteration of character: a more natural, and more dramatic termination of the story could easily be found; but whether it would suit Miss Baillie's views so well, we cannot say. There is a very pretty song at p. 288, which we give to relieve our dry and husky criticisms:

The gliding fish that takes his play

In shady rock of streamlet cool;
Thinks not how waters pass away,
And Summer dries the pool.

The bird beneath his leafy dome,

Who trills his carol loud and clear;
Thinks not how soon his verdant home
The lightning's breath may sear.

Shall I within my bridegroom's bower,
With braids of budding roses twin'd,
Look forward to a coming hour
When he may prove unkind?

The bee reigns in his waxen cell,

The chieftain in his stately hold;
To-morrow's earthquake-who can tell?
May both in ruin fold.

Of WITCHCRAFT,-we shall only say, that Annabella is one of the most unpleasing characters we ever met with; and that if poets do not choose to take the pains to write their tragedies in verse, the scholiast may be excused for being silent as to their merits. Why was not the HOMICIDE written in verse? Nothing can tend to destroy all the higher and essential qualities of tragedy so completely, as forcing the muse to take off her graceful buskins, and tread the stage in pantoufles. We consider verse, with its wise constraints, its measured melodies, and its harmonious powers and changes, not to be an ornament of Tragedy, but an essential and constituent part; most necessary in what it allows, and in what it prohibits. It is, as it were, a secret, but always present power, constantly acting to preserve the due balance of expression:

so to temper Passion, that our ears

Take pleasure in our pain, and eyes in tears
Both smile and weep.-

If this is not preserved by the poet, Tragedy has no longer her due limits, her peculiar properties. She may be sunk in low, common, and vulgar life, or she may deal in interminable bombast. The tears which are the tribute paid her, will no longer be drawn from the fountain of pity, but the turbid stream of Acheron. Strip off the mask; it will not be Melpomene, but Medusa. We are therefore willing to consider these two pieces in the light of studies-unfinished productions.

We have now completed our agreeable task; and though we have dwelt at some length on what we consider the essential defects of these plays, we are not at all insensible to the many compensating beauties. The defects, we