Describe some transport of our warmer passion, Paint the secluded bower where last we met, &c.'-p. 4. When she complains of her ill-assorted marriage it is in these noble terms, which must wring every feeling heart : 'Was't not enough to foist the old one on me? Think you I always will submit to this And take for him (her lover) that potsherd of a man?'-p. 5). After this Maddalen goes mad, miserably mad; and here it is that we are reluctantly compelled to qualify our recent admiration of Mr. Galt's originality, since we cannot but perceive an imitation of two heroines long since in possession of the stage. The reader has already anticipated us in naming Tilburina and Queen Dolialolla; and prejudice itself must admit that the supreme excellence of the models might justify an imitation of them in writers less alive to vivid impressions of the sublime and beautiful' than Mr. Galt. Of the dramas of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, in which Mr. Galt surpasses Sophocles and Euripides, and of that of Antonia, in which he surpasses even himself, we shall say a very few words, before we proceed to Lady Macbeth,' in which he encounters and transcends the hitherto unrivalled Shakspeare. In the treatment of the two classical subjects it is delightful to observe the successful effort of an original conception. The stories, as the Greeks and Romans have told them, are trite-we might almost say with Hamlet, 'musty.' It was a poet, doubtless, who first invented the tale of ancient Pelops' line. Another poet has surely a right to alter such a fable (if he can) for the botter. The stories of Agamemnon,' says Mr. Galt,' are gross and detestable; of Clytemnestra, truly horrible but, in addition to the merit of choosing such difficult subjects, he modestly claims to himself 'no inconsiderable praise in having managed these delicate topics without disgusting,' (p. v.) a praise we must concur in thinking not inconsiderable, since our author is of opinion that Sophocles has failed in this point, and that his Electra is a hideous and inhuman exhibition. Agreeing, as we generally do, with Mr. Galt, we however, do not wish to speak too lightly of Sophocles, who though he has been dead many years, is still a writer of some repute; but we can truly say, that nothing in the world can be so different from the Electra of Sophocles as the Electra or (as he more properly calls it) the Clytemnestra of our author. It has been shrewdly observed, that if Shakspeare had possessed what is called school learning, the flight of his genius might not have been so bold and vigorous; this, which was hereofore only an ingenious theory, is now substantiated by the evi dence of fact some of Mr. Galt's highest beauties arise indisputably from the lucky circumstance of his being no scholar. Egysthus, the murderer of Agamemnon, for instance, is, with him a base born fellow,' or, as Arsinoe elegantly expresses it, a slave, A coarse, rank-smelling groom-a neighing groom.' How does this enhance the tragic depravity of the lady's taste! This topic, which our author handles thoroughly, would have been lost to the world had he known that Egysthus was the son of Thyestes, grandson of Pelops, and cousin-german to King Agamemnon himself. Several other instances might be adduced of this lucky ignorance. The name of Pylades, for example, has been, by all Greek and Roman writers, accented as, what the pedants quaintly call, an anapæst. Mr. Galt, however, felt, as every one must feel, how much more musically the name would flow if pronounced Pylades; and Pylades the name accordingly stands throughout the drama, and will henceforth stand, we suppose, at all the schools in England, auctoritate Galti celeberrimi.? Of Antonia, the plot turns on a very simple fact; but we regret that the squeamishness of modern delicacy will not permit us to give our readers any insight into this amusing piece; we can only say, in Mr. Galt's own phrase, that it is no inconsiderable praise' to have enlivened tragedy by the introduction of an incident, towards which the waggish authors of The Relapse and the London Cuckolds have not approached nearer than a hint. But we hasten to Mr. Galt's chef-d'œuvre 'Lady Macbeth,' which we cannot better introduce than in his own words. For presuming to meddle with the awful mysteries of Macbeth, I have not one word to offer in extenuation. I thought the almost satanic character of the Lady possessed traits of grandeur which might be so represented as to excite compassion; and the frame of Macbeth's mind afforded me an opportunity of introducing allusions to Scottish superstitions which Shakspeare has not touched; and which are still, in a great measure, new to the poetry of the stage. The play is, in fact, an experiment; and as such, I wrote it with some degree of audacity both in thought and phraseology. It is the best or the worst in the volume.' -Pref. p. v. This brilliant conception, 'that the grandeur of a satanic character is the properest engine to excite compassion,' is new, we venture to believe, to all our readers; and they will, we are confident, think with us that Mr. Galt needs to say nothing in extenuation of ation of his attempt to prove, by experiment, this elegant theorem. They will also admire the modesty and true simplicity of soul with which he declares that he does not know whether his favourite play be the best or the worst of the whole.' We, however, will take upon ourselves to remove his doubt, and unhesitatingly pronounce it to be both. It will, doubtless, appear the worst to the critics whose tastes have been spoiled by the fervid irregularities and unnatural flights of Shakspeare; but, on the principles on which we admire the character of our author's muse, we must freely assert it to be the best of all. There are no witches and cauldrons, no prophesies and portents, no ghosts and goblins, no magnificence of passion, no flights of feeling or of fancy; all such diablerie Mr. Galt despises. He knows that a play to be interesting must come home to our businesses and bosoms.' He cannot read Horace, and is not, of course, aware of his precept, Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.' But nature, the poet's best guide, has taught him the same lesson, and he has felt that no kind of interest can be excited for such wild folks as the Macbeths of Shakspeare, the weird sisters, and all their trumpery-black spirits and white-red spirits and grey.' ore In pursuance of this principle, Mr. Galt has brought the story down to the level of a London audience. He has reduced the colouring, the tone, the characters-he has left no irregularities to surprise, he admits no expression which can dazzle or perplex by its false brilliancy. He takes, if we may be permitted the use of a metaphor, from the storm its thunder and lightning, and reduces it to a heavy soaking shower of rain, an event of much more ordinary occurrence, and therefore of general interest than a poetical tempest. Instead therefore, of all the bustle and throng of characters in Shakspeare's Macbeth, Mr. Galt has but four actors in his drama. Instead of the infernal agency of the witches he has one Baudron, an old Culdee priest,' a kind of family chaplain. Instead of apparitions and spectres that shake the soul, he endows Macbeth with the faculty of second sight, or dreaming with his eyes open; but even this last attribute, though so comnon in Scotland, he does not venture to confer on him without taking care that when he talks of the objects seen in those trances, there shall be no unnatural or inflated pomp in the expression. Thus when Macbeth has a mind to pry into futurity he does it in the good old way, and at the good old time, and expresses it in the good old terms, 'Tis hallow-eve, and I have cast my fortune.'—(p. 132.) Burns the plowman could not have expressed it more simply. When he desires the attendance of the pious Baudron he only says, Send me the Culdee priest.'-(p. 137.) as naturally as one would ask for the curate of one's parish; and when he would allude to his former military glory, he does it in no bombastic or thrasonical style, I was a famous soldier in my day.'-(p. 139.) The king being so measured in his language, our readers will not suspect our judicious author of the inconsistency of giving the queen a lofty style; on the contrary, as women generally are more simple in their conversation than men, he has made the lady take tone lower even than the laird. When she inquires whether Macbeth believes that sensation can exist in the human body after death, she puts this terrific question in the most unaffected manner. Shall we in death, lie conscious of the rot ?'-p. 121. Contemplating with indignation the repentance which she sees growing in Macbeth, she exclaims, with a metaphor indeed, but one to which every good house-wife would naturally allude: Shall we confess we kill'd the king, And mew contrition like too silly urchins, Sick with the surfeit of the pantry's spoil?'-p. 122. But her death is the summit of all our author's art-there is an air of truth and nature about it which we cannot easily parallel: her majesty complains of being deadly thirsty,' and asks for some drink; but Baudron, who attended her after she had dismissed the doctor, thinking plain water might be unfit for the patient, prudently, as one would have supposed, mixed a little wine with it; but alas! what are human precautions! the wine was unluckily red, and the mixture looked to her disordered imagination the colour of blood, and she screamed so loud that she frightened away all her maids and expired in an agony before the Culdee could induce her to touch a drop of the wine and water, We cannot refrain, much as we have quoted, from adding this touching passage; this true instance of what we may call domestic tragedy or household sublimity. What see'st thou, damsel, to look at me so? And craves the cooling freshness. Give, O give.- Cannot allay the deadly thirst that's here. BAUDRON. This wát'ry bev'rage slightly tinged with wine LADY. Ha! wretch 'tis blood! BAUDRON. Alas! they all have fled, In panic horror at the howl she gave, From the brief trenchment of a baby's grave.-pp. 156, 157. We flatter ourselves we have now proved that the partiality which at the outset we avowed for Mr. Galt's system and style of tragedy-writing is amply justified to our readers; but there are yet a few circumstances which, notwithstanding the length of this article, our grateful admiration will not permit us to pass unobserved. The first is, that-original and daring in all-his plays are divided only into three acts; because, as he says-and here again his happy ignorance of Horace is in our favour-' he knows no reason why five have been hitherto preferred.' He does not himself give any reason for preferring three-but his authority is enough. The next is, that there are no stage directions, but his text will be found to indicate, without the aid of marginal notes, what should be the business of the stage.' It might have been apprehended that transferring the stage directions of exit,' enter, takes out her handkerchief,' &c. from the margin into the body of the poem, would here and there produce a prosaic line which might be avoided by adhering to the old manner; but in justice to Mr. Galt, we cannot say that this objection has any weight as applied to his dramas; the lines of this nature are not in any degree weaker than the rest of the poem. The third and concluding observation we have to make is, that Mr. Galt, with laudable accuracy, has informed us of the place at which each of these pieces was composed. This is highly pleasing. It reminds us of Gibbon's interesting account of planning his history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire amid the ruins of the Capitol. 'Maddalen was written in the Lazaretto of Messina, to lighten the captivity of quarantine; Clytemnestra during a passage from Sardinia to Gibraltar; Agamemnon in the course of my voyage from that fortress to Ireland; Antonia, while obliged to perform a second quarantine in Cork harbour; and Lady Macbeth, at subsequent intervals:'-Pref. p. i. This passage leads us to observe, that since a strict confinement seems to quicken in so extraordinary a degree our author's tragic genius-our admiration of his talents, and our hopes of his obtaining that perfection, of which he wants so little, embolden us to suggest, that a kind of home quarantine-a seclusion for a certain period in some inland lazaretto-might be of incalculable advantage. It is, indeed, the only process by which, in our opinion, his poetical vein can be improved. |