from observation, the other from experience; one has been roused to the cause by general benevolence, the other, probably, by personal suffering. Harriet Martineau has devoted her powers chiefly to science, moral or political. She has generally written with some fixed aim, some doctrine to illustrate, some object to accomplish. Mrs. Jameson, on the other hand, has pursued the study of art. She is a fine critic, and possesses a subtle insight into character. We may expect many more works from her. To the course of Harriet Martineau we must look as to one nearly closed; but close when it may, she has done enough to prove her possession of a mind endowed with the capability of great usefulness, which she has nobly applied to high purposes. She has shown the power of grasping a principle; of evolving from it all its legitimate consequences, and of so clearly arranging them as to present truth to the understanding and to the heart also by its consistency and harmony. Her genius is not creative; but her works of fiction exhibit a rare faculty of conception, and the power of combining the materials collected by her accurate observation and clear thought, so as to produce a charm and an interest. She is poetical, though not a poet. One composition, however, to which we have already referred, might, by itself, give her a claim to the title; but, perhaps, there is no fine mind which has not in its time produced its one poem. We conclude with that poem, and we feel that in reference to her, we so conclude, appropriately : "Too popular is Tragic Poesy, Straining his tip-toes for a farthing fee. Painters and Poets hold your ancient right! Write what you will, and write not what you might. Their limits be their list-their reason, will!" BISHOP HALL'S Satires. SHERIDAN KNOWLES AND WILLIAM MACREADY. THE DRAMA should be the concentrated spirit of the age. The Stage should be the mirror over which every varying emotion of the period should pass. What is the Spirit of an Age as regards the Drama? Certainly the Theatrical Spirit is the most undramatic that can be. Stage-plays are not of necessity Dramas, and more truly dramatic elements may be found in the novelist's works than in the theatrical writer's. The Dramatic Spirit of our Age, of this very year, is to be found more living and real in the pages of Hood, Dickens, Mrs. Gore, and Mrs. Trollope, than in the play-house pieces. These writers gather for themselves the characteristics of existence as modified by the principles and taste of the age, and the latter draw from them, or from the large con |