therefore entitled to much praise for the inventive powers which are developed in the plot, and the vigorous skill with which she has sketched her personages. As the story is told in another part of our Magazine, we shall proceed at once to a selection of such passages as have struck us as peculiarly poetical and powerful, and those of the first kind are the following:

(Recollection of frenzy.) I have no memory of aught. "Tis just

Like waking from a dream; a horrible
Confusion of strange miseries.

(Affection increased by the misery of the object beloved.) It is my right, my privilege,

To share thy woes, to soothe them. I'll weep with thee, And that will be a comfort. Did'st thou think

Thou could'st be dearer to me than before

When thou wast well and happy? But thou art
Now

(Alfonzo, regretting the distraction of Julian.) Alas!

alas!

Why did he rescue me? I'm a poor orphan;
None would have wept for me; I had no friend
In all the world save one. I had been reared
In simpleness; a quiet grave had been

A fitter home for me than the rude world;

A mossy heap, no stone, no epitaph,

Save the brief words of grief and praise (for grief

Is still a praiser), he perchance had spoke

When they first told him the poor boy was dead.

(Julian, describing the supposed murder of his father when rescuing young Alfonzo.)

Annabel in my eyes that scene will dwell

For ever, shutting out all lovely sights,

Even thee, my beautiful! That torturing thought
Will burn a living fire within my breast

Perpetually; words can nothing add,

And nothing take away.

There is much ability evinced in the character of Melfi, and his anxiety to be declared king is well expressed in the

following passage; he is addressing D'Alba, the first of the Sicilian nobles, and his most inveterate opponent,

My lord,

What would'st thou more? Before I entered here
Messina's general voice had hailed her sovereign,
Lacks but the ceremonial form. "Twere best
The accustomed pageant were performed even now;
Whilst ye, Sicilian barons, strength and grace
Of our Sicilian realm, are here to pledge

Solemn allegiance. Say I sooth, Count D'Alba?

The reply of D'Alba is in fine style, full of poetry, and with a simile running through it, which we conceive to be original.

In sooth, my liege, I know not. Seems to me
One form is wanting. Our bereaved state

Stands like a widow, one eye dropping tears
For her lost lord, the other turned with smiles
On her new bridegroom. But even she, the Dame
Of Ephesus, the buxom relict, famed

For quick despatch o'er every widowed mate,
Woman, or state-even she, before she wed,
Saw the good man entombed. The funeral first;
And then the coronation.

The conclusion of the third act is an exquisite piece of writing, and exhibits advantageously the author's knowledge of, and ability in depicting the deepest and most turbulent passions of our nature, virtuous and otherwise. Melfi is seeking to obtain his son's concurrence in the plan of defrauding young Alfonzo of the crown; he hears the shouts of the populace, and exclaims thus eloquently:

Dost hear the bells, the shouts? Oh, 'tis a proud
And glorious feeling thus at once to live
Within a thousand bounding hearts, to hear
The strong outgushing of that present fame,
For whose uncertain dim, futurity,

Men toil, and slay, and die! Without a crime,
I thank thee still for that: without a crime,
For he'll be happier. I am a king,

After much controversy, Melfi says,

I'll make thee the heir of a fair crown.

When Julian thus indignantly and feelingly declares,

that

Not all the powers

Of all the earth can force upon my brow
That heritage of guilt. Cannot I die?
But that were happiness. I'd rather drag
A weary life beneath the silent rule

Of the stern Trappist, digging my own grave.
Myself a living corse, cut from the sweet
And natural kindness that man shews to man;
I'd rather hang a hermit on the steep

Of horrid Ætna, between snow and fire,
Rather than sit a crown'd and honour'd prince,
Guarded by children, tributaries, friends,
On an usurper's throne.

The beautiful bust in the above quotation, which we have marked in italics, cannot fail to win the approval of all readers of taste. We have now to produce a passage, which we feel assured will of itself be sufficient to rank Miss MITFORD among the first poetical writers of the day.

Melfi. Trifle not with my my impatience, Julian; Produce the child. Howe'er thou may deny

Allegiance to the king obey thy father.

Julian. I had a father.

Melfi. Ha!

Julian. But he gave up

Faith, loyalty, and honour, and pure fame,

And his own son.

Melfi. My son !

Julian. Ilov'd him once,

And dearly: still too dearly! but with all
That burning, aching, passionate old love,
Wrestling within my breast-even face to face;
Those eyes upon me; and that trembling hand
Thrilling my very heartstrings. Take it off!
In mercy take it off! Still I renounce thee.
Thou hast no son; I have no father. Go
Down to a childless grave.

Melfi. Even from the grave

A father's curse may reach thee, clinging to
Cold as a dead man's shroud, shadowing thy
Recounting thy dreams, and hanging a thick
"Twixt thee and heaven. Then, when perch
Small prattling pretty ones shall climb thy k
And bid thee bless them, think of thy dead f
And groan as thou dost now.
Hark! 'tis the hour!

I must away. Back to thy chamber, son,
And choose if I shall curse thee.

Julian. Did he curse me?

Am I that wither'd, blasted wretc Is that the fire that burns my brain? Not y Oh, do not curse me yet! He's gone. The The boy!

The commencement of the third act is liarly interesting in consequence of the in Julian and Alfonzo, at the moment when M the crown.

Julian. Stop, place it here!

This is the king! the real, the only king! The living king, Alfonzo!

Melfi. Out, foul traitor!

"Tis an impostor.

Julian. Look on him, Count D'Alba ! Calvi, Valore, look! Ye know him well; And ye that never saw him, know ye not His father's lineaments? Remove thy hand From that fair forehead. 'Tis the pallid bro Bent into pensiveness, the drooping eyelid, The womanish changing cheek, his very self Melfi addresses the nobles, and D'Alb speech of nerve and beauty.

This morning I received a tale-I'm not An over-believer in man's excellence; I know that in this slippery path of life The firmest foot may fail; that there have be Ere now ambitious generals, grasping heirs, Unnatural kinsmen. foul usurpers murdere

THEATRICAL MAGAZINE.

I know that man is frail, and might have fallen,
Though Eve had never lived. Albeit, I own
The smiling mischief's potency.

143

Ambitious feelings, directed honourably, are thus beau

tifully described :

I am eaglet born, and can drink in

The sunlight when the blinking owls go darkling,
Dazzled and blinded by the day. Ambitious!

I have had day dreams would have sham'd the visions
Of that great master of the world, who wept

For other worlds to conquer. I'd have liv'd
An age of sinless glory, and gone down
Storied, and epitaphed, and chronicled,
To the very end of time.

The second scene of the fourth act, in which Julian finds his father lying with wounds fresh opened without the gates of Messina, is deeply affecting, and we regret that our limits will not allow us to transcribe it; it is from first to last replete with dramatic interest, and is well calculated to arrest the attention, and to fix the feelings of an audience. Melfi dies, and the lamentatious of Julian are natural and unaffected.

D'Alba, soliciting the love of Annabel (the wife of Julian), is thus appealed to by his miserable captive :

Now, God forgive thee, man! thon torturest me
Worse than a thousand racks; but thou art not
So devilish, D'Alba. Thou hast talked of love;
Would'st see me die here at thy feet!

Have mercy!

D'Alba. Mercy! aye, such as thou hast shewn to me Through weeks, and months, and years. I was børn strong In scorn, the wise man's passion. I had liv'd Aloof from the juggling world, and with a string Watched the poor puppets ape their several parts; Fool, knave, or madman, till thy fatal charms,

fool