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for ever, my sweet Bessie,' she said; the memorial of innocence, and purity, and much abused trust.'

"Oh, I did not mean that-I did not mean that, Isa bella. Surely I have not accused him; I told you he never said he loved me. I am not angry with him-you must not be. You cannot be long, it you love him; and surely you do love him.'"-Vol. iii. pp. 136-146,

We might now proceed to some lighter scenes, though of equal beauty and spirit, but enough has been extracted to show that "The Linwoods" is a novel of no ordinary fashion. It never fails in keeping up, besides its natural interest, a fine national warmth of heart, equal, we doubt not, to the hope of the writer, when she says that her aim has been to give her younger American readers a true, if a slight impression of the condition of their country at the most trying period of its existence. Reviewers, and advanced towards the middle age of man, though we may be, we have gone through the work, chapter after chapter, as we would have done twenty years ago.

From the London Quarterly Review.

Ion; a Tragedy. London: 1835. (Privately printed.)

be in possession of two or three actors qualified to embody the lofty and graceful conceptions of a true tragic poet.

The object and general plan of "Ion" are thus opened to us in a short preface:

"The idea of the principal character,--that of a nature essentially pure and disinterested, deriving its strength entirely from goodness and thought, not overcoming evil its approach-vividly conscious of existence and its pleaby the force of will, but escaping it by an insensibility to sures, yet willing to lay them down at the call of duty, is scarcely capable of being rendered sufficiently striking in itself, or of being subjected to such agitations as tragedy requires in its heroes. It was necessary, in order to involve such a character in circumstances which might excite terror or grief, or joy, to introduce other machinery than that of passions working naturally within, or events arising from ordinary and probable motives without; as its own elements would not supply the contests of tragic emotion, nor would its sufferings, however accu. mulated, present a varied or impressive picture. Recourse has therefore been had-not only to the old Grecian notion of destiny, apart from ali moral agencies, and to a prophecy indicating its purport in reference to the indition, as an engine by which fate may work its purposes viduals involved in its chain,-but to the idea of fascina

on the innocent mind, and force it into terrible action, This poem, to which we hazarded an allusion most uncongenial to itself, but necessary to the issue. in our last number, has been placed at our dis- Either perhaps of these aids might have been permitted, posal; but as the writer persists in not publishing if used in accordance with the entire spirit of the piece; it, we should hardly consider ourselves justified but the employment of both could not be justified in a in making it the subject of a minute critical ex-tain verisimilitude is essential to the faith of the spectator. drama intended for visual presentation, in which a eeramination. We embrace, however, the opportu- Whether any groups surrounded with the associations of nity of gratifying our readers with a few specimens the Greek mythology, and subjected to the capricious of a tragic composition, which, after repeated pe- laws of Greek superstition, could be endowed by genius rusal, we are satisfied must ultimately fix the itself with such present life as to awaken the sympathies name of Mr. Talfourd on a very high station in of an English audience, may well be doubted; but it cotemporary literature. We know, indeed, of no cannot be questioned that, except by sustaining a stern work of this class, produced in recent times, unity of purpose, and breathing an atmosphere of Grecian which affords more complete evidence of its au- sentiment over the whole, so as to render the picture thor's capacity to place himself, if he chose, in the national and coherent in all its traits, the effect must be rank of our classical dramatists. He has studied unsatisfactory and unreal. Conscious of my inability to the art thoroughly, and apprehends its resources produce a work thus justified to the imagination by its and its difficulties as nothing but severe medita- own completeness and power, I have not attempted it; tion can enable any man to do: in what he has but have sought, out of mere weakness, for 'fate and metaphysical aid' to 'crown withal' the ordinary persons attempted he has succeeded admirably; and of a romantic play."-Preface, p. ix. though he modestly doubts whether he could have adequately fulfilled a harder task, we are persuaded that few who study his piece will participate in that suspicion.

The beautiful "Ion" of Euripides has suggested the name of the hero, and some circumstances of his position at the opening of the scene. Like the "fatherless and motherless" boy of the Greek tragedian, he is a foundling, who has been nursed and reared within a temple, and is now employed in the services of the place; but with these exceptions, and that of a few scattered images, the modern author has taken nothing from that particular play. With the spirit of the high Greek drama, however, his whole mind and manner are deeply imbued; and yet, as genius never did nor can display itself without some bearing on the thoughts, and feelings, and tastes of its own age, he has given us a tragedy which, while it must afford peculiar and exquisite delight to the classical scholar, might, we think, with some slight alterations, be produced with extraordinary effect on our own stage; that is to say, supposing us to

We are of opinion that to real genius an audience would freely grant all and more than Mr. Talfourd has feared to ask for himself. But we shall not, at present, enter into any vexed questions.

The destiny of this piece hangs over the royal race of Argos; and the prophecy announces that the vengeance which their misrule has brought down on their people, in the form of a wide and wasting pestilence, can only be disarmed by the utter extirpation of the guilty house. The reigning king, Adrastus-whose character and history have from the beginning been darkened by his knowledge of such a prophesy-conceives himself to be a childless man; and maddened with the sense of this terrible doom being concentrated on his head, he has felt and acted as one cut off, from the hour of his birth, from all possibility either of human sympathy or of divine compassion. While the plague is ravaging his city, and the senators and priests are sending their deputations to Delphi, in hopes of grace or guidance, the prince con

As if a warrior of heroic mould

AGENOR. Hope is in thy tale.
This is no freak of Nature's wayward course,
But work of pitying Heaven; for not in vain
The gods have pour'd into that guileless heart
The strengths that nerve the hero;-they are ours."

tinues shut up in his palace, apparently insensible | Those limbs, which in their heedless motion own'd to the calamity around its gates, deaf to the cries A stripling's playful happiness, are strung of his people, inaccessible to his councillors, and As if the iron hardships of the camp plunged in a reckless career of debauchery, in Had given them sturdy nurture; and his step, which the captains of his guard are his sole comIts airness of yesterday forgotten, panions. The pestilence spreading more and Awakes the echoes of these desolate courts, more fiercely, and the mission to Delphi not hav- Paced them in armour. ing returned within the expected time, the priests and elders of Argos resolve to send once more to the palace, and implore their king to come forth and join with them in some solemn ceremonial calculated to appease the divine wrath; but the last messenger who had gone on such an errand had been beaten and scourged, and brought back for answer that the next should be instantly put to death. At this moment, the beautiful orphan and stripling of the temple courts, who has already exhibited something of the unexpected grandeur of his character, offers himself for the perilous embassy; and such is the fascination of his heroic innocence, that the high priest, who has reared him and loves him as a child, consents.

But we must pause a moment on the change which had come over Ion at the outbreaking of the pestilence-the astonishment with which the senators heard that he had been the only inmate of the temple who continually braved all dangers in ministering to the necessities of the sick :"AGENOR. What! Ion,

The only inmate of this fane, allowed

To seek the mournful walks where death is busy!-
Ion, our some-time darling, whom we prized
As a stray gift by bounteous Heaven dismiss'd

From some bright sphere which sorrow may not cloud
To make the happy happier! Is he sent
To grapple with the miseries of this time,
Whose nature such etherial aspect wears
As it would perish at the touch of wrong?
By no internal contest is he train'd
For such hard duty; no emotions rude

Hath his clear spirit vanquish'd;-Love, the germ
Of his mild nature, hath spread graces forth,
Expanding with its progress, as the store
Of rainbow colour which the seed conceals
Sheds out its tints from its dim treasury,
To flush and circle in the flower. No tear
Hath fill'd his eye save that of thoughtful joy
When, in the evening stillness, lovely things
Press'd on his soul too busily; his voice,
If, in the earnestness of childish sports,
Raised to the tone of anger, check'd its force,
As if it fear'd to break its being's law,
And falter'd into music; when the forms
Of guilty passion have been made to live
In pictured speech, and others have wax'd loud
In righteous indignation, he hath heard
With sceptic smile, or from some slender vein
Of goodness, which surrounding gloom conceal'd,
Struck sunlight o'er it: so his life hath flow'd
From its mysterious urn a sacred stream,
In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure
Alone are mirror'd; which, though shapes of ill
May hover round its surface, glides in light,
And takes no shadow from them.

CLEON. Yet, methinks,
Thou hast not lately met him, or a change
Pass'd strangely on him had not miss'd thy wonder.
His form appears dilated; in those eyes,
Where pleasure danced, a thoughtful sadness dwells;
Stern purpose knits the forehead, which till now
Knew not the passing wrinkle of a care:

and reports the incidents of his last night's In the next scene the youth himself appears, walk:

"ION. I pass'd the palace where the frantic king Yet holds his cranson revel, whence the roar of desperate mirth came, mingling with the sigh of death-subdued robustness, and the gleam Flaunting o'er shapes of anguish, made them ghastlier. Of festal lamps 'mid spectral columns hung

How can I cease to tremble for the sad ones

He mocks-and him the wretchedest of them all?
TIMOCLES. And canst thou pity him?
Dost thou discern,

Amidst his impious darings, plea for him?

ION. Is he not childless, friendless, and a king? He's human; and some pulse of good must live Within his nature-have ye tried to wake it ?"-p. 24.

His entreaty to be entrusted with the message to the king is in these words:

"ION. O do not think my prayer
Bespeaks unseemly forwardness-send me!
The coarsest reed that trembles in the marsh,
If Heaven select it for its instrument,
May shed celestial music on the breeze
As clearly as the pipe whose virgin gold
Befits the lip of Phoebus ;-ye are wise,
And needed by your country: ye are fathers:
I am a lone stray thing, whose little life
By strangers' bounty cherished, like a wave
That from the summer sea a wanton breeze
Lifts for a moment's sparkle, will subside
Light as it rose, nor leave a sigh in breaking."

From an interview which succeeds between
Ion and Clemanthe, the daughter of his guardian
high-priest, Medon, we must quote what follows
(Phocion, Clemanthe's only brother, is on the
embassy to Delphi) :-
:-

"CLEMANTHE. O thou canst never bear these mourn-
ful offices!

So blithe, so merry once! Will not the sight
Of frenzied agonies unfix thy reason,
Or the dumb woe congeal thee!

ION. No, Clemanthe;
They are the patient sorrows that touch nearest !
If thou hadst seen the warrior while he writhed
In the last grapple of his mighty frame
With mightier anguish, strive to cast a smile
(And not in vain) upon his fragile wife,
Waning beside him,-and, his limbs composed,
The widow of the moment fix her gaze
Of longing, speechless love upon the babe,
The only living thing which yet was hers,
Spreading its arms for its own resting-place,
Yet with attenuated hand wave off
The unstricken child, and so embraceless die,
Stifling the mighty hunger of the heart;
Thou couldst endure the sight of selfish grief

In sullenness or frenzy ;-but to-day Another lot falls on me.

CLEM. Thou wilt leave us ! I read it plainly in thy alter'd mien ;Is it for ever?

ION. That is with the gods.

I go but to the palace, urged by hope,
Which from afar hath darted on my soul,
That to the humbleness of one like me
The haughty king may listen.

CLEM. To the palace! Knowest thou the peril-nay, the certain issue That awaits thee?

lon. I know all;

But they who call me to the work can shield me,
Or make me strong to suffer.

CLEM. Then the sword
Falls on thy neck! O Gods! to think that thou,
Who in the plenitude of youthful life

Art now before me, ere the sun decline,
Perhaps in one short hour, shalt lie cold, cold,
To speak, sinile, bless no more! Thou shalt not go!
ION. Thou must not stay me, fair one; even thy
father,

Who (blessings on him!) loves me as his son,
Yields to the will of Heaven.

CLEM. And he can do this!
I shall not bear his presence if thou fallest
By his consent; so shall 1 be alone.

ION. Phocion will soon return, and juster thoughts
Of thy admiring father close the gap
Thy old companion left behind him.

CLEM. Never

What will to me be father, brother, friends,
When thou art gone-the light of our life quench'd-
Haunting like spectres of departed joy
The home where thou wert dearest?

ION. Thrill me not
With words that in their agony suggest
A hope too ravishing,-or my head will swim,
And my heart faint within me.

CLEM. Has my speech
Such blessed power? I will not mourn it, then,
Though it hath told a secret I had borne
Till death in silence;-how affection grew
To this, I know not; day succeeded day,
Each fraught with the same innocent delights,
Without one shock to ruffle the disguise
Of sisterly regard which veil'd it well,
Till thy changed mien reveal'd it to my soul,
And thy great peril makes me bold to tell it.
Do not despise it in me!

ION. With deep joy
Thus I receive it. Trust me, it is long
Since I have learn'd to tremble, 'midst our pleasures,
Lest I should break the golden dream around me
With most ungrateful rashness. I should bless
The sharp and perilous duty which hath press'd
A life's deliciousness into these moments,
Which here must end. I came to say farewell,
And the word must be said.

CLEM. Thou canst not mean it! Have I disclaimed all maiden bashfulness To tell the cherish'd secret of my soul To my soul's master, and in rich return Obtain'd the dear assurance of his love, To hear him speak that miserable word I cannot-will not echo?

ION. Heaven has called me, And I have pledged my honour. When thy heart Bestowed its preference on a friendless boy, Thou didst not image him a recreant: nor Must he prove so, by thy election crown'd. Thou hast endow'd me with the right to claim

I would not have thee other than thou art,
Living or dying-and if thou shouldst fall-
ION. Be sure I shall return.

CLEM. If thou shouldst fall,

I shall be happier as the affianced bride
Of thy cold ashes, than in proudest fortunes-
Thine-ever thine-

[She faints in his arms."—p. 37.

We consider the next scene, in which Ion braves and disarms the spleen of the tyrant, as, on the whole, excellently conceived-but that it might be advantageously abridged. The unhappy king's announcement of the fatal prophecy that greeted his birth is, however, not to be passed over; the spirit of Greek thought and language was never more happily concentrated than in these lines:"ADRASTUS. At my birth

This city, which, expectant of its prince,
Lay hush'd, broke out in clamorous ecstacies;
Yet, in that moment, when the uplifted cups
Foam'd with the choicest product of the sun,
And welcome thunder'd from a thousand throats,
My doom was seal'd. From the hearth's vacant space,
In the dark chamber where my mother lay
Faint with the sense of pain-bought happiness,
Came forth, in heart appalling tone, these words
Of me the nurseling, Woe unto the babe!
Against the life which now begins shall life
Lighted from thence be arm'd, and both soon quench'd,
End this great line in sorrow!"—p. 57.

In the third act, Adrastus meets his senate in the great square of the city; and while their expostulations are still in progress, the long-expected ambassadors return, and Phocion announces the oracle of Delphi:

"Argos ne'er shall find release

Till her monarchs' race shall cease."

The king, for whom alone (except Ion) this prophecy could have no novelty, receives it with frantic rage, and once more withdraws to his palace. The young men retire also to a grove without the walls; and the will of the divinity being now explicitly declared, they cast lots to determine the hand by which the king is to die. The name of Ion is that which leaps out of the helmet; and the youth, whom Adrastus had spared but an hour before, is compelled, and solemnly undertakes, the execution of this dreadful office. Ctesiphon, another young man, draws the second lot; and it is his commission to follow Ion-if he falters, to punish his feebleness-if he fails, to consummate the sacrifice.

Next morning, while Ion is preparing himself in secret for his awful duty, and while he is actually within the palace, where the consequences of a deep debauch render the royal guards useless-the discovery, which the reader has probably anticipated, is evolving itself in the Argive temple. The aged priest and Clemanthe are at length satisfied that their foundling is no other than the only long-lost son of King Adras

tus.

Act IV. opens in the royal chamber; the king | Shapes palpable-in habit of the grave, is on a couch asleep; Ion enters with the con-Inviting me to that sad realm, where shades secrated knife which has been committed to his Of innocents, whom passionate regard hand.

"ION. Why do I creep thus stealthily along With thief-like steps? Am I not arm'd by Heaven To execute its mandate on a king

Whom it hath doom'd. Can hell have palter'd with me?
Or some foul passion, crouching in my soul,
Started in noble form to lure me on?

Assure me, gods! Yes, I have heard your voice,
For I dare pray ye now to nerve my arm
And see me stab. He's smiling in his sleep,
As if some happy thought of innocent days
Play'd at his heartstrings: must I scare it thence
With death's sharp agony. He lies condemn'd
By the high judgment of supernal powers,
And he shall know their sentence. Wake, Adrastus!
Collect thy spirits, and be strong to die!

ADRASTUS. Who dares disturb my rest?
Guards! Soldiers! Recreants!

What wouldst thou with me, ruffian? [Rising.]

ION. I am none,
But a sure instrument in Jove's great hand
To take thy life long forfeited—prepare !
Thy hour is come!

ADR. Villains! does no one hear?
ION. Vex not the closing minutes of thy being
With torturing hope or idle rage; thy guards,
Palsied with revelry, are scatter'd senseless,
While the most valiant of our Argive youths
Hold every passage by which human aid

Could reach thee. Present death is order'd for thee
By Powers who watch above me while I stand
To execute their sentence.

ADR. Thou !-I know thee

The youth I spared this morning, in whose ear
I pour'd the secrets of my bosom. Kill me,
If thou darest do it, but bethink thee first
How the grim memory of thy thankless deed
Will haunt thee to the grave!

ION. It is most true;
Thou sparedst my life, and therefore do the gods
Ordain me to this office, lest thy fall
Seem the chance forfeit of some single sin,
And not the great redress of Argos. Now-
Now, while I parley-spirits that have left,--
Within this hour have left,-tormented flesh
To rot untomb'd, glide by and frown on me,
Their slow avenger :-Now the chainber swarms
With looks of furies. Yet a moment wait,
Ye dreadful prompters!--If there is a friend
Whom dying thou wouldst greet by word or token,
Speak thy last bidding.

ADR. I have none on earth.
If thou hast courage, end me.

ION. Not one friend!

Link'd to the guilty, are content to pace
With them the margin of the inky flood,
Mournful and calm;-'tis surely there;—she waves
Her pallid hand in circle o'er thy head,
As if to bless thee--and I bless thee too,
Death's gracious angel!-Do not turn away.

ION. Gods! to what office have ye doom'd me? NowADR. Be quick, or thou art lost!

[As ION has again raised his arm to strike, MEDON rushes in behind him.]

The king falls by the hand of Ctesiphon; and the announcement that Ion is the rightful heir of the throne is received with rapture by the grateful people. But the plague continues unabated-and the devoted youths, who had cast lots along with Ion and Ctesiphon for the office of Avenger, remember the pregnant words of the oracle-and shudder to think that Ion himself must now be the object of their vow. We pass over various. scenes, in which their mingled feelings are developed with great art and most thrilling interesthaving no room for more than these extracts from the two last scenes of Act V.-extracts which we hope need no comment to make them intelligible, as assuredly they need no eulogy to point out their power and beauty :

"ION. What wouldst thou with me, lady?

CLEMANTHE. Is it so? Nothing, my lord, save to implore thy pardon, That the departing gleams of a bright dream, From which I scarce had waken'd, made me bold To crave a word with thee;-but all are fledION. 'Twas indeed a goodly dream ; But thou art right to think it was no more, And study to forget it.

CLEM. To forget it!

Indeed, my lord, I will not wish to lose
What, being past, is all my future hath,
All I shall live for; do not grudge me this,
The brief space I shall need it.

ION. Speak not, fair one,
In tone so mournful, for it makes me feel
Too sensibly the hapless wretch I am,
That troubled the deep quiet of thy soul
In that pure fountain which reflected heaven,
For a brief taste of rapture.

CLEM. Dost thou yet Esteem it rapture, then? My foolish heart, Be still! Yet wherefore should a crown divide us? O, my dear Ion!-let me call thee so This once at least-it could not in my thoughts Increase the distance that there was between us When, rich in spirit, thou to strangers' eyes Seem'd a poor foundling.

ION. It must separate us Think it no harmless bauble, but a curse Will freeze the current in the veins of youth, And from familiar touch of genial hand, From household pleasures, from sweet daily tasks, From airy thought, free wanderer of the heavens, For ever banish me!

CLEM. Thou dost accuse Thy state too harshly; it may give some room, Some little room, amidst its radiant cares, For love and joy to breathe in.

ION. Not for me;

My pomp must be most lonesome, far removed
From that sweet fellowship of human kind
The slave rejoices in: my solemn robes
Shall wrap me as a panoply of ice,

And the attendants who may throng around me
Shall want the flatteries which may basely warm
The sceptral thing they circle. Dark and cold
Stretches the path which, when I wear the crown,
I needs must enter :-the great gods forbid
That thou shouldst follow in it!

CLEM. O unkind!
And shall we never see each other?

ION. (After a pause.) Yes!

I have asked that dreadful question of the hills,
That look eternal; of the flowing streams,
That lucid flow for ever; of the stars,
Amid whose fields of azure my raised spirit
Hath trod in glory: all were dumb; but now,
While I thus gaze upon thy living face,
I feel the love that kindles through its beauty
Can never wholly perish: we shall meet
Again, Clemanthe!

CLEM. Bless thee for that name;
Pray call me so again; thy words sound strangely,
Yet they breathe kindness, and I'll drink them in
Though they destroy me. Shall we meet indeed?
Think not I would intrude upon thy cares,
Thy councils, or thy pomps;-to sit at distance,
To weave, with the nice labour which preserves
The rebel pulses even, from gay threads
Faint records of thy deeds, and sometimes catch
The falling music of a gracious word,
Or the stray sunshine of a smile, will be
Comfort enough :-do not deny me this;
Or if stern fate compel thee to deny,
Kill me at once!

ION. No; thou must live, my fair one; There are a thousand joyous things in life, Which pass unheeded in a life of joy As thine hath been, till breezy sorrow comes To ruffle it; and daily duties paid Hardly at first, at length will bring repose To the sad mind that studies to perform them. Thou dost not mark me.

Will shelter me from vulgar gaze; I'll hasten, And feast my sad eyes with his greatness there! [Exit.]"-p. 191.

The last scene is again in the great square: on one side is the throne-on the other an altar. The people are assembled to witness the instalment of Ion in his royal dignity. The young king, attended by the high priest Medon, the senators, Agenor, &c. advances in his robes. He is received with shouts-pauses in front of the throne, and speaks:

"ION. I thank you for your greetings-shout no more, But in deep silence raise your hearts to heaven, That it may strengthen one so young and frail As I am for the business of this hour. Must I sit here?

MEDON. My son! my son!

What ails thee? When thou shouldst reflect the joy
Of Argos, the strange paleness of the grave
Marbles thy face.

ION. Am I indeed so pale?

It is a solemn office I assume,
Which well may make me falter; yet sustain'd
By thee, and by the gods I serve, I take it.

[Sits on the throne.

ION. To thee I look as to the wisest friend
Of this afflicted people;-Thou must leave
A while the quiet which thy life has earn'd
To rule our councils; fill the seats of justice
With good men, not so absolute in goodness.
As to forget what human frailty is;
And order my sad country.

AGENOR. Pardon me-
ION. Nay, I will promise 'tis my last request;
Grant me thy help till this distracted state
Rise tranquil from her griefs-'twill not be long,
If the great gods smile on us now. Remember,
Meanwhile, thou hast all power my word can give,
Whether I live or die.

AGENOR. Die! Ere that hour May even the old man's epitaph be moss-grown! ION. Death is not jealous of the mild decay That gently wins thee his;-exulting youth Provokes the ghastly monarch's sudden stride, And makes his horrid fingers quick to clasp His prey, benumb'd at noontide. Let me sce The captain of the guard.

CRYTHES. I kneel to crave Humbly the favour which thy sire bestow'd On one who loved him well.

ION. I cannot mark thee,
That wakest the memory of my father's weakness ;
But I will not forget that thou hast shared
The light enjoyments of a noble spirit,
And learned the need of luxury. I grant
For thee and thy brave comrades ample share
Of such rich treasures as my stores contain,
To grace thy passage to some distant land,
Where, if an honest cause engage thy sword,
May glorious issues wait it. In our realm
We shall not need it longer.

CRYTHES. Dost intend
To banish the firm troops before whose valour
Barbarian millions shrink appall'd, and leave
Our city naked to the first assault
Of reckless foes?

ION. No, Crythes !-in ourselves,
In our own honest hearts and chainless hands
Will be our safeguard ;--while we do not use
Our power towards others, so that we should blush

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