There is something still nearer approaching to poetry in the second scene, which is Don Carlos's prison-a prison, by the way, open to all the world, friends and foes. 'The light is disappearing through the dim Poured his last flood of brightness: the brown hills, The golden orange, and the purple grape, All seemed as clothed in light; and now 'tis gone! The general stillness breaks, but not offends; All tongues are whispering prayer and thanks to heaven; And aged grandsires with young hearts behold Carlos receives a visit from his friend, Osorio, to whom he tells his plan of escape; which might as well have been divulged the first time, instead of the second, to the queen, who visits him next. She brings proposals of pardon from the king on condition that Carlos gives up his friends, which is of course rejected; as the prince had been previously induced by Don Luis to believe the offer only a snare. The queen then proposes that she should remain in his place, and that he should escape in her bonnet and cloak k; but Carlos is more heroic than Lavalette, and assures her that he would sooner give up his body to the fiery pincers, let hot lead be poured into his wounds, his limbs be torn one by one from out their sockets,' &c. He then explains his plan to the queen, and they make their respective exits at the door and window. In the fifth act, Philip, who, from some place of concealment, had overlooked the scene, meets Valdez, and informs him of all the particulars he had witnessed, seriatim. 'Hark, Valdez! I stood where you desired; I watched the queen, I saw she made my offer to my son; I saw that he rejected it; I saw He pleaded for her mercy; and I saw He kissed her hand. Incensed, I left the place,' &c.—p. 104. Our readers will wonder why he saw all this, which it would have been more natural for him to hear; at least with the exception of the kiss; but the truth is, that he was bound not to hear a word of it, for if he had, he must have heard a great deal more than, at at this particular time, it was convenient that he should hear. Should this play be performed, we would advise the managers to send on King Philip with an ear-trumpet, by way of hinting at the infirmity with which he is afflicted in this scene. Valdez confirms the king in his designs by relating new particulars of the alleged conspiracy; and Lucero enters to inform him of the prince's escape, the design of which he had not been privy to, and, as we have observed, was incapacitated from overhearing when it was imparted to the queen. The second scene is in the street, where Don Luis betrays the prince into the hands of the guard, when a scuffle ensues, in which Carlos and his false friend wound each other Philip and Valdez enter, and send off all the sound men. Philip will not allow the prince's wounds to be bound, and Valdez gives him poison. As soon as Carlos has swallowed it, he explains the whole affair to his father; and Don Luis, who had lain perdu during the interview, making his dying speech by way of testimony, the king is finally convinced of his son's innocence. At this juncture, the queen enters. Carlos dies; the queen raves, faints, and is carried off by Donna Leonora, and Philip sends the Grand Inquisitor to a dungeon. ; From this sketch, our readers will have perceived that the first act is a mere statement of the case. At the end of the second, we are just where we were, except that Carlos has made a frank avowal of the state of his affairs, which seems to do nothing but harm, since Philip might as well have been left with what motives of justification had been given him by a belief in the reports of the prince's enemies; instead of which he is made to discover that Carlos had no designs against himself, and was merely not a good Catholic. In short, what little had been done in the first act, is annulled in the second. The noble author had heard that the action of the drama ought not to stand still, and thought it was no matter whether it went backwards or forwards. In the third act, the confessions which we had the advantage of hearing from the prince's own mouth in the second, are re-averred before the Inquisition, with judicial solemnity and precision. No advance is made in the former schemes in the fourth act; on the contrary, they are laid aside; for a new thought now strikes the Grand Inquisitor, and we have to begin afresh. The attempt made to account for this is, that Philip had sent to offer conditions to his son; but it appears, (p. 104,) that this was a mere piece of craft which Valdez himself had directed, and from which, therefore, he could not fear any disturbance of his original designs. The change of measures, however, is so far successful, that the prince has effected his supposed escape by the end of the act. Notwithstanding the provision previously made to dispense with any further assistance VOL. XXIX. NO. LVIII. се assistance from the king, Valdez appears in the fifth act inflaming his supererogatory wrath with stories of which a child might have perceived the aim, and detected the imposture. In the next scene, the play so far improves, that there is enough of action to fill what remains of it; and there is also some greater degree of animation in the dialogue. Here the exasperation which Valdez had sustained in the king, accident makes of some avail to his purposes. The wound which the prince has received does not appear to be mortal, but his father is so angry with him, that he is disposed to stand by and see him bleed to death, suffering no one to bind it up. Valdez, however, is determined that his purpose shall not be effected by either of his former schemes, for now a third thought strikes him; and happening to have some poison in his pocket, he pours it into a cup of drink which the prince chances to call for. This fertility of expedient can only be equalled by the good fortune which makes all the expedients successful, as far as they go; the evil is, that, being coincident, they necessarily supersede one another. Of the only three characters of this play, Valdez, Philip, and Carlos, the two former are very common in fiction, and the last is not natural: it is a combination of courage, choler, philanthropy, and mental imbecility. Carlos is so good, that he cannot tolerate the bigoted priesthood, and so weak, that he is just the person who would naturally have been the greatest slave to them. And yet into the mouth of this person, in the disputation with Valdez, are put the arguments against persecution, which (though now the commonest of all common-place maxims) would in that age and country have been the offspring of a bold intellect; whilst the inquisitor, meant to be a strong-headed villain, edges in a miserable sentence occasionally, as if he were setting up the nine-pins for the nursling to bowl them down. Whether Carlos was meant to be the weakling he generally appears, it is impossible to say, because, as we have seen, he is not consistently foolish. If this was the design, it was a bad one, for imbecility never interests in fiction, with whatever virtues combined. Philip parts altogether with the historical truth, as well as the poetical exaltation of his character. In reality he was a great master of dissimulation, relentless, penetrating, and coldly reserved even to his favourite ministers. In the play we find him a most artless bungler in his attempts to conceal his feelings, credulous to every tale, the dupe of every imposture, pursuing a horrible design upon sudden and vague suspicions, and wavering in the pursuit, not from the inadequacy of the motive, or the resistance of nature, but on account of certain hints incidentally conveyed to him concerning the improper power assumed by the priesthood. Character and interest, they are scarcely separable,-are two qualities, qualities, the want of which is fatal to a play. Had they not been wanting, however, they would here have had much to redeem. It is not easy to find any poetry, or even oratory of the present day, delivered with such cold and heavy diction, such distorted tropes, and disjointed limbs of similes worn to the bone ages ago. The author seems not at all to comprehend the difference between poetical imagery and barren comparison; a figure is obtruncated in one line, and the mangled remains of a totally different one trail after it in the next. What is worse, he appears to think, too, that his talent lies this way; for in every scene we have either metaphors elaborated at length, or shreds and patches of various ones in preposterous combination. If these your covered mines are safely laid: The king has got a demon: 'tis suspicion;' &c.-p. 7. Thus, after the mines are laid, and the guilty priests fear they will burst over their heads, (not under their feet,) let us suppose that they are fired, and what is the consequence? not that the devoted victims are blown up, or blown down, but that they are left 'stranded on the shore'! The same sort of taste has crowded every page with images and epithets, most of them incongruous with themselves and inconsistent with each other. 6 King and prince Stand in such close relation, 'twere not safe To thrust a stranger's hand between the joints.'-p. 26. Has made a fracture in my mind; its thoughts Flow out unchecked.'-p. 32. 'If these conditions, as you think, convey Destruction on their wings, accept them not.'-p. 99. 'For as I rooted out the weeds of passion, Struck root in every fibre of my heart.'-p. 87. cc 2 Thus 'Thus have I acted with a will entire, And wreath'd the passions which distracted others, It is needless to proceed. We have already given one or two tolerable passages: we subjoin another, which has the air of poetry. It is pretty, and naturally expressed. 'But a few moments more, and all is over; Thanks be to Heaven! my life has not been happy, What strife, what struggles were prepared for me! I was a summer plant, that prematurely But we must conclude. In tragic poetry, some little may be done by intensity of feeling without power of intellect; but nothing by power of intellect without intensity of feeling. In both these qualities we consider this writer to be mainly deficient. We do not mean to say that he has not his fair share of understanding, or that his feelings may not be lively enough to give harmony and pleasure to domestic intercourse. Were the noble author a young man emerging into literary life, it would be our duty to warn him against engaging too seriously in a pursuit to which his powers appear so inadequate. It is a dangerous and ambitious maxim of Machiavel, that men who wish to perform what appears impracticable, should imitate skilful archers, who aim higher when the butt is remote, not that the arrow may reach the pitch of their aim, but that it may stretch to the distance of their object. But neither Machiavel, nor any person of less sagacity and experience, would recommend a man to point his arrow at the heavens, who had not strength enough to bend the bow. ART. V.-A Memoir of Central India, including Malwa and adjoining Provinces; with the History, and copious Illustrations, of the Past and Present Condition of that Country. By Major-General Sir John Malcolm, G.Č.B. K.L.S. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1823. IT T has been remarked that the affairs of India, which at one time commanded so large a share of the public attention, are now scarcely mentioned, as if their interest had altogether ceased. There may be some truth in the observation, if limited to those parliamentary discussions which once threw so brilliant a lustre around the events that occurred there. So far, however, are we from |