That lead to graves; and in the silent vault

Where lies your own pale shroud, to hover o'er it,

Striving to enter your forbidden corpse!

And often, often, vainly breathe your ghost

Into your lifeless lips;

Then, like a lone benighted traveller

Shut out from lodging, shall your groans be answer'd

By whistling winds, whose every blast will shake

Your tender form to atoms."

We afterwards find him railing against fools,-He is the most spirited person of the drama.

"Cre. Every where. Fine empty things, like him,

The court swarms with them.

Fine fighting things; in camps they are so common,
Crows feed on nothing else; plenty of fools;

A glut of 'em in Thebes.

And fortune still takes care they should be seen;

She places 'em aloft, o' th' topmost spoke

Of all her wheel; fools are the daily work
Of nature; her vocation; if she form
A man, she loses by't, 'tis too expensive;
"Twou'd make ten fools? A man's a prodigy."

Act III. Scene I.

There is something peculiarly solemn in the mysterious chaunt, in which the soothsayers celebrate their superstitious rites.

"Tir. Chuse the darkest part o' th' grove;

Such as ghosts at noon-day love.

Dig a trench, and dig it nigh

Where the bones of Laius lie,

Altars rais'd of turf or stone,
Will th' infernal pow'rs have none.
Answer me, if this be done?

All Pr. 'Tis done.

Tir. Is the sacrifice made fit,
Draw her backward to the pit;
Draw the barren heifer back;
Barren let her be, and black.
Cut the curled hair that grows
Full betwixt her horns and brows
And turn your faces from the sun;
Answer me, if this be done?

All Pr. 'Tis done.

Tir. Pour in blood, and blood like wine,

To mother earth and Proserpine;

Mingle milk into the stream;

Feast the ghosts that love the steam;

Snatch a brand from funeral pile;

Toss it in to make 'em boil;

And turn your faces from the sun;
Answer me, if all be done?

All Pr. All is done.

"The Rival Ladies" is a tragi-comedy of a very confused and intricate nature, but is adorned with gems of poetry, which are scattered as thick through this as the generality of his plays. Angelina, in the disguise of male attire, asks herself,

"Where had I courage for this bold disguise,

Which more my nature than my sex belies?
Alas! I am betray'd to darkness here;

Darkness which virtue hates, and maids most fear:
Silence and solitude dwell every where :

Dogs cease to bark; the waves more faintly roar,

And roll themselves asleep upon the shore:

No noise but what my foot-steps make, and they
Sound dreadfully, and louder than by day:

They double too, and every step I take

Sounds thick methinks, and more than one could make.
Ha! who are these?

I wish'd for company, and now I fear.

Who are you, gentle people, that go there?"

Act I. Sc. II.

The answer of Amideo to Hippolito and Gonsalvo, who is also disguised in male attire, and taken for a boy, is a beautiful specimen of simple eloquence.

66

Hip. Poor child, who would'st be wise above thy years,

Why dost thou talk, like a philosopher,

Of conquering love, who art not yet grown up
To try the force of any manly passion ?

The sweetness of thy mother's milk is yet

Within thy veins, not sour'd and turn'd by love.

Gons. Thou hast not field enough in thy young breast,

To entertain such storms to struggle in.

Amid. Young as I am, I know the pow'r of love;
Its less disquiets, and its greater cares,

And all that's in it, but the happiness.

Trust a boy's word,

Sir, if you please, and take

My innocence for wisdom; leave this lady;
Cease to persuade yourself you are in love,
And you I will soon be freed: Not that I wish
A thing so noble as your passion lost

To all the sex; bestow it on some other;
You'll find many as fair, though none so cruel.
Would I could be a lady for your sake."

The further selections which we intend making from this, we will string together-as pearls on a necklace:

"Perfection is discovered in a moment;

He that ne'er saw the sun before, yet knows him."

To a lady fearing rudeness:

"Your very fears and griefs create an awe,
Such majesty they bear; methinks I see
Your soul retir'd within her inmost chamber,
Like a fair mourner sit in state, with all
The silent pomp of sorrow round about her."

;

"Is this an hour for valiant men to fight?
They love the sun should witness what they do
Cowards have courage when they see not death ;
And fearful hares, that sculk in forms all day,
Yet fight their feeble quarrels by the moonlight."

Act I. Sc. I.

"What right have parents over children, more
Than birds have o'er their young? yet they impose
No rich-plum'd mistress on their feather'd sons;
But leave their love, more open yet and free
Than all the fields of air, their spacious birth-right."

"His sweetness for those frowns no subject finds :

Seas are the field of combat for the winds:
But when they sweep along some flow'ry coast,
Their wings move mildly, and their rage is lost.”

"Like the day-dreams of melancholy men,

I think and think on things impossible,
Yet love to wander in that golden maze."

Ibid.

Act. II.

Act III.

Ibid.

Again:

"While I am compass'd round

With mirth, my soul lies hid in shades of grief,
Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes,
and sickens at the sight of day."

She

peeps,

"Thou com'st, all cloy'd and tir'd with his embraces,

To proffer thy pall'd love to me: his kisses
Do yet bedew thy lips; the very print

His arms made round thy body, yet remains."

Rodorick dying, says,

"So, now I am at rest:

Ibid.

Act IV. Sc. III.

I feel death rising higher still, and higher,
Within my bosom; every breath I fetch
Shuts up my life within a shorter compass :
And like the vanishing sound of bells, grows less
And less each pulse, 'till it be lost in air.”

"As from some steep and dreadful precipice,
The frighted traveller casts down his eyes,
And sees the ocean at so great a distance,
It looks as if the skies were sunk below him
Yet if some neighb'ring shrub (how weak soe'er)
Peeps up, his willing eyes stop gladly there,
And seem to ease themselves, and rest upon it."

Ibid.

Act V. Sc. III.

It has been with the greatest possible reluctance, that we have abstained from adorning our pages with some of the scenes of "The All for Love," and "Don Sebastian." For this some excuse might have been found, in the fact that Dryden's peculiar dramatic merits might have been best illustrated by the quotation of passages from these two plays; but the length of the extracts, which we found ourselves compelled to make, have prevented our discussing this point in the manner we could have wished; and thus rendered these authorities, which we should have produced, less necessary. These two, however, as well as "The Spanish Friar" are plays to which we can refer our readers as wholes; and though very far from being without great blemishes and deficiences, they will amply repay them for a repeated perusal. The "Spanish Friar" has been chiefly praised for the

happy union of two plots. For our parts, we profess ourselves sceptical as to the merits of this union; and if it had possessed no other claim to our notice, than the ingenuity with which the adventures of a camp profligate are connected with the intrigues of the court, we could have seen no reason why it should not sleep in the same oblivion in which "Love Triumphant" has been entombed. The structure of the plot is intrinsically the same; perhaps the connection more complete in the one case, than in the other; or in other words, the discordant and unharmonizing actions, are more closely compacted, and the juncture more artfully concealed, though in fact, there is the same inartificial combination in both. There is no Gordian knot to untie here, as is the case in the " Merchant of Venice;" the folds of which are so complicated that, to disentangle any part, you must mangle the whole. It may be worth our while, once for all, to disclose the secret of this artifice, and characterize the method by which the poet has endeavoured to delude us into an idea that the very different scenes which he places before our eyes, belong to one and the same picture. The hero of the tragic plot is generally the cousin the fewer degrees removed the more felicitous the combination of the hero of the comic plot, who is either an officer in the army commanded by the first, or a courtier in the palace where his relative is a lord of the bedchamber. The comic character occasionally appears at court; the tragic is sometimes seen in the street; and with this slight intercourse, each pursues his several way, through the first three or four acts. The one is little nice in distinctions, and associates pretty promiscuously with ladies both of high and low degree, with much risque to his constitution, while the other intrigues with queens and princesses, and cabals with lords and courtiers, to the eminent hazard of his head. At length, the plot thickens, and we reach in good time the grand point of connexion. The tragic hero has occasion for some two or three hundred partizans, to put down his most uncompromising opponents, and who so proper to head them as his cousin, the debauchee? The latter accordingly musters his regiment, if he has one; or if not, no matter-his drunken boon companions will do just as well-who sally forth with "hose ungartered," and make nothing of beating a set of sober-gaited citizens, or guards of the palace. Thus the tragic hero now gains all his ends, and it may be, in the height of victory, throws himself at the feet of his insulted sovereign. The heroism of his generous submission does his business effectually, and seals his pardon; while his companion in arms is left in peace, to enjoy his mistress, or quarrel with his wife, (if she does not turn out to be his sis