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, 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 ? A CLO. "Hath Time no power upon thy hopeless love? IM. Yea Time hath power, and what a power I'll tell thee— power to change the pulses of the heart To one dull throb of ceaseless agony, To hush the sigh on the resigned lip The reception of Manuel, on the first nights of the performance, was not less distinguished than that of its splendid predecessor; but, from some cause not sufficiently explained, and which we have heard attributed to individual caprice, it has never since been represented. Mr. Milman's Fazio has much poetical beauty, but the plot is too inartificial to admit of an effective representation. The author has fallen into an error decidedly contrary to that which we have before had occasion to censure, and has relied too exclusively upon the power of language, wholly unaided by dramatic effect. The scene best calculated for the stage is that in which Bianca accuses her husband, in the violence of her passion, before the council. Her momentary fury, and subsequent eagerness to recant all that she has confessed, when the probable consequences of the discovery appear more serious than she had meditated, are very powerfully conceived. Her soliloquy at the commencement of the third act, lamenting the absence and neglect of her husband-the contrast between the past and her present forlorn state-her horror at the supposition of Fazio's infidelity with Aldabella, and her subsequent highly impassioned burst of frenzy, on finding her suspicions realized, are as beautiful and pathetic as any thing we meet with in modern tragedy; whether considered with reference to the beauty of the poetry, or the effect produced upon the audience. Fazio ranks among the best of Mr. Milman's compositions ; it is more finished than any of his works, and has less of that wordiness and mannerism, which generally mar the productions of his undoubtedly great genius. Mirandola is a play of considerable merit, and though rather cold in interest, possesses great beauty of language, and several very effective scenes. The catastrophe is remarkably well contrived, though the last speech is too evident an imitation of that which precedes the death of King Lear. On the whole, however, Mirandola is a good instance of that style of tragedy which we wish to see more generally cultivated. We have often thought, and the observation has been made by others, that a play by the Author of Waverley would amount, as nearly as human fallibility will allow, to the perfection of dramatic writing. We do not in particular allude to the fragments of "Old Play," which have been considered as betokening such skill in dramatic language-but the Waverley novels are, from first to last, crowded with scenes of the most admirable kind, both lively and pathetic. It is to those which are tragic that we now confine our attention,-and some of these we do pronounce to be, even as they stand, perfect. We might cite multitudes of these-the interviews of Waverley with Flora and Fergus M'Ivor at Carlisle-that between Rebecca and Bois-Guilbert, in Ivanhoe-and, in a different style, the colloquy of the three crones at the wedding, in the Bride of Lammermuir;-but we must not go on quoting instances, for we know that if we once get involved in the maze of these enchantments, we shall never bring this already long article to a conclusion. We cannot, however, but name the interview (which is almost entirely in dialogue) between Jeanie Deans and her sister in prison, as, perhaps, the most striking instance of the dramatic power of the Author of Waverley. It is one of the most beautiful, affecting, and perfect tragic scenes of any in the whole compass of our literature. It will be observed, that it is between persons in low life, and that the language is in no degree raised above what is natural for their condition-yet, by real knowledge of the heart, and strict adherence to nature, it has, even in the reading, a depth and power of pathos almost unequalled. We think it impossible to read it unmoved; what, therefore, would it be, if it were embodied into life, by actresses capable of giving it its real effect? Such writing as this has, indeed, like the rod of Moses, the power of causing water to gush from the veriest stone that ever was mis named a heart. With such ideas of the dramatic power of the Author of Waverley, it was natural that our expectations should be raised to a very high pitch, when we heard of a forthcoming Dramatic Sketch by Sir Walter Scott;—for, entertaining, like the rest of the world, small doubt of the identity of the poetical baronet with the author of that wonderful series of Tales, (though we always considered the poetry unaccountably inferior to the prose,) we presumed that this Sketch would be at least a prelude and a token of future and illustrious specimens of excellence. In proportion, therefore, to the expectation, was the disappointment, on the appearance of Halidon Hill; a composition so vapid, uninteresting, and utterly unpoetical. We have only to say, that should the Author of Waverley be hereafter identified with Sir Walter Scott, his power of mutability will be not the least of his many and extraordinary qualities. But we repeat, if that genius which appears so remarkably to unite the very elements of tragedy-sublimity and pathos; which has displayed such boundless variety of imagination, and such deep insight into human nature; if, in short, the |