Part 10 (2/2)

Schiller's Wallenstein does not strictly belong to this cla.s.s, yet we are disposed to claim it as observing the unities of time and interest; the latter especially is entire, notwithstanding the many actors and side-scenes which are introduced. Numberless touches of nature arrest our attention, bright lights are flashed across many characters, but our interest, momently increasing, is for Wallenstein--for the perversion, the danger, the ruin of that monarch soul, that falling son of the morning. Even that we feel in Max, with his celestial bloom of heart, in Thekla's sweet trustfulness, is subsidiary. This work, generally known to the reader through Mr. Coleridge's translation, affords an imperfect ill.u.s.tration of our meaning. Miss Baillie's plays on the pa.s.sions hold a middle place. Unity of purpose there is--no unity of plan or conduct.

Bold, fine outline--very bad coloring. Profound, beautifully-expressed reflections on the pa.s.sions--utter want of skill in showing them out; a thorough feeling, indeed, of the elements of tragedy,--had but the vitalizing energy been added. Her plays are failures; but since she has given us nothing else, we cannot but rejoice in having these. 'Tis great pity that the auth.o.r.ess of De Montfort and Basil should not have attempted a narrative poem.

Coleridge and Byron are signal instances how peculiar is the kind of talent required for the drama; one a philosopher, both men of great genius and uncommon mastery over language, both conversant with each side of human nature, both considering the drama in its true light as one of the highest departments of literature, both utterly wanting in simplicity, pathos, truth of pa.s.sion and liveliness of action--in that thrilling utterance of heart to heart, whose absence _here_, no other excellence can atone for. Of Maturin and Knowles we do not speak, because theirs, though very good acting plays, are not, like Mr.

Taylor's, written for the closet; of Milman, because not sufficiently acquainted with his plays. We would here pay a tribute to our countryman Hillhouse, whose Hadad, read at a very early age, we remember with much delight. Probably our judgment now might be different; but a work which could make so deep an impression on any age, must have genius. We are sorry we have never since met it in any library or parlor, and are not competent to speak of it more particularly.

It will be seen that Mr. Taylor has not attempted the sort of dramatic poetry which we consider the highest, but has labored in that which the great wizard of Avon adopted, because it lay nearest at hand to clothe his spells withal, and consecrated it, with his world-embracing genius, to the (in our judgment) no small detriment of his country's taste.

Having thus declared that we cannot grant him our very highest meed of admiration, (though we will not say that he might not win it if he made the essay,) we hasten to meet him on his own ground. ”Dramatica Poesis est veluti Historia spectabilis,” is his motto, taken from Bacon, who formed his taste on Shakspeare. We would here mention that Goethe's earlier works, Goetz von Berlichingen and Egmont are of this school--brilliant fragments of past days, ballads acted out, historical scenes and personages cl.u.s.tered round a hero; and we have seen that his ripened taste preferred the form of Iphigenia and Ta.s.so.

We cannot too strongly express our approbation of the opinions maintained in his short preface to this work. We rejoice to see a leader coming forward who is likely to un-Hemansize and un-Cornwallize literature. We too have been sick, we too have been intoxicated with _words_ till we could hardly appreciate thoughts; perhaps our present writing shows traces of this Lower-Empire taste; but we have sense enough left to welcome the English Phocion, who would regenerate public feeling. The candor and modest dignity with which these opinions are offered charm us. The remarks upon Sh.e.l.ley, whom we have loved, and do still love pa.s.sing well, brought truth home to us in a definite shape.

With regard to the lowness of Lord Byron's standard of character, every thing indeed has been said which could be but not as Mr. Taylor has said it; and we opine that his refined and gentle remarks will find their way to ears which have always been deaf to the harsh sarcasms unseasoned by wit, which have been current on this topic.

Our author too, notwithstanding his modest caveat, has acted upon his principles, and furnished a forcible ill.u.s.tration of their justice. For dignity of sentiment, for simplicity of manner, for truth to life, never infringing upon respect for the ideal, we look to such a critic, and we are not disappointed.

The scene is laid in Ghent, in the fourteenth century. The Flemish mobocracy are brought before us with a fidelity and animation surpa.s.sing those displayed in Egmont. Their barbarism, and the dissimilar, but not inferior barbarism of their would-be lords, the bold, bad men, the shameless crime and brainless tumult of those days, live before us. Amid these clas.h.i.+ng elements moves Philip Van Artevelde, with the presence, not of a G.o.d, but of a great man, too superior to be shaken, too wise to be shocked by their rude jarrings. He becomes the leader of his people, and despite pestilence, famine, and their own untutored pa.s.sions, he leads them on to victory and power.

In the second part we follow Van Artevelde from his zenith of glory to his decline. The tarnis.h.i.+ng influence of prosperity on his spirit, and its clear radiance again in adversity, are managed as the n.o.ble and well-defined conception of the character deserves.

The boy king and his courtly, intriguing counsellors are as happily portrayed as Vauclaire and the fierce commonalty he ruled, or resisted with rope or sword, as the case might demand.

The two loves of Van Artevelde are finely imagined, as types of the two states of his character. Both are lovely; the one how elevated! the other how pity-moving in her loveliness! On the interlude of Elena we must be allowed to linger fondly, though the author's self condemn our taste.

We are no longer partial to the machinery of portents and presentiments.

Wallenstein's were the last we liked, but Van Artevelde's make good poetry, and have historical vouchers. They remind us of those of Fergus Mac Ivor.

We shall extract a speech of Van Artevelde's, in which a leading idea of the work is expressed.

Father,--

So! with the chivalry of Christendom I wage my war,--no nation for my friend, Yet in each nation having hosts of friends.

The bondsmen of the world, that to their lords Are bound with chains of iron, unto me Are knit by their affections. Be it so.

From kings and n.o.bles will I seek no more Aid, friends.h.i.+p, or alliance. With the poor I make my treaty; and the heart of man Sets the broad seal of its allegiance there, And ratifies the compact. Va.s.sals, serfs, Ye that are bent with unrequited toil, Ye that have whitened in the dungeon's darkness, Through years that know not change of night nor day, Tatterdemalions, lodgers in the hedge, Lean beggars with raw backs, and rumbling maws, Whose poverty was whipped for starving you,-- I hail you my auxiliars and allies, The only potentates whose help I crave!

Richard of England, thou hast slain Jack Straw, But thou hast left unquenched the vital spark That set Jack Straw on fire. The spirit lives; And as when he of Canterbury fell, His seat was filled by some no better clerk, So shall John Ball, that slew him, be replaced.

Fain would we extract Van Artevelde's reply to the French envoy--the oration of the dying Van den Bosch in the market-place of Ypres, the last scene between the hero and the double-dyed dastard and traitor, Sir Heurant of Heurlee, and many, many more, had we but s.p.a.ce enough.

We have purposely avoided telling the story, as is usual in an article of this kind, because we wish that every one should buy and read Van Artevelde, instead of resting content with the canvas side of the carpet.

A few words more, and we shall conclude these, we fear, already too prolonged remarks. We would compare Mr. Taylor with the most applauded of living dramatists, the Italian Alessandro Manzoni.

To wide and accurate historical knowledge, to purity of taste, to the greatest elevation of sentiment, Manzoni unites uncommon lyric power, and a beautiful style in the most beautiful language of the modern world. The conception of both his plays is striking, the detached beauties of thought and imagery are many; but where are the life, the glow, the exciting march of action, the thorough display of character which charm us in Van Artevelde? We _live_ at Ghent and Senlis; we _think_ of Italy. Van Artevelde dies,--and our hearts die with him. When Elena says, ”The body,--O!” we could echo that ”long, funereal note,”

and weep as if the sun of heroic n.o.bleness were quenched from our own horizon. ”Carmagnola, Adelchis die,”--we calmly shut the book, and think how much we have enjoyed it. Manzoni can deeply feel goodness and greatness, but he cannot localize them in the contours of life before our eyes. His are capital sketches, poems of a deep meaning,--but this, yes! this _is_ a drama.

We cannot conclude more fitly, nor inculcate a precept on the reader more forcibly, than in Mr. Taylor's own words, with a slight alteration: ”To say that I admire him is to admit that I owe him much; for admiration is never thrown away upon the mind of him who feels it, except when it is misdirected or blindly indulged. There is perhaps nothing which more enlarges or enriches the mind than the disposition to lay it genially open to impressions of pleasure, from the exercise of every species of talent; nothing by which it is more impoverished than the habit of undue depreciation. What is puerile, pusillanimous, or wicked, it can do us no good to admire; but let us admire all that can be admired without debasing the dispositions or stultifying the understanding.”

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