Ion. I am thine own! thus let me clasp thee; nearer; In our own honest hearts and chainless hands O joy too thrilling and too short! Then he has cast me off! no-'tis not so ; Agenor. Pardon me Ion. Nay, I will promise 'tis my last request; Grant me thy help till this distracted state Rise tranquil from her griefs-'twill not be long, If the great gods smile on us now. Remember, Meanwhile, thou hast all power my word can give, Whether I live or die. Agenor. Die! Ere that hour, May even the old man's epitaph be moss-grown! Crythes. I kneel to crave Humbly the favour which thy sire bestowed Ion. I cannot mark thee, That wakest the memory of my father's weakness, Crythes. Dost intend To banish the firm troops before whose valour Barbarian millions shrink appalled, and leave Our city naked to the first assault Of reckless foes? Ion. No, Crythes; in ourselves. Will be our safeguard; while we do not use Of justice and their country shall be born I would not grieve thee; but thy valiant troop- Crythes. My Lord Ion. No more-my word hath passed. Medon, there is no office I can add To those thou hast grown old in; thou wilt guard The shrine of Phoebus, and within thy homeThy too delightful home-befriend the stranger As thou didst me; there sometimes waste a thought On thy spoiled inmate. Medon. Think of thee, my lord? Long shall we triumph in thy glorious reign. Ion. Prithee no more. Argives! I have a boon To crave of you. Whene'er I shall rejoin In death the father from whose heart in life Stern fate divided me, think gently of him! Think that beneath his panoply of pride Were fair affections crushed by bitter wrongs Which fretted him to madness; what he did, Alas! ye know; could you know what he suffered, Ye would not curse his name. Yet never more Let the great interests of the state depend Upon the thousand chances that may sway A piece of human frailty; swear to me That ye will seek hereafter in yourselves The means of sovereignty: our country's space, So happy in its smallness, so compact, Needs not the magic of a single name Which wider regions may require to draw Their interest into one; but, circled thus, Like a blest family, by simple laws May tenderly be governed-all degrees, Not placed in dexterous balance, not combined By bonds of parchment, or by iron clasps, But blended into one-a single form Of nymph-like loveliness, which finest chords Of sympathy pervading, shall endow With vital beauty; tint with roseate bloom In times of happy peace, and bid to flash With one brave impulse, if ambitious bands Of foreign power should threaten. Swear to me That ye will do this! Medon. Wherefore ask this now? Thou shalt live long; the paleness of thy face, Which late seemed death-like, is grown radiant now, And thine eyes kindle with the prophecy Of glorious years. Ion. The gods approve me then! Yet I will use the function of a king, And claim obedience. Swear, that if I die, And leave no issue, ye will seek the power To govern in the free-born people's choice, Medon and others. We swear it! Ion. Hear and record the oath, immortal powers! Now give me leave a moment to approach That altar unattended. [He goes to the altar. Gracious gods! In whose mild service my glad youth was spent, As at this solemn time I feel there is, Beyond ye, that hath breathed through all your shapes The spirit of the beautiful that lives In earth and heaven; to ye I offer up Ion. This is a joy I did not hope for this is sweet indeed. Clem. And for this it was Thou wouldst have weaned me from thee! I would be so divorced? Ion. Thou art right, Clemanthe It was a shallow and an idle thought; 'Tis past; no show of coldness frets us now; Clem. I will treasure all. Baillie's plays. The following Christian sentiment is finely expressed : Joy is a weak and giddy thing that laughs The strong, the boastful, and it came to nought; We shall now turn to the comic muse of the drama, which, in the earlier years of this period, produced some works of genuine humour and inte HENRY TAYLOR-J. BROWNING-LEIGH HUNT WILLIAM SMITH. Two dramatic poems have been produced by HENRY TAYLOR, Esq., which, though not popular, evince high genius and careful preparation. The first, Philip van Artevelde, was published in 1834, and the scene is laid in Flanders, at the close of the fourteenth century. The second, Edwin the Fair (1843), relates to early English history. Though somewhat too measured and reflective for the stage, the plays of Mr Taylor contain excellent scenes and dialogues. 'The blended dignity of thought, and a sedate moral habit, invests Mr Taylor's poetry with a stateliness in which the drama is generally deficient, and makes his writings illustrate, in some degree, a new form of the art-such a form, indeed, as we might expect the written drama naturally to assume if it were to revive in the nineteenth century, and maintain itself as a branch of literature apart from the stage.'* Strafford, a tragedy by J. BROWNING, was brought out in 1837, and acted with success. It is the work of a young poet, but is well conceived and arranged for effect, while its relation to a deeply interesting and stirring period of British history gives it a peculiar attraction to an English audience. MR LEIGH HUNT, in 1840, came before the public as a dramatic writer. His work was a mixture of romance and comedy, entitled, A Legend of Florence: it was acted at Covent Garden theatre with some success, but is too sketchy in its materials, and too extravagant in plot, to be a popular acting play. Athelwold, a tragedy by WILLIAM SMITH (1842), is a drama also for the closet; it wants variety and scenic effect for the stage, and in style and sentiment is not unlike one of Miss *Quarterly Review. George Colman. the author of the Jealous Wife and Clandestine Marriage, Colman had a hereditary attachment to the drama. He was educated at Westminster school, and afterwards entered of Christ's Church college, Oxford; but his idleness and dissipation at the uni versity led his father to withdraw him from Oxford, and banish him to Aberdeen. Here he was distinguished for his eccentric dress and folly, but he also applied himself to his classical and other studies. *Colman added the younger' to his name after the condemnation of his play, The Iron Chest. Lest my father's memory,' he says, may be injured by mistakes, and in the author of the Jealous Wife, should be supposed guilty of The confusion of after-time the translator of Terence, and the Iron Chest, I shall, were I to reach the patriarchal longevity of Methuselah, continue (in all my dramatic publications) to subscribe myself George Colman, the younger." At Aberdeen he published a poem on Charles James take of the falsetto of German pathos. But the Fox, entitled The Man of the People, and wrote a piece is both humorous and affecting; and we readily musical farce, The Female Dramatist, which his father excuse its obvious imperfections in consideration brought out at the Haymarket theatre, but it was of its exciting our laughter and our tears.' The condemned. A second dramatic attempt, entitled whimsical character of Ollapod in the Poor GentleTwo to One, brought out in 1784, enjoyed consider-man' is one of Colman's most original and laughable able success. This seems to have fixed his literary conceptions; Pangloss, in the Heir at Law,' is also taste and inclinations; for though his father intended an excellent satirical portrait of a pedant (proud of him for the bar, and entered him of Lincoln's Inn, being an LL.D., and, moreover, an A. double S.); the drama engrossed his attention. In 1784 he and his Irishmen, Yorkshiremen, and country rustics contracted a thoughtless marriage with a Miss (all admirably performed at the time), are highly Catherine Morris, with whom he eloped to Gretna entertaining, though overcharged portraits. A tenGreen, and next year brought out a second musical dency to farce is indeed the besetting sin of Colman's comedy, Turk and no Turk. His father becoming comedies; and in his more serious plays, there is a incapacitated from attacks of paralysis, the younger curious mixture of prose and verse, high-toned senColman undertook the management of the theatre timent and low humour. Their effect on the stage in Haymarket, and was thus fairly united to the is, however, irresistible. We have quoted Joanna stage and the drama. Various pieces proceeded Baillie's description of Jane de Montfort as a porfrom his pen Inkle and Yarico, a musical opera, trait of Mrs Siddons; and Colman's Octavian in brought out with success in 1787; Ways and Means,The Mountaineers' is an equally faithful likeness a comedy, 1788; The Battle of Hexham, 1789; The Surrender of Calais, 1791; The Mountaineers, 1793; The Iron Chest (founded on Godwin's novel of Caleb Williams), 1796; The Heir at Law, 1797; Blue Beard (a mere piece of scenic display and music), 1798; The Review, or the Wags of Windsor, an excellent farce, 1798; The Poor Gentleman, a comedy, 1802; Love Laughs at Locksmiths, a farce, 1803; Gay Deceivers, a farce, 1804; John Bull, a comedy, 1805; Who Wants a Guinea? 1805; We Fly by Night, a farce, 1806; The Africans, a play, 1808; X. Y. Z., a farce, 1810; The Law of Java, a musical drama, 1822, &c. No modern dramatist has added so many stock-pieces to the theatre as Colman, or imparted so much genuine mirth and humour to all playgoers. His society was also much courted; he was a favourite with George IV., and, in conjunction with Sheridan, was wont to set the royal table in a roar. His gaiety, however, was not always allied to prudence, and theatrical property is a very precarious possession. As a manager, Colman got entangled in lawsuits, and was forced to reside in the King's Bench. The king stept forward to relieve him, by appointing him to the situation of licenser and examiner of plays, an office worth from £300 to £400 a-year. In this situation Colman incurred the enmity of several dramatic authors by the rigour with which he scrutinised their productions. His own plays are far from being strictly correct or moral, but not an oath or double entendre was suffered to escape his expurgatorial pen as licenser, and he was peculiarly keen-scented in detecting all political allusions. Besides his numerous plays, Colman wrote some poetical travesties and pieces of levity, published under the title of My Nightgown and Slippers (1797), which were afterwards republished (1802) with additions, and named Broad Grins; also Poetical Vagaries, Vagaries Vindicated, and Eccentricities for Edinburgh. In these, delicacy and decorum are often sacrificed to broad mirth and humour. The last work of the lively author was memoirs of his own early life and times, entitled Random Records, and published in 1830. He died in London on the 26th October 1836. The comedies of Colman abound in witty and ludicrous delineations of character, interspersed with bursts of tenderness and feeling, somewhat in the style of Sterne, whom, indeed, he has closely copied in his 'Poor Gentleman.' Sir Walter Scott has praised his 'John Bull' as by far the best effort of our late comic drama. The scenes of broad humour are executed in the best possible taste; and the whimsical, yet native characters, reflect the manners of real life. The sentimental parts, although one of them includes a finely wrought-up scene of paternal distress, par of John Kemble: Lovely as day he was-but envious clouds Would charm the towering eagle in her flight, [Scene from the 'Heir at Law.'] [Daniel Dowlas, an old Gosport shopkeeper, from the supposed loss of the son of Lord Duberly, succeeds to the peerage and an estate worth £15,000 per annum. He engages Dr Panglossa poor pedant just created by the Society of Arts, Artium Societatis Socius-as tutor to his son, with a salary of £300 a-year.] A Room in the Blue Boar Inn. Pang. Let the chariot turn about. Dr Pangloss in a lord's chariot ! 'Curru portatur eodem.'-Juvenal -Hem! Waiter! Dick. [Speaking while entering.] Well, where is the man that wants-oh! you are he I supposePang. I am the man, young gentleman! Homo sum.'-Terence-Hem! Sir, the person who now presumes to address you is Peter Pangloss; to whose name, in the college of Aberdeen, is subjoined LL.D. signifying Doctor of Laws; to which has been recently added the distinction of A. double S.; the Roman initials for a Fellow of the Society of Arts. Dick. Sir, I am your most obedient, Richard Dowlas; to whose name, in his tailor's bill, is subjoined D. R., signifying Debtor; to which are added L.S.D.; the Roman initials for pounds, shillings, and pence. Pang. Ha! this youth was doubtless designed by destiny to move in the circles of fashion; for he's dipt in debt, and makes a merit of telling it. [Aside. Dick. But what are your commands with me, doctor? Pang. I have the honour, young gentleman, of being deputed an ambassador to you from your father. Dick. Then you have the honour to be ambassador of as good-natured an old fellow as ever sold a ha'porth of cheese in a chandler's shop. Pang. Pardon me, if, on the subject of your father's cheese, I advise you to be as mute as a mouse in one for the future. "Twere better to keep that 'altâ mente repostum.'-Virgil-Hem! Dick. Why, what's the matter? Any misfortune? -Broke, I fear? Pang. No, not broke; but his name, as 'tis customary in these cases, has appeared in the Gazette. Dick. Not broke, but gazetted! Why, zounds and the devil! Pang. Check your passions-learn philosophy. When the wife of the great Socrates threw a-hum! -threw a teapot at his erudite head, he was as cool as a cucumber. When Plato Dick. Damn Plato! What of my father? Pang. Don't damn Plato. The bees swarmed round his mellifluous mouth as soon as he was swaddled. Cum in cunis apes in labellis consedissent.'-Cicero -Hem! Dick. I wish you had a swarm round yours, with all my heart. Come to the point. Pang. In due time. But calm your choler. furor brevis est.'-Horace-Hem! Read this. Ira [Gives a letter. Dick. [Snatches the letter, breaks it open, and reads.] 'Dear Dick-This comes to inform you I am in a perfect state of health, hoping you are the same'ay, that's the old beginning-It was my lot, last week, to be made'-ay, a bankrupt, I suppose?-to be made a'-what?- to be made a P, E, A, R;'-a pear! -to be made a pear! What the devil does he mean by that? Pang. A peer!-a peer of the realm. His lordship's orthography is a little loose, but several of his equals countenance the custom. Lord Loggerhead always spells physician with an F. Dick. A peer!-what, my father?-I'm electrified! Old Daniel Dowlas made a peer! But let me see; [Reads on.]-A pear of the realm. Lawyer Ferret got me my tittle'-titt-oh, title!-' and an estate of fifteen thousand per ann.-by making me out next of kin to old Lord Duberly, because he died without -without hair'-'Tis an odd reason, by the by, to be next of kin to a nobleman because he died bald. Pang. His lordship means heir heir to his estate. We shall meliorate his style speedily. Reform it altogether.'-Shakspeare-Hem! Dick. I send my carrot.'-Carrot! Pang. That's me. Dick. Respect him, for he's an LL.D., and, moreover, an A. double S.' [They bow. Pang. His lordship kindly condescended to insert that at my request. Dick. And I have made him your tutorer, to mend your cakelology. Pang. Cacology; from Kakos, malus,' and Logos, 'verbum.'-Vide Lexicon-Hem! Dick. 'Come with the doctor to my house in Hanover Square.'-Hanover Square -I remain your affectionate father, to command.-DUBERLY.' Pang. That's his lordship's title. Dick. It is? Pang. It is. You have no more Dick. Say sir to a lord's son. manners than a bear! Pang. Bear!-under favour, young gentleman, I am the bear-leader; being appointed your tutor. Dick. And what can you teach me? Pang. Prudence. Don't forget yourself in sudden success. 'Tecum habita.'-Persius-Hem! Dick. Prudence to a nobleman's son with fifteen thousand a-year! Pang. Don't give way to your passions. Dick. Give way! Zounds!-I'in wild-mad! You teach me !-Pooh!-I have been in London before, and know it requires no teaching to be a modern fine gentleman. Why, it all lies in a nutshell-sport a curricle-walk Bond Street-play at Faro-get drunk -dance reels-go to the opera-cut off your tailpull on your pantaloons-and there's a buck of the first fashion in town for you. D'ye think I don't know what's going? Pang. Mercy on me! I shall have a very refractory pupil! Dick. Not at all. We'll be hand and glove together, my little doctor. I'll drive you down to all the races, with my little terrier between your legs, in a tandem. Pang. Doctor Pangloss, the philosopher, with a terrier between his legs, in a tandem! Dick. I'll tell you what, doctor. I'll make you my long-stop at cricket-you shall draw corks when I'm president-laugh at my jokes before company-squeeze lemons for punch-cast up the reckoning-and wo betide you if you don't keep sober enough to see me safe home after a jollification! Pang. Make me a long-stop, and a squeezer of lemons! Zounds! this is more fatiguing than walking out with the lap-dogs! And are these the qualifications for a tutor, young gentleman! Dick. To be sure they are. "Tis the way that half the prig parsons, who educate us honourables, jump into fat livings. Pang. Tis well they jump into something fat at last, for they must wear all the flesh off their bones in the process. Dick. Come now, tutor, go you and call the waiter. Pang. Go and call! Sir-sir! I'd have you to understand, Mr Dowlas Dick. Ay, let us understand one another, doctor. My father, I take it, comes down handsomely to you for your management of me? Pang. My lord has been liberal. Dick. But 'tis I must manage you, doctor. Ac knowledge this, and, between ourselves, I'll find means to double your pay. Pang. Double my Dick. Do you hesitate? Why, man, you have set up for a modern tutor without knowing your trade! Pang. Double my pay! Say no more-done. 'Ac tum est.'-Terence-Hem. Waiter! [Bawling.] Gad, tidings, Dick. I-I should be loath to think our I've reached the right reading at last! kindness was a cooling. 'I've often wished that I had, clear, For life, six hundred pounds a-year.' Swift-Hem. Waiter! Dick. That's right; tell him to pop my clothes and linen into the carriage; they are in that bundle. Enter WAITER. Pang. Waiter! Here, put all the Honourable Mr Dowlas's clothes and linen into his father's, Lord Duberly's, chariot. Waiter. Where are they all, sir? Pang. All wrapt up in the Honourable Mr Dowlas's pocket handkerchief. [Exit waiter with bundle. Dick. See 'em safe in, doctor, and I'll be with you directly. Pang. I go, most worthy pupil. Six hundred pounds a-year! However deficient in the classics, his knowledge of arithmetic is admirable! 'I've often wished that I had, clear, [Exit. Dick. Nay, nay, don't be so slow. Pang. Swift-Hem. I'm gone. Dick. What am I to do with Zekiel and Cis? When a poor man has grown great, his old acquaintance generally begin to be troublesome. Enter ZEKIEL. Zek. Well, I han't been long. Dick. No, you are come time enough, in all conscience. [Coolly. Zek. Cicely ha' gotten the place. I be e'en almost stark wild wi' joy. Such a good-natured young madam! Why, you don't seem pleased, man; sure, and sure, you be glad of our good fortune, Dick? Dick. Dick! Why, what do you-oh! but he doesn't know yet that I am a lord's son. I rejoice to hear of your success, friend Zekiel. Dick. Oh no. Rely on my protection. Zek. Why, lookye, Dick Dowlas; as to protection, and all that, we ha' been old friends; and if I should need it from you, it be no more nor my right to expect it, and your business to give it me: but Cicely ha' gotten a place, and I ha' hands and health to get a livelihood. Fortune, good or bad, tries the man, they do say; and if I should hap to be made a lord to-morrow (as who can say what may betide, since they ha' made one out of an old chandler) Dick. Well, sir, and what then? Zek. Why, then, the finest feather in my lordship's cap would be, to show that there would be as much shame in slighting an old friend because he be poor, as there be pleasure in owning him when it be in our power to do him service. Dick. You mistake me, Zekiel. I-I-s'death! I'm quite confounded! I'm trying to be as fashionable here as my neighbours, but nature comes in, and knocks it all on the head. [Aside.] Zekiel, give me your hand. Zek. Then there be a hearty Castleton slap for you. The grasp of an honest man can't disgrace the hand of a duke, Dick. Dick. You're a kind soul, Zekiel. I regard you sincerely; I love Cicely, and-hang it, I'm going too far now for a lord's son. Pride and old friendship are now fighting in me till I'm almost bewildered. [Aside]. You shall hear from me in a few hours. Good-by, Zekiel; good-by. [Exit. Zek. I don't know what ails me, but I be almost ready to cry. Dick be a high-mettled youth, and this news ha' put him a little beside himself. I should make a bit of allowance. His heart, I do think, be in the right road; and when that be the case, he be a hard judge that wont pardon an old friend's spirits when they do carry him a little way out on't. [Exit. [From The Poor Gentleman.'] Zek. Why, now, that's hearty. But, eh! Why, you look mortal heavy and lumpish, Dick. No bad SIR CHARLES CROPLAND at breakfast; his Valet-de-Chambre tidings since we ha' been out, I hope? Dick. Oh no. Zek. Eh? Let's ha' a squint at you. Od rabbit it, but summut have happened. You have seen your father, and things ha' gone crossish. Who have been here, Dick? Dick. Only a gentleman, who had the honour of being deputed ambassador from my father. Zek. What a dickens-an ambassador! Pish, now you be a queering a body. An ambassador sent from an old chandler to Dick Dowlas, Lawyer Latitat's clerk Come, that be a good one, fegs! Dick. Dick Dowlas! and lawyer's clerk! Sir, the gentleman came to inform me that my father, by being proved next of kin to the late lord, is now Lord Duberly; by which means I am now the Honourable Mr Dowlas. Zek. Ods flesh! gi'e us your fist, Dick! I ne'er shook the fist of an honourable afore in all my born days. Old Daniel made a lord! I be main glad to hear it. This be news indeed. But, Dick, I hope he ha' gotten some ready along wi' his title; for a lord without money be but a foolish wishy-washy kind of a thing a'ter all. Dick. My father's estate is fifteen thousand a-year. Zek. Mercy on us!-you ha' ta'en away my breath! Dick. Well, Zekiel, Cis and you shall hear from me soon. Zek. Why, you ben't a going, Dick? Dick. I must pay my duty to his lordship; his chariot waits for me below. We have been some time acquainted, Zekiel, and you may depend upon my good offices. Zek. You do seem a little flustrated with these adjusting his hair. that I arrived last night? Sir Cha. Has old Warner, the steward, been told Valet. Yes, Sir Charles; with orders to attend you this morning. of fashion do with himself in the country at this Sir Cha. [Yawning and stretching.] What can a man wretchedly dull time of the year! Valet. It is very pleasant to-day out in the park, Sir Charles. Sir Cha. Pleasant, you booby! How can the coun try be pleasant in the middle of spring? All the world's in London. |