French plays, which hold about the same relation to the true drama, but this task must wait a more convenient season. One of the plays at the head of this notice also comes in here, The Patrician's Daughter, which, though a failure as a tragedy, from an improbability in the plot, and a want of power to touch the secret springs of passion, yet has the merits of genteel comedy in the unstrained and flowing dialogue, and dignity in the conception of character. A piece like this pleases, if only by the atmosphere of intellect and refinement it breathes. But a third class, of higher interest, is the historical, such as may well have been suggested to one whose youth was familiar with Shakspeare's Julius Cæsar, and Kings of England. Who that wears in his breast an English heart, and has feeling to appreciate the capabilities of the historic drama, but must burn with desire to use the occasions offered in profusion by the chronicles of England and kindred nations, to adorn the inherited halls with one tapestry more. It is difficult to say why such an attempt should fail, yet it does fail, and each effort in this kind shows plainly that the historic novel, not the historic drama, is the form appropriate to the genius of our day. Yet these failures come so near success, the spent arrows show so bold and strong a hand in the marksman, that we would not, for much, be without them. First and highest in this list comes Philip Van Artevelde, of which we can say that it bears new fruit on the twentieth reading. At first it fell rather coldly on the mind, coming as it did, not as the flower of full flushed being, but with the air of an experiment made to verify a theory. It came with wrinkled critic's brow, consciously antagonistic to a tendency of the age, and we looked on it with cold critic's eye, unapt to weep or glow at its bidding. But, on closer acquaintance, we see that this way of looking, though induced by the author, is quite unjust. It is really a noble work that teaches us, a genuine growth that makes us grow, a reflex of nature from the calm depths of a large soul. The grave and comprehensive character of the ripened man, of him whom fire, and light, and earth have tempered to an intelligent delegate of humanity, has never been more justly felt, rarely more life-like painted, than by this author. The Flemish blood and the fiery soul are both understood. Philip stands among his compatriots the man mature, not premature or alien. He is what they should be, his life the reconciling word of his age and nation, the thinking head of an unintelligent and easily distempered body, a true king. The accessories are all in keeping, saplings of the same wood. The eating, drinking, quarrelling citizens, the petulant sister, the pure and lovely bride, the sorrowful and stained, but deep-souled mistress, the monk, much a priest, but more a man, all belong to him and all require him. We cannot think of any part of this piece without its centre, and this fact proclaims it a great work of art. It is great, the conception of the swelling tide of fortune, on which this figure is upborne serenely eminent, of the sinking of that tide with the same face rising from the depths, veiled with the same cloud as the heavens, in its sadness calmer yet. Too wise and rich a nature he, too intelligent of the teachings of earth and heaven to be a stoic, but too comprehensive, too poetic, to be swayed, though he might be moved, by chance or passion. Some one called him Philip the Imperturbable, but his greatness is, that he is not imperturbable, only, as the author announces, "not passion's slave." The gods would not be gods, if they were ignorant, or impassive; they must be able to see all that men see, only from a higher point of view. Such pictures make us willing to live in the widest sense, to bear all that may be borne, for we see that virgin gold may be fit to adorn a scabbard, but the good blade is made of tempered steel. Justice has not been done by the critics to the admirable conduct of the Second Part, because our imaginations were at first so struck by the full length picture of the hero in the conquering days of the First Part, and it was painful to see its majesty veiled with crape, its towering strength sink to ruins in the secor.d. Then there are more grand and full passages in the First which can be detached and recollected; as, We have not time to mourn; the worse for us, That beginning, To bring a cloud upon the summer day, or this famous one, Nor do I now despond, &c. or the fine scene between Clara, Van Artevelde, and Father John, where she describes the death scene at Sesenheim's, beginning, Much hast thou merited, my sister dear. The second part must be taken as a whole, the dark cloud widening and blackening as it advances, while ghastly flashes of presage come more and more frequent as the daylight diminishes. But there is far more fervor of genius than in the First, showing a mind less possessing, more possessed by, the subject, and finer touches of nature. Van Artevelde's dignity overpowers us more, as he himself feels it less; as in the acceptance of Father John's reproof. VAN ARTEVELDE. Though peradventure fallen in your esteem, I humbly ask your blessing, as a man, That to the lowly level of his state Brings down his reputation. FATHER JOHN. Oh, my son! High as you stand, I will not strain my eyes God's blessing be upon you. Fare you well. ARTEVELDE. [Exit. The old man weeps. But he reverts at once to the topic of his thought, Should England play me false, &c. as he always does, for a mind so great, so high, that it cannot fail to look over and around any one object, any especial emotion, returns to its habitual mood with an ease of which shallow and excitable natures cannot conceive. Thus his reflection, after he has wooed Elena, is not that of heartlessness, but of a deep heart. How little flattering is a woman's love! And is in keeping with I know my course, And be it armies, cities, people, priests, That quarrel with my love, wise men or fools, Friends, foes, or factions, they may swear their oaths, And make their murmur; rave, and fret, and fear, Suspect, admonish; they but waste their rage, Their wits, their words, their counsel; here I stand To this fair outcast plighted; and the storm That princes from their palaces shakes out, Though it should turn and head me, should not strain And not less with Pain and grief Are transitory things no less than joy; And though they leave us not the men we were, With the admirable passages that follow. The delicate touches, with which Elena is made to depict her own character, move us more than Artevelde's most beautiful description of Adriana. I have been much unfortunate, my lord, I would not love again. Shakspeare could not mend the collocation of those words. When he is absent I am full of thought, And fresh, and free, and cordial, is the flow Of my ideal and unheard discourse, No sooner is he present than my thoughts Would that I were merry! Mirth have I valued not before; but now And sparkling fantasies! Oh, all I have, As lives in lively women. Your grave, and wise, And melancholy men, if they have souls, |