which they sate, and whose highest am, and even England is introduced as prebition seemed then to consist in being the ferring her accusations against a monarch first in his roll of royal dependants. Hav- who in his most ambitious designs can ing thus premised, we give Mr. Milman's only be charged with following the glolines.

rious example set by herself in Hindus

taûn. Writing for Englishmen, and in " Then at some viewless summoner's stern call Uprose in place the imperial criminal.

praise of England, Mr. Milman is of In that wan face nor ancient majesty

course very patriotic, --it was his first Left withered splendour dim, 'nor old renown attempt at laudatory strains on his own Lofty disdain in that sad sunken eye;

country, and as they contain very little No giant ruin e'en in wreck elate

more than what might be, and is, proFrowning dominion o'er imperious fate,

duced many times annually at London But one to native lowliness cast down. A sullen, careless desperation gave

anniversary dinners, may be dismissed The hollow semblance of intrepid grief;

as unworthy a place among the passages Not that heroic patience nobly brave,

we would select as indicative of the emiThat e'en from misery wrings a proud relief, nence which the author has attained by Nor the dark pride of haughty spirits of ill, That from the towering grandeur of their sin, lines, however, in which vent is given

the publication of Samor. The following Wear on the brow triumphant gladness still, Heedless of racking agony within ;

to the imaginary grief and resentment of Nor penitence was there, nor pale remorse,

the assembled nations, are (with the exNor memory of his fall from kingly state ception of the concluding vulgarism in And warrior glory in his sun-like course,

italics) finely descriptive of the thirst of Fortune his slave, and victory his mate! "Twere doubt if that dark form could truly feel, revenge which the emancipated and triOr were indeed a shape and soul of steel.”

umphant victims of a tyrant may be sup

posed to feel in the moment of victory : The verses commemorating the queen of Prussia, are written with great sweet

" Then all at once did from all earth arise ness and feeling; but here again we

Fierce imprecations on that man of sin, have occasion to notice the wilful misre. With exultations and with agonies.

And all the loaded winds came heavy in presentation of facts that mark the whole From the lone coldness of the widow's bed, of this performance. The circumstance The feverish pillow of the orphan's head, on which Mr. Milman bas lavished the From dying men earth's woful valleys heaping, tears of poesy, is thus related by persons From mouldering cities in their ashes sleeping, whose station gave them opportunity of Like the boarse irembling of a torrent flood

Mingled the dismal concord,' Blood for blood!'” becoming acquainted with the truth, and whose respectability guarantees their tes. It is now time to say something of Fazio, timony. When Napoleon was setting out a composition certainly not a little extrafor the campaign of Jena, he was inform- vagant in its plot, but in which the play ed that the queen of Prussia was with the of the finest affections of the human heart army, and that she was ambitious of is delineated with heart-touching elomeeting him in the field at the head of

quence. the Prussian troops-on hearing this the In his youth, Fazio, a native of Flo-' emperor, turning to some of his officers, rence, and of respectable family but of said with more than usual vivacity- reduced fortunes, suffers himself, as many “We must be quick, and not keep the other silly young men have done, to belady waiting”-and against this harmless come in love with a beautiful coquettesentence have the following verses been the gaze of all the men, and the envy of indited, to hand down to future times all the women of his native city. For a the atrocious outrage committed by Na- while, as is the custom with young ladies poleon on the delicacy and gentleness of of the class to which Aldabella belongs, a royal female:

she suffers him to dangle in her train, " Then blanch d the soldier's bronzed and fur lips or eyebrows, Mr. Milman has not

write love-sick sonnets (whether to ber rowed cheek, While of coarse taunting outrage he'gan speak condescended to informn us) and then To her the beautiful the delicate,

gives him a cool intimation that he has The queenly, but too gentle for a queen, amused her sufficiently, and that the ces. But in sweet pride upon that insult keen sation of his attentions would be a desirShe smiled, then drooping, mute though broken- able close to the farce. Poor Fazio de

hearted, To the cold comfort of the grave departed."

parts--wounded to the soul, and retain

ing, like a barbed arrow in the breast of Then appear in succession the different a deer, his love for Aldabella--distracted, nations whose sover igns had experienced he turns for relief to the attractions of the vengeance and clemency of Napoleon, chemical science, involves himself in the Vol. II, No. VI.

54

vapours of laboratories, and the fumes of Aldabella we only experience sentiments
crucibles. Convinced by sad experience, of the deepest disgust, and the voluntary
that wealth, not merit, is the idol to which turpitude of the beautiful sinner, the rea-
the world bends its knee, and persuaded diness with which she courts the illicit
that Aldabella's rejection has been caused love of Fazio, is so complete a violation of
by his pecuniary deficiencies, he gives the modesty and chasteness of the female
himself up to the pursuit of the philoso. character, that we are a good deal sur.
pher's stone, in the hope of realizing a for- prised Mr. Milman should bare ved.
iune that shall restore him to her smiles. tured upon such a portrait. With respect
During his studies, however, he becomes to Fazio, nothing can be more contempti-
acquainted with and marries Bianca, a ble than the figure be makes through balf
lady in all respects superior to the fair the play. At first a dupe to the artióces
and false one whose beauty dazzled his of Aldabella--then engaged in the ridi-
youth, and for some time their mutual culous search after the philosopher's
felicity is perfect and uninterrupted. At stone-then a robber-and, finally, false
length accident, not without crime on to the sweet and lovely being who clung,
his part, invests him with the wealth and to the last clings, to bim as the suste-
which had so long been the object of his nance of her life. Misfortune renders
ardent but chimerical pursuit. Bartolo, him somewhat more respectable, and the
an old and miserly individual, attacked conclusion of the piece. in which the
by robbers, takes shelter in the dwelling criminal Fazio, stript of his ill-acquired
of Fazio, where he dies of his wounds. riches, deserted by his mistress, and about
Seduced by the temptation thus held out to be for ever separated from his wife and
to him, the husband of Bianca inters children by a dreadful and ignominious
the corpse, and proceeding to the house fate, yet bearing up against his calamities
of the deceased, plunders the accumu with a serene and uncomplaining torti-
lated treasures of Bartolo, and comes tude, checring his fond and faithful con-
forth in the second act in all the splen- sort, and pouring into her bosom words
dour that riches can bestow. With the of consolation and tender advice, is a far
change of his fortune Aldabella's love more respectable person than the wealthy
revives she contrives an interview with and vicious lord l'azio, revelling in opu-
the deluded Fazio, and the infatuated lence attained by the most degrading
inamorato once more yields to the allure- means, surrounded by flatterers whom
ments of the wapton, and abandons his he despises, neglecting his wife, and wan-
home, his wife, and his children, to revel toning with the fallen object of his former
in the loose embraces of the depraved affections. The character of Bianca is
and heartless Aldabella. Bianca pines exquisite-her love her devotedness to
in wretchedness. In the meantime, she her husband—are painted in the most
hears that the extraordinary disappear- enchanting, colours—and if in Aldabella
ance of the body of Bartolo has been the author has shown that the corruption
agitated by the Duke and Senate, and of the softer sex is, if possible, more dis-
that the emptiness of his coffers has given gusting than the excesses of our own,
birth to various and strange conjectures. he has also in Bianca given us the coun-
Influenced by the hope of breaking off terpart of the picture, and exhibited the
Fazio's connexion with Aldabella, she flies chaste and tender virtues of woman in a
to the council, and accuses her husband manner the most inasterly and fascinating.
of having murdered Bartolo and plun- In truth, Bianca is the prominent per-
dered his riches. Fazio is dragged before sonage in Fazio, and in her concentres
the tribunal, --stunned by the suddenness the chief interest of the play.
of his seizure, and the appearance of We now proceed to give a few speci-
liis wife as bis accuser, he makes no de- mens of the dramatic excellencies of the
fence--and receives sentence of death.- author of Samor. In the following con-
The two last acts are occupied with the versation between Fazio and one of the
fruitless attempts of Bianca to obtain lackeys of his prosperity, there are
pardon for her husband, her exposure of touches which would not disgrace the
Aldabella, and her own death.

pen of Massinger:
Now, certainly, the plot of Fazio has
but slender pretensions either to origin “1, my good lord am one
ality or even probability. Its elements Have such keen insight for my neighbour's vir-
exist in a hundred dramas-in George tues,
Barnwell---Measure for Measure, &c. And such a doting love for excellence,
Nor can we say much more in favour of Or wealthy, as I ever hold it pity

That when I see a wise man or a noble, the characters, Bianca excepted. For Man should be blind to his own merits; words

FAZIO.

BIANCA

FAZIO.

us

FAZIO.

me,

Slide from my lips, and I do mirror bim For on the way of a soft infant's memory In the clear glass of my poor eloquence. Things horrible sink deep and sternly seuile,

I would not have them in their better days

Cherish the image of their wretched father In coarse and honest phraseology,

In the cold darkness of the prison house: A flatterer.

Oh, if they ask thee of their father, tell them
FALSETTO.

That he is dead, but say not bow.
Flatterer. Nay, the word's grown gross.
An apt discoverer upon things of honour-
Wealth is the robe and outward garb of man,

No, no-
The setting to the rarer jewelry,

Not tell them that their mother murdered him. The soul's unseen and hidden qualities. And then, my lord, philosophy—' is that, But are they well, my love? The stamp and impress of our divine nature, By which we know that we are gods, and are so.

BIANCA. But wealth and wisdom in one spacious brcast!

What had I freed them
Who would not hymn so rare and rich a wedding? From this drear villain earth, sent them before
Who wouid not serve within the gorgeous palace
Glorified by such strange and admired inmates? Lest we should miss them in another world,

And so be fettered by a cold regret
FAZIO (asille.)

Of this sad sunshine?
Now the poor honest Fazio had disdained
Such scurvy fellowship-howbeit lord Fazio
Must lackey his new slate with these base jack. So wild a rebel to the will of God!

Oh, thou hast not been
als."

If that thou hast, 'twill make my passionate arms This is a fine and admirable descrip- That ring thee round so fondly drop from off thee tion of a parasite, and the effect is great

Like scre, and withered ivy; make my farewell ly increased by making him his own

Spoken in such sutiocate and distempered toue,

'Twill sound more likedraughtsman. Its merit, indeed, is of

BIANCA. a rare kind, for not only is the baseness

They live, thank God, they live : of the flatterer brought out in the clearest I should not rack ihee with such fantasies. manner, but the effect of his glozing But there have been such hideous things around adulation upon Fazio, who is represented as fully conscious of the hollowness of Some whispering me, some dragging me,” &c. his professions, is so managed as to show

There is a soliloquy of Bianca possessthe influence of panegyric upon human

ing merit of a very sweet and impressive nature in general, notwithsanding the person flattered is fully aware of the vile

description. The night is supposed to

have passed over the lonely and sleepless ness of its source. “ Howrbeit lord Fazio must lackey bis new state with these pillow of the injured and suffering wifebase jackals.”

morning comes, but Fazio comes not with

the morning and the tender and disconHis address to Bianca, after the dis

solate Bianca wastes the hours in mourncovery of bis guilt, is written with con- ful and heart-touching reflections and siderable feeling and pathos.

complaints. The speech in which these " Mine own Bianca-I shall beed much mercy,

are imbodied, we do not hesitate to Or ere to-morrow, to be merciless.

pronounce one of the finest representaIt was not well, Bianca, in my guilt

tions we have ever met with of a heart To cut me off-thus early- thus unripe: wounded in its most secret places, and It will be bitter, when the axe fails on me, To think whose voice did suinmon it to its office. giving vent in words to the sorrows that No more-po more of that-we all must die.

consume it. Bianca, thou will love me when I'm dead; I wrong'd uhee, bur thou'lt love me.”

· Not all the night, not all the long, long night

Not come to me--not send to me--not think on The last interview betwcen Fazio and

me! Bianca is conceived with no inconsider- i wander up and down these long arcades.

Like an inrighteous and unburied ghost able tenderness of sentiment. A beau

Oh in our old poor narrow home, if haply tiful contrast is afforded in the wild and Ile lingered late abroad, domestic things tender despair of Bianca, and the tran-, Ciose and familiar crowded all around me! quil endurance of misfortune in her hus- The ticking of the clock, the flapping motion band.

Of the green lattice, the gray curtain's tolds,

The hangings of the bed myself had wrough; Fazio, set me loose!

Yea, even his black and iron crucibles

Were to me as my friends. But here, oh here Thou clasp'st thy murderess!

Where all is coldly, comfortlessly costly,

All strange, all new, in uncout gorgeousness, No, it is my love,

Lofty and long,-a wider space for miseryMy wise, my children's mother. -Pardon me E’en my own footsteps on these marble floors Bianca, but thy children,-ľnot see them, Are unaccustomed, unfamiliar sounds_

FAZIO.

Oh, I am here so wearily miserable

Or her soul fonder? Fazio, my lord Fazio,
That I should welcome my apostate Fazio Before the face of man mine own, mine only,
Though he were fresh from Aldabella's arms. Before the face of heaven Bianca's Fazio,
Her arms-her viper coil! I had forsworn Not Aldabella's -- Ah, that I should live
That thought lest he should come, and find me To question it.-Now henceforth all our jove
mad,

Our delicate endearments, all are poisoned.
And so go back again, and I not know it. Aye-if he speuk my name with his fond voice,
Oh, that I were a child, to play with toys, It will be with the same tone that to her
Fix my whole soul upon a cup and ball; He murmured hers-it will be or 'tuill seem s.
Oh, any wild pitiful poor subterfuge,

If he embrace me, 'twill be with those arras
A moment to distract my busy spirit

In which he folded her; and if he kiss me
From its dark dalliance with thai cursed image. He'll pruse and think-which of the two is swede,"
I have tried all--all vainly ;-now-but now
I went in to my children. The first sound

There are few passages, in the whole
They murmur'd in their evil-dreaming sleep
Was a faint mimicry of the name of father.

range of dramatic poetry, that are finer I could not kiss them-my lips were so hot.

than this—Beaumont and Fletcher hare The very household slaves are leagued against nothing more affecting, nor Shakespeare me,

any thing more natural. It is the sweet And do beset me with their wicked floutings• Comes my lord home to-night??—and when I overflowing with the mingled emotions of

and bitterly-delicious effusion of a soul say 'I know 101,'—their coarse pity makes my heart- tenderness and fond resentment, and may strings

be justly classed among those felicitou Throb with the agony."

copies of nature that only genius of the

highest order is capable of producing. How true all this is to nature, it surely

We must now conclude our observa. is not necessary for us to explain or insist tions upon Fazio. We have, it is true, upon. How admirably, and in a man

gone a little out of our usual way in ner that comes home most dearly to the bringing it before our readers at all; but heart, has the author painted the feelings of so beautiful a composition we could of the woman and the wife-the inex not resist giving our readers an outline, tinguishable love-the tender jealousy and by the extracts we have made, afthat will not suffer the object of its affection to bestow a glance on another's whose extraordinary merits gave rich

fording them a taste of a production, lovelinessmavaricious of his every look, promise of loftier achievement, –a satissmile, and word-yet still so deeply de- factory earnest of those more splendid la; voted to the beloved apostate, that though bours of the author, which have resulted he were to come

in “ SANOR”—and which ought, we think,

to have long since secured the publication "fresh from ALDABELLA's arms,"

of Fazio on this side of the Atlantic. she would welcome him with transport, The play has been before the British and endeavours to banish from ber re public above two years and as yet there membrance the maddening thought of her is no American edition ! busband's infatuated and unholy intercourse with that unchaste and fallen So frequent of late years, have been beauty

the attempts and failures in the province

of heroic song, that we had almost re_ I had forsworn

conciled ourselves to the probability of That thought, lest he should come, and find me mad, an age or two passing away without leak; And so go back again, and I not know it."

ing any of those grander memorials of Immediately after the soliloquy, a do- poetic genius, that subsist through all mestic returns with intelligence concern

times

as the proud and lasting monuments ing her Fazio that confirms all the sad fore- of its might and majesty. Homer

, Virgil

, bodings of Bianca. Lost to all the pure in high and secluded state, the royal emi

Tasso, Camoens, and Milton, occupied and honourable endearments of home-and sacrificing on the shrine of wantonness

nences of Parnassus, and swayed in au, every conjugal duty, he has passed in the gust fraternity over its most elevated society of Aldabella those hours on wbich fired with the glorious ambition of emu

regions but no kindred genius was Bianca had so sacred a claim. The exquisite beauty and wild tenderness of the lating their exploits and rivaling their speech in which she gives utterance to

renown. Like gous, they dwelt in light her feelings on this accomplishment of her unapproached and unapproachable by fears, will, we think, be felt by every one.

feebler spirits, and the radiance that in

vested their immortal forms at once daz"Oh, Fazio,

zled and deterred the weaker worship". Oh, Fazio-is her smile more sweet than mine, pers of the muses. It seemed, too, as it

they had monopolized to themselves the terary glory of our times, that we proceed events most favourable for epic display, to its examination. and the subjects of their works were, all A short preface is given, which we of them, of a kind for which the habits extract as explanatory of circumstances of our youth have imbrued us with a with which some of our readers may, posspecial reverence and predilection, and sibly, not be sufliciently acquainted. which are so intimately connected with

“ The historians* of the empire near the our civil or religious education, and so

period of time at which this poem comthoroughly mixed up with all our earliest

mences, make mention of Constantine, who ideas of a pleasing or impressive descrip- assumed the purple of the western empire, tion, that it is with difficulty we can gained possession of Gaul and Spain, but lend our sympathy to a poem bearing the was defeated and slain at the battle of Arles. title of epic, or carrying in its form and He had a son named Constans, who be. character pretensions to the same class came a monk, and was put to death at of productions with those which we

Vienna. have so long been accustomed to con

" About the same time a Constantine apsider as works which it is impossible pears in the relations of the old British should be equalled by succeeding writers, ther of the king of Armorica, and became

Chronicles and Romances. He was broand which our prejudices would almost himself king, or rather an elected sovereign induce us to wish should remain un

of the petty kings of Britain,t who contirivalled. A general notion had become nued their succession under the Roman do. prevalent that it would be an act of hope- minion. He was called Vendigard; and less presumption in any modern poet to Waredur, the Defender and Deliverer. He attempt heights so long held sacred to an had three sons, Constans, who became a illustrious few, and though there were hermit

, and was murthered, either (for the not wanting those who endeavoured to traditions vary) by the Picts, hy Vortigern, vindicate their claim to equal eminence or by the Sasons; Emrys. called by the Lawith those mighty bards, the rashness of tin writers Aurelius Ambrosius; and Uther their ambition was proved in its failure, two Constantines are bere identified, and

Pendragon, the father of Arthur. These and the crowd of bastard epics with Vortigern supposed to have been named which the last hundred years have teemn- king of Britain, as the person of greatest ed, seemed to justify the opinion that all authority and conduct in the wreck of the the great masters of heroic song had al- British army, defeated at Arles. Many, ready appeared-and that to no future however, of the chiefs in the island adminstrel would be accorded the sceptre vancing the hereditary right, before formalthey swayed or the laurels they wore. ly settled on the sons of Constantine, VorFrom Blackmore to Southey extends the tigern, mistrusting the Britons, and prest by list of the “ mighty mad,” and Joan of invasions of the Caledonians, introduced Arc has long taken her station by the the Saxons to check the barbarians and side of Prince Arthur. During the lat- strengthen his own sovereignty.. ter part of this period, however, the hu, character, as far as such legends can be

“ The hero of the poem is an historical man genius was silently ripening, and called history. He appears in most of the preparing for efforts not altogether un chronicles as Edol, or Eldol, but the fullest worthy of being compared with its achieve. account of his exploits is in Dungdale's Baments in the days of old. A Poet* has ropage, under his title of earl of Gloucester. appeared to whose principal production William Harrisou, however, in the Descripwe may justly grant the praise of being tion of Britain prefixed to !Iolinsied, calls a worthy supplement to the great work him Eldulph de Samor. But all concur in of Milton, and in the poem before us, ascribing to him the arts which make the

chief subject of the fifth and last books of the earlier events in the history of our ancestors have been clothed with all the

“ Most of our present names of places interest, majesty and magnificence cha- being purely Saxon, and the old British racteristic of the epic.

having little of harmony or association to Our readers must now be not a little recommend them, I have frequently, on anxious to become acquainted with “Sa- the authority of Camden and others, transMOR"--and it is with the most heartfelt lated them. Thus the Saxon Glouc sier, pleasure, and, let us add, not without feel. called by the Britons, Caer Gloew, is the ings of exultation in the genius that has Bright City. The Dobuni, the inhabitants so nobly contributed his share to the li- of the vales, are called by that name. Some

* " Gibbon, chap. 31. * The Rev. GEORGE TOWNSEND, of Cam + « Whitaker, Hist. of Manchester. bridge, England, and author of ARMAGEDDON. “ Lewis, Hist. of Britain.

this poem.