and far less by any one who has held companionship with herself; for it breathes of herself in every thought and word, chastened, purified, and instructed by suffering, and with eyes firmly fixed on the countenance of the Angel of Death, which is to her not terrible, but calm, in pale and solemn beauty. It would also appear, though no name is mentioned, that the friend to whom she dedicates the volume is Elizabeth B. Barret, the elegant poetess and accomplished scholar, who, like herself, long immured within the four walls of her chamber, yet possesses sympathies alive to beauty and all fine influences, and a spirit expanding into and aspiring towards infinity. The holy teachings of this book are more touching in their wisdom than would be the words of one who came to us " from the dead;" for here the bourne is not passed; the words come indeed from one who has become accustomed to her "footing on the shaking plank over the deep dark river," but who is not too far removed from our sympathies, and has not yet laid aside the conditions of our common nature. Both these fine writers have, as we have seen, advocated a re-modelling of our institutions with regard to their own sex. The one represents the intellect of the question, the other the feeling; one brings to it an acute abstract comprehension, the other all the sympathies of a woman; one reasons 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 ex hibit 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 : SHERIDAN KNOWLES AND WILLIAM MACREADY. "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. BISHOP HALL's Satires. 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 conventional storehouse of the hereditary drama their traditionary portraitures. In this portion of our subject, must we then examine the works of the novelists and other writers of fiction, rather than the stage writers? To be strictly logical, this should be the case; but as our work is historical as well as critical, we must adhere to the popular and forsake the philosophical classification. The visible Drama is most eminently portrayed in the works of Sheridan Knowles, and the acting of William Macready. These two gentlemen, at all events, are the visible representers of it, and ninety-men out of every hundred allude to and think of them when discussing Dramatic matters. This is reversing the rational state of the matter; but being so, we must endeavour to accommodate ourselves to it. The only way in which Mr. Knowles personifies our age, is in his truly domestic feeling. The age is domestic, and so is he. Comfort-not passionate imaginings, -is the aim of every body, and he seeks to aid and gratify this love of comfort. All his dramas are domestic, and strange to say, those that should be most classic, or most chivalric, most above and beyond it, are the most imbued with this spirit. In what consists the interest and force of his popular play of" Virginius?" The domestic feeling. The costume, the setting, the decorations are heroic. We have Roman tunics, but a modern English heart,-the scene is the Forum, but the sentiments those of the "Bedford Arms." The affection of the father for his daughter-the pride of the daughter in her father, are the main principles of the play, and the pit and galleries and even much of the boxes are only perplexed with the lictors and Decemviri, and the strange garments of the actors. These are a part of the shew folks' endeavour to amuse. Is Caius Gracchus not heroic ?-are there not very long speeches about Liberty and Rome? Undoubtedly but still the whole care of Gracchus is for his family and to the audience the interest is entirely domestic. : It is the same in " William Tell;" though liberty and heroism should be the prevailing subject, the interest is entirely domestic. For the freedom of a country, for the punishment of a petty-minded tyrant the auditor of this play but slenderly cares,—while for the security of Tell's family and the personal success of Tell, every one is anxious. This feeling, in proportion as our author became popular, has only more visibly developed itself; and his later productions have manifested his prevailing quality more powerfully in the pure form of woman's characteristics. Julia,-the Wife-the Countess Eppenstein, are fine impersonations of the affections; elaborated and exfoliated into all the ramifications of womanhood. Is this assertion of his ruling principle stated in a spirit of detraction? By no means: but only to enable us to trace the cause of Mr. Knowles" popularity, as far as it extends, and to show the inevitable connexion the writer's genius must have with the Spirit of the Age. Mr. Knowles is at the head of the acted Dramatists of the age, assuredly not because he has more invention, more wit, more knowledge of human character, or more artistical skill than many other living dramatic writers, but because his genius, for domestic interests, added to his stage influence as an actor, has forced his talents into higher or fuller employment than that of any of his compeers. He has delved into the human breast, and traced the secret windings of the affections. Limited, indeed, to the emotions elicited by modern social intercourse, but still with genuine truth and varied knowledge. For this he is greatest in dialogue scenes that gradually and completely unfold a feeling. And again, this tendency of his genius induces him to delight in delineating the characteristics of woman. He is entitled to respect inasmuch as he has risen instead of fallen with public approbation. In "Virginius," "Caius Gracchus," "Tell," we see the play-wright predominant. Mr. Knowles, when composing these, was struggling for fame, perhaps for existence, and he was compelled to pass through the turnpikes that public taste had erected, and managers maintained. Consequently, we find all the formula of the received drama, -shows, battles, bustle, antiquated phraseology, vapid imitations of obsolete humours, and altogether a barbarous medley of the traditionary and commonplace tricks of the theatre, introduced, first to attract managers and through them to charm the multitude. Gradually, however, as he won his way from servitude to power he used his success manfully. In the "Hunchback," he emancipated himself greatly from the trammels of the play-wright, and in the character of " Julia" gave full licence to his genius to develope his intuitions of female nature. The plot of this play is absurd, the construction clumsy, the attempt to delineate human character in many instances feeble-the language often grotesque; but it took hold of the public, it elicited unanimous applause, because in the woman it spoke the language of nature to nature. Herein he vindicated his high calling-herein he was the poet. Situationsentiment-circumstance-show-processions-groupings-were abandoned, and human emotion finely expressed, won, and subdued all hearts,-chastening, whilst interesting; instructing, while it moved. As an artist in dramatic composition, Mr. Knowles must be ranked with the least skilful, particularly of late. The comparative failure of his last three or four productions is chiefly attributable to their inefficiency |