ART. VI.-The Sacrifice of Isabel, a Poem. By EDWARD QUILLINAN, Esq. "Love leads the will to desperate undertakings." London, Longman and Co. 1816. 12mo. PP. 48.

THE poem before us deserves considerable praise, and though not of the highest order in its kind, it gives evident proofs of talent. The name of the author is perhaps not unknown to many of our readers,—not, indeed, as a writer merely, but as a young officer of a dragoon regiment, who, in consequence of his propensity for the Muse, was involved in some disputes in an eastern county of the kingdom, where his regiment was quartered; from which, however, we have every reason to believe he extricated himself with high honour, in a sense exclusively military, and with great credit in the ordinary acceptation of the word. The conduct of Lieutenant Quillinan upon that occasion, we are informed, introduced him to the acquaintance and friendship of Sir Egerton Brydges, of Lee Priory, near Canterbury, author of a small poetical piece, which we reviewed in our last Number, and to whom " The Sacrifice of Isabel" is dedicated by its author, who says, that "it is an endeayour to describe, with energy and simplicity, natural feelings in trying situations." This is, indeed, a legitimate object, and may be fairly put in opposition to a modern system introduced by a noble lord, (whose talents would deserve more admiration were they properly directed,) according to which, all feelings and all situations but those which are natural and probable, are described and employed. Situation, however, is a matter of less moment, because a poet, by the powerful magic of his pen, more or less, can give to all places and circumstances the air of life and reality this was accomplished by Spenser in every part of his work, of which it is one of the main beauties; and another is, that whatever be the situation in which he involves his allegorical personages, they are all actuated by the ordinary impulses and passions of human beings, and that is the true source of the interest they excite: though the mere unreal abstracts of virtues and vices, and though it was a part of the business of the poet perpetually to remind us of it, yet such is his power, and such is his skill, that, in spite of our own reason and senses, he compels us to sympathize alike in their sufferings and their successes. Now, any thing but this is the case with the fashionable

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style of Lord Byron, as we endeavoured to shew in our review of the last number of his Hebrew Melodies.

We have incidentally made these remarks, because, although we cannot applaud Mr. Quillinan for the choice of his story, (which he seems to have had some unassigned reason for selecting, as he hints in the dedication,) yet we may congratulate him upon having introduced characters, not only with the external shape of human beings, but with the internal form and frame of the human mind; their love and hate is such as human beings feel, and their revenge is such as human beings, under certain impulses, may thirst after. The great defect of the story is, that it supposes circumstances inconsistent with the knowledge of all its readers: thus Ferdinand VII. of Spain is stated to have a female relation named Isabel, who is loved by a patriot Ramiro, who is condemned to suffer death for his presumption. She procures his release from prison, and is, in her turn, sentenced to be decapitated for that offence. She is placed under the guard of the hero of the poem, who flies with Isabel from the coast of Spain to a small island near Elba, where they are married, and the lady is about to make her husband a father, when Buonaparte arrives from Elba to view the island. With him comes Ramiro, who, to his surprise, sees the Princess, and, while her husband is absent attending the Emperor back to his vessel, enters the house, where he reproaches her with infidelity to him: during the dialogue, the hero (to whom no name is given, he being the supposed relater of the story) returns, and, unperceived himself, beholds Ramiro draw a dagger: he rushes in, and is wounded in the arm accidentally: Ramiro declares that he only raised the weapon against himself-tired of a life which Isabel had rendered wretched-but that its point was poisoned, and its slightest wound was death. He then quits the cottage, and Isabel seizes the arm of her husband, and sucks the poison from the wound; in consequence of which she dies. She is buried near the spot; and some time afterwards, when the hero visits her grave, he beholds Ramiro weeping over it,-emaciated, dejected, and broken. After a declaration of his grief and misery, and a reconciliation, Ramiro dies upon the grave of Isabel.-It is evident, that much of this narrative must be invention; and why Mr. Quillinan should have fixed its date in our own day, we know not, when he might have avoided all the inconveniences arising from that circumstance, by carrying it back to times when the events would not only have been more

probable in themselves, but not inconsistent with our positive knowledge of facts. Racine, in apologizing for the modern date of the fable of his Bajazet, says, the scene lying in Asia, that the effect of distance of place is the same as distance of time: "car le peuple ne met guère de différence entre cequi est, si s'est ainsi parler, à mille ans de lui, et ce qui en est a mille lieues :"--but here we have neither the one nor the other to assist the delusion. We will proceed to select a few extracts from the better parts of this poem.

The hero flying from Spain, conveys Isabel on board a vessel; they had previously looked, but never spoken, their mutual love.

"With anxious watch upon her look I hung;
For yet no syllable had pass'd her tongue:
But now, once more the statue seem'd to glow,
The long-suspended faculties to flow,

And wake her quivering lips and glistening eyes,
And smiles to form, and tears began to rise.
On me she cast those orbs so dewy beaming,

Their lustrous blue through fair long lashes gleaming;
With sense so full, so touching, were they fraught,
Millions of words had less convey'd her thought;
Till, with faint sob and passionate wild air,
She sunk upon my breast, and hid them there.
Dear, deep remembrance! ne'er to be eras'd,
When lip to lip, and heart to heart embrac'd.
Our hearts had long ere this together beat,
But ne'er before had dared thus close to meet;
Our lips, ere this, had long exchang'd their vow,
But never seal'd the blessed bond till now;
Because I knew our love involv'd her fate,
While yet she glitter'd in her walk of state:
Besides, I felt the jealous forms of men,
And my own pride represt presumption then,
And taught me to look up with hopeless gaze,-
And such wrought feeling as the bard surveys
Some brightest planet in the midnight sky,
So fair to view, beyond his reach so high!
But now-what were all idle forms to us?
Thanks to the tyrant who had work'd it thus."

The idea in the last part of this quotation is borrowed, as our readers will no doubt recollect, from Shakspeare"Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?" a sentiment more than once repeated by that great poet.Ramiro, in the opening, is thus described:

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Not his a breast where feeling calmly beams;
Whate'er he felt, he felt in mad extremes:
Proud as the war-horse, and more wildly fierce,
Where his. hate fell, his vengeance there would pierce.
Breasts that are cast in Nature's common mould
Can but, at once, one ruling passion hold;
If two start up, the weight of one will fail,
And that, or this, preponderate the scale.
But some men scorn this absolute control
Of one imperious passion o'er the soul;
Them with like force e'en rival passions move:
He that can hotly hate can madly love."

Having arrived in the island, and finding Isabel inflexible during the absence of her husband, the catastrophe is prepared in these terms:

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"He drew a dagger from beneath his vest,
And rous'd the dormant fury in my breast:
I rush'd upon him, grasp'd him by the throat,
And cried, Dark villain! what may this denote?"
Villain!' with strangled voice he echoed back;
• What slanderous idiot dares the rash attack?
Hah! is it so?-by hell, we' are bravely met!—
Take that! in token of Ramiro's debt.'

Full at my breast he thrust the deadly stroke:
The hand of Isabel its fury broke;

And mock'd its point, which, glancing, reach'd my arm,
Inflicting there a wound of slight alarm.

I loos'd my hold, to wrench his weapon's hilt;
But to the earth he flung the tool of guilt,

And thus exclaim'd: Why this is foully done!
Here is, indeed, a tragedy begun.

Why didst thou come, to damn to after-time
Ramiro's honour with so base a crime?

How couldst thou dream I came to seek the life
Of her or thee, with an assassin's knife?
O, not for thee-O, not for her 'twas meant!
I bore that dagger with a high intent :
It was design'd the despot pride to quell
Of one who would have murder'd Isabel;
To reach that sceptred tyranny accurst,

Which would have drank our blood with greedy thirst.***
But now, my lot is chang'd; I will not die:
There will be one on earth as damn'd as I.
Thou, Isabel-nay, lady, do not shrink-
Thou art bound with me by the' immortal link
Of hopeless wretchedness!-all hell's black host
A pair more drunk with misery will not boast:
CRIT. REV. VOL. IV. Oct. 1816.

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For know, that blood-discolour'd dagger there,
Dire as the scorpion in his hottest lair,
Hath an envenom'd sting, of power so deep,
Its veriest scratch insures eternal sleep.""

The affection and heroism of Isabel, which, by the loss of her own, saves the life of her husband, are done justice to by the language in which they are represented. We cannot help thinking, however, that her aid, according to the operations of nature, would have come a little too late, for the poison when she is supposed to have drawn it from the wound, had already spread through the frame of the hero.

"My spouse was watching o'er my fleeting breath;
Imploring heaven, with sighs, and tears, and prayer,
But yet some transient space my days to spare.
Her patron angel at her grief descended,
His touch the dire mortality suspended,
Chas'd all my tremors, banish'd all my pain,
And life and health roll'd back through every vein.
The sudden transport caus'd my sleep to break:
But God! O God! to what did I awake!
There was indeed an angel at my side-
My fond, heroic, dear, devoted bride.
Upon the floor she knelt beside my bed,

And oe'r my out-stretch'd arm inclin'd her head.
Her lips-those cherub lips 'twas heaven to kiss,
Those soft delicious ministers of bliss,

Where everlasting fragrance freshly sprung,

Whence music breath'd, and where enchantment hung-
Those lips around my canker'd wound were glued,
And thence the poison with the gore imbued!
Yes, suck'd the rank infection of my blood,
And to the dregs drain'd forth the tainted flood!
I snatch'd my arm aside, with wild affright,
Yet hoped some fantasy deceiv'd my sight,
Ah no; it look'd too horrid to be true;
But 'twas not fantasy that mock'd my view.
My matchless Isabel had sign'd her fate,
And now all antidote was tried too late."
Saving my meaner life, her own was lost:
Who would have been immortal at such cost!
'O Isabel,' I cried,' my heart's sole joy,
How could'st thou thus my richer self destroy?
Was not the thought a cruel one, to leave
Thy husband lonely upon earth to grieve?
The infant of our hope, O doubly dire!
Must that too perish for its wretched sire ?'