room prevents our transcribing the whole. But we will give the termii nation. Marg. What say you, Albert? How? I un- That lovely lady-she who with you came Alb. Áy, my sister, sweet, Marg. All is so strange So very strange. Your mother's daughter! Alb. Who, Margaret, dared, Alb. Young Villeroi was the author of this [mise, Marg. An idle thought-a jest-a vain surThat cross'd his fancy when he met thee, love, There by the mountain stream-'twas nothing Whose power to injure equals not his will, The speech is broken off by the announcement of Villeroi's visit, who appears as coming to bid Margaret farewell. Albert, however, remains; and an explanation of his slander is demanded; a quarrel and challenge follow; and then Margaret perceives the danger into which she has fallen, and that her only chance of escape is an appeal to the generosity of Villeroi. Thus closes the first act. The second opens by a meeting of the same old burghers who appeared before. Various circumstances strengthen their suspicions of Margaret's guilty passion for Villeroi, and they resolve to hold no intercourse with her. In the mean time old Kessel, ignorant of all the mischief brewing round him, comes forth in gladness of heart and hospitality to invite his friends to a banquet to celebrate the auspicious day of his son's return; when, to his astonishment, they all formally decline the old man's invitation, and depart. His friend Elsen, after notes of painful preparation, is obliged to acquaint him of the dark suspicions which have fallen on Margaret; when the blow at once strikes to the old man's heart. Home! lead me home! my child, my injured child! [me And you are with me still-you would not leave Here in the street to perish. It is kindly done In the following scene, is an opening dialogue between Margaret and Anne, which, by its subject, is skilfully introduced to soothe the troubled feelings which have arisen in the spectator's mind, from the preceding calamities: Villeroi then appears as claiming the fulfilment of Margaret's promise to fly with him. A powerful dialogue here passes, of regrets, expostulation, indignation, on one hand, and tyrannic force and jealousy on the other, which terminates by Villeroi seizing her for the purpose of violently forcing her departure; Albert then appears to rescue her, and an immediate challenge ensues. All this time Albert is totally unconscious of any injurious report concerning his wife; but now old Kessel is led on the stage, and in his dying moments tells his daughter of the slanderous rumour which has struck to his heart, still confiding in her innocence: but Margaret, in an agony of grief, exclaims, -I'm very wretched; Do not forsake me now-Father, ariseAnd hearthy guilty daughter-hear and forgive! Alb. His guilty daughter-Oh! my swelling heart! answer me Marg. He does not move-he does not [slain him. He's dead --he's dead!—and it is I who 've Mine is the parricide-Oh! Villeroi! Villeroi ! This is thy deed and mine. Alb. Do I hear this and live! &c. The third act opens in a scene between Albert and his sister; when he declares his intention of separating for ever from his wife. This is followed by a meeting between him and Villeroi, which is, perhaps, a little too long, considering the circumstances of a mutual exasperation under which they meet, when Villeroi falls. Steinhault, then, as the old friend of her father determination for ever to leave her, in and herself, informs her of Albert's a scene drawn with much pathetic power. When he departs, in the deep contrition of her mind, and By death to rid my husband of the shame That scares him from his country, she takes poison; and then Albert, in his last fearful interview, appears. This, as we may suppose, has called forth all the poet's powers; and he has acquitted himself well in fact, it is a scene which would produce under good representation a most powerful REVIEW. Harness's Welcome and Farewell. effect. Margaret endeavours to assure False as I am, my falsehood never reach'd Aib. I know not Degrees of perfidy in her I love. Vill. "Twas only when her breathing heart believed Thou ledst a paramour to sojourn here, A slow consent from her to fly the presence Alb. Can this be so?-it is-it must be truth. Marg. Albert, say forgiveness! Alb. Oh! I forgive, with all my soul forgive. Marg. My senses are closed up-I hear no sounds Perchance he will not say he pardons me. Alb. This sight appals me-let me not believe It will be seen from the preceding extracts that the interest of the story is admirably sustained throughout. The situations are natural, and judiciously arranged; and the catastrophe, upon the whole, the only one which could satisfy our feelings of justice and propriety. If suicide could be avoided, it is better it should be, being a crime too revolting to produce a just and due effect but it would be difficult to say how this part of the plot could be altered with advantage; the death which Margaret's criminal levity had inflicted on her father prevents, certainly, her restoration to happiness :-in what other way could she have died? and the guilty act she commits in taking away her own life, removes that compassion which we should otherwise have felt, if death had taken place from another hand, and prevents our feeling that the punishment had been greater than the crime. On the whole, if the termination is not so perfect as we could suppose it might have been, we certainly own that we do not know how to improve it; for the criminality of Margaret was of such a nature, that it was too great to be forgiven, or forgotten by us; at the same time it was [Jan. hardly such a one as could deserve no retribution less severe than death itself; and it is the fatal consequences to which it tends, and the destruction which it causes in the happiness of the worthy and confiding father, that turns the balance in favour of the plan which the poet has selected. We must add, that the whole play is written in very good taste; without any affectation or exaggeration on the one hand, without any flatness or familiarity of language below the proper dignity of tragedy on the other: the tone and diction, without any servile marks of imitation, has borrowed just sufficient of the air of antiquity to make it harmonize with those tragic strains that are most familiar to us. There are only one or two expressions which we should wish altered, and which we take the liberty of submitting to the author's judgment; as P. 3. Whom is it your words thus aim at? Surely it should be who, not whom-the sense being, Who is it, whom your words, &c. P. 9. Fair Margaret weeps, sir, on her lord's "vile word" to express a young lady's tears, and is generally applied to those aged eyes which distil plum-tree gum. Suppose it was thus altered: But I'm no subtle Edipus, to tell And lengthening like the shadow of the eve, This ought to be keeps, the substantive P. 29. To wish the tears she rung from my man's eyes. Rung is only a misprint for wrung; I fondly cherish'd, till I learnt to wish P. 55. My Argosies which plough on every sca. We are not used to this expression, and think "plough every sea," more correct as well as poetical than "plough on:"-a ship ploughs through not on the sea. Suppose it were And my tall Argosies which plough each sea. This is all that the nostrils of our critical sagacity have been able to detect; but there are a few lines, here and there, which to us appear inharmonious, and which might easily be altered; though we confess that we rather doubt, while we are making them, whether our objections are sound, considering that Mr. Harness's ear is so correct, and his poetical knowledge so sound, that what we take for want of correctness of metre, and harmony of cadence, may be intended by him: we mean such as P. 8. A third time wrong. This morning's Toilet? No: 1 see. P. 26. You taught me how to discriminate between them. Here we think both the metre and poetry would be improved by removing how. P. 42. With many other a wife whose tender ness. P. 51. If it be not sin, it borders upon sin. We can make no poetical measure of this last line at all. P. 62. The most honour'd, can you look with envy. To read this line rightly, you must pronounce ho-nou-red as a trisyllable; -why not thus ? Youth, beauty, riches, love, among the honour'd A foremost place, and can you look with envy. P. 63. From the fair Earth! oh! in the country. This line wants a foot, and appears unfinished; why not thus ? From the fair Earth; oh! in the country, we Appear to stand in our Creator's presence. These are mere trifles, and perhaps, after all, rather matters of opinion and of taste, than of critical laws. Whether Mr. Harness agrees with us or not, we hope that he will see that we have read his tragedy with that careful attention which is the best and truest praise. Bertrand; a Tragedy. By S. B. Hooper, Esq. 8vo. WE shall not mar the original beauties of this tragedy by any criticisms of ours; "let the author (as one of our contemporary critics is accustomed ing eniously to say) speak for himself.” We are sure that nothing we can remark can bring out any beauties that would not spontaneously strike the reader, We shall throw them, like old Cotgrave and other collectors, into heads, aphorisms, common-places ;- but, to leave our d― faces and begin :" Rage. "Why your teeth should chatter-your two fists clench!. Your form convulse like Etna's wombin travail, Simile, by a Lady. "I'll to them and at least be sure, The brawniest courage can't surprise endure." New Word. "And then, so sure as time, With him elabes the archer of her bow." A Question. "Dost think me mad, or grise, or dolt, good Sir ? Thousands of sabres dark'ning the civic air." Embrace. "Oh! Bertrand darling! as the Boa Constrictor Doth furl around tight, tight, its many coils, Thus have we culled a few choice Parnassian flowers, as favourable specimens of the poet's style; and we have no doubt but that all our readers will be equally impressed with a conviction of Mr. Hooper's genius. To his admirers we have still left a rich gleaning behind. It is long since we have met so original a poet. He bursts upon us with an Aurora Borealis light, shooting his bright lances and coruscations of flame high into the empyrean. We hope soon to hear more of him. Let him try his hand at a volume-single plays don't sell. The ancients used to publish in trilogiesthree plays together-like Shakspeare's Henry the Sixth. If we have any little interest at the theatres (for we are on bowing terms with a cousin of Mrs. Glover's, and we once supped in company with the younger Vining) we will use it for him; and if he gets the full strength of the house, (say the Victoria,) with Charles Mathews inimitable in mimickry, Keeley the irresistible, and Mrs. Orger; and if he can but keep Mr. Selby and Miss Murray out, we will answer for his tragedy's success. And here we must apologize to another tragic genius, the author of "the Cicisbeo," for not noticing his excellent performance: but some how or other it has deceived us -fallen from the table-disappearedfilched by some faithless maid from the drawers (these Christmas times, with their pies and their cakes, sadly tempt their honesty) will he favour us with another?-we will repair our inadvertence. God knows into whose hands it is fallen-we hope no brethren of the same craft: we had it in our : pocket when her Majesty, God bless her! went to the civic dinner with it we beguiled the morning hours, and returned it to our pocket saying, with the poet, "Books Are a substantial world "— but we never saw it more. ARCHEOLOGIA, Vol. XXVII, Part I. (Continued from vol. VIII. p. 603.) Observations on an Autograph of Shakspere and the Orthography of his Name, by Sir Frederic Madden. IN a copy of Florio's translation of the Essays of Michael de Montaigne, printed in 1603, and now in the possession of the Rev. Edw. Patteson, of East Sheen, this autographic relic has been preserved. Only six genuine signatures of Shakspere are known to be in existence, three appended to his will, two to a mortgage deed and counterpart, and the sixth that now brought forward. Sir Fred. Madden very successfully, in our view, endeavours to prove that the poet uniformly wrote his name, as in the example before us, S-h-a-k-s-p-e-r-e; consequently that they have erred from the true orthography who have inserted an a between the e and r of the last syllable. The signature produced by Sir Frederick is remarkably clear, and decisively in favour of the above opinion. In order to prove its authenticity, the writer ingeniously shews that that work was well known to Shakspere, and probably formed a portion of his library. He cites some passages of the "Tempest," which are but literal transcripts of Florio's translation, thrown into the rhythm of blank verse. If the second a shall still be retained in the poet's name in writing or in print, it will be to recognize more distinctly that the military weapon which distinguishes his armorial coat is alluded to in the appellation. A description of the Province of Connaught, dated in the month of January, 1612, from a volume of the Lansdowne MSS. communicated by Sir Henry Ellis, F.R.S. Sec. S.A. A topographical document, interesting from the minuteness of its details. The boundaries, fortresses, and reve nues of the district are described; and it appears that the expenditure of maintaining the jurisdiction thereof by the Crown, exceeded the annual receipts by 7401. sterling, which however" with good care might be easily gotten and much more." On the first invasion of Ireland by Henry the Second, small footing was obtained in the district. John and Richard, sons of Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, subsequently in the reign of John made sundry conquests in Connaught, which were parcelled out by Richard, as lord paramount, into several subordinate fees or baronies, on the usual terms of military service. Military occupation, in one shape or other, has for centuries been the fate of the provinces of Ireland. When her generous but unenlightened population shall be emancipated from the reign of superstition and the influence of crafty demagogues, by education, active industry, agricultural and commercial enterprise, a better order of things, by the blessing of Providence, will arise. Much, we think, will be done towards the civilization of this portion of the British realm at a future day by the approximations and improvements which will be incident to extended steam communications. A further Account of the original Architecture of Westminster Hall, in a letter from Sydney Smirke, Esq. F.S.A. We have long been desirous to know what were the arrangements and character of the palatial hall of Rufus, as distinguished from those alterations made in the building by the second Richard, by which they were, to all common observers, entirely effaced. Mr. Smirke's restorations are highly ingenious, and derived from the indisputable authority of remains discovered in the progress of the late repairs of this noble monument of our nation's history. These had been left in the original walls when the building assumed the features of the pointed style in the fourteenth century. Above the string course, which surmounts the lower or blank portion of the eastern wall of the building, is a range of twenty-four windows, alternately high and low, with circular heads, resting on Norman columns. The whole façade had strongly the character of a debased Roman style of architecture; and Mr. Smirke judiciously adopts, for this early Norman mode of building, the term Romanesque. Thus, at the period when a corrupt Latinity, aptly designated by the French as la langue Romane, pervaded Europe, and which is still the current language, with certain modifications, in France, Italy, and Spain, a debased Roman architecture was employed. From Byzantium, the last retiring hold of Romano-Greek art, probably came the teachers of sculpture and building in the earlier portion of the middle age, and the details of the Church of Sancta Sophia at Constantinople, might be worthy of the attention of the Society of Antiquaries as materials for their Vetusta Monumenta. Laudably as their funds are on some occasions employed for the delineation of our national remains, the analogies and rise of their first principles might be advantageously sought for in foreign lands, and the cause of science much forwarded by judicious researches directed by this public body and aided by its resources. We are happy to learn that the late repairs are likely to preserve Westminster Hall to many future generations. We trust it may escape that curse of all the relics of ancient taste and grandeur, innovation, and that the threatened removal of the great south window will never be perpetrated, whatever may be the temptation, in the course of carrying into effect the new parliamentary buildings. The removal of the stone dais, the alta mensa marmoralis, from the floor of the hall, is, we think, injudicious. The haut pas is one marked feature of all ancient halls, and here our nation's monarchs dispensed their justice or their hospitality. While on the subject of this magnificent chamber, we shall express our hope that the Coronation of our virgin Queen may be honoured with all the splendid service of the customary feast in the hall of her ancestors, and that hers will not be made a "half-faced" "Victoria oriens Augusta Coronation. The multiplicity of small folds in the figures of the Saxon and early Norman times, the constant recurrence in those periods of the honeysuckle and other Greek ornaments, prove this position. |