Kisses and welcomings upon the air, Which they make breezy with affectionate gestures. The joyous vespers of a bloody day. O happy man, Ö fortunate! for whom The well-known door, the faithful arms are open, Max has another claim on our regard. He was intended, by the author, for a representation of the youth of Wallenstein. We have thus the portrait of the chief complete, exhibited in the ardour of early life, clothed with the golden exhalations of the dawn,' as well as in the sadness of his decline, when the shadows of coming night closed in upon his setting. There is more philosophy than poetry exerted in the construction of the character of the elder Piccolomini. It is somewhat of a metaphysical abstraction; but still there is an individuality, and a bodily presence as it were, in its conduct, which makes us feel that we have before us a person and not a shadow. His virtues are equivocal, and their better part sacrificed to state-policy and an ambition to make his name princely. He had fretted and toiled to raise his ancient house from a count's title to the name of prince.' Animated by this motive, he undertakes to circumvent Wallenstein. But while acting treacherously towards the man who confides in him, he is careful to preserve appearances. He neither flatters nor lies; yet he suffers himself to be folded into the bosom of the easy-hearted man,' and leaves his venom there. He is true with the tongue, but false with the heart. His end is honest, because it is the service of his emperor, and he is but doing his duty in preventing treason and revolt. Neither are his means precisely bad: we can neither much approve nor condemn him; but we are rather inclined to condemn him. He might have reconciled his duty both to his sovereign and his friend. Wallenstein's destiny lay in his hand-it was in his power to have redeemed a great mind from a temporary aberration. He, however, preferred encouraging him in his error, that he might rise upon his ruin. But he is like a hunter taken in his own toils; the means that he adopted to exalt his ancient house, laid it desolate. His plans succeed against his friend, who, by his means, is supplanted and assassinated; and the diploma, under the imperial seal, conferring on him the title of prince, arrives when it can be of no earthly use to him-when Max is no more. How must he have envied the doom of Wallenstein! With him it was well; but for Octavio, there could only remain a future of remorse and unavailing repentance. Diderot well observes, that the connexion of events fre quently quently escapes our observation in nature, for want of knowing the entire combination of the circumstances: in real facts we only see the accidental occurrence of things; but the poet wishes to show, in the texture of his work, an apparent and sensible connexion: so that, if really less true, he has more the appearance of truth than the historian. This sort of connexion is maintained throughout this excellent drama:-we are let into the secret springs by which all the characters are actuated; and every event and change of fortune is the effect of a cause, the intimacy of which is clearly made out and defined: as a whole the piece is constructed upon a principle of concurrence which leaves nothing for solution, and is complete in all its relations. It is a perfect study for the young poet, who would be an artist in his composition, and for the critic, who would understand the principles of the art before he pronounces on the merits of its productions. But with all its excellence, this drama is chargeable with a great fault, which, as an essential element in its very conception, pervades it throughout. It is cast in too philosophical a mould -its characters are distinguished by shades which are too metaphysical. The author had come fresh from the study of the transcendental idealism. He had applied it to criticism on the works of taste; but soon felt that the habit of criticism injured his poetical power. He saw himself create and form, and his close-watched fancy no longer moved with the same freedom as when without a witness of her operations. But he had hopes that art would ultimately become a second nature; and, doubtless, so it would, if life were long enough. Shakspeare and Milton, in a certain sense, were metaphysicians. Milton, indeed, engaged in philosophical and theological discussion; and Shakspeare has displayed a knowledge of the operations of the mind, and of the modes in which the human spirit manifests itself in its different moods of passion and apathy, that renders his characters peculiarly convenient for psychological illustration and analysis. And, perhaps, there never was a great poet who was not also by nature a great philosopher: but then he is one according to Nature, not according to a system; he works in her liberty and light, not by line and limit. His operations, like hers, have no reference to any set formula of opinions, but are of universal acceptation. For a metaphysician to be a successful poet, it is necessary that he should have been a poet before he was a metaphysician. No formal rules, or acquired power, can communicate the vigour of the spring-tide of the heart. This vigour must be nurtured, and develope itself predominantly in early youth, and burn on with increasing energy for many years. Then the poet begins to analyse the powers and instruments with which he has worked; and 2 N 2 this, this, it is well known, is a task that has exhausted the lives of eminent writers. There is, therefore, reason to believe that before the art thus acquired can become a second nature, the frost of age, if not of death, will have chilled the heart of the most ardent poet. None ever existed of a more audacious spirit and vehement energy than Schiller; with all his powers, we have seen what he was able to accomplish. His art still remained art, and had it not been for the extraordinary vigour of his genius, would have obscured what still remained to him of the force and freedom of original nature. One of the greatest beauties of the Waverley novels is, that there is no appearance of system in their creations. Whatever there is of abstruse and subtle distinction is decently embodied in familiar representation. It is, however, the perfection of art to conceal its instruments; and to produce striking and permanent effects, by apparently ordinary means, is a singular merit. But Nature is excellent in working.' In the novel of Kenilworth, Shakspeare is introduced for a moment-in the present, the same liberty is taken with Philip de Comines, the historian of the period, whose memoirs of his own times were said, by Catherine de Medicis, to have made as many heretics in politics as Luther's works had done in religion. In Kenilworth, our great poet was evidently introduced by way of embellishment; in Quentin Durward the historian has a part to act, and the author has kept to the probabilities of history. We are induced to notice this, from the very liberal advantage which has been taken of Sir W. Scott's example to use this license to an extent, which is as absurd in effect as it is unjustifiable in principle. But thus it is with imitators: they find the nobler portion of the works they attempt to mimic inimitable by their limited powers; but some prettiness introduced by a writer of genius as a graceful, though somewhat licentious, relief to the more inventive passages, or some mannerism, which they who write much, or do anything of the same kind constantly, are apt to fall into-is immediately adopted by the servile hand, and, indeed, becomes the staple commodity of his manufacture. We all recollect the excess to which the style of Scott's poetry was imitated. town was deluged with octo-syllabic verse, and boarding-school misses and bluestocking spinsters new-strung a hundred old spinnets, to adventure the ballad epic. Nor did Lord Byron's misanthropical heroes escape the monkey-tribe of authors, the features of whose minds (so to speak) appear better calculated to catch the resemblance of whatever is outré or deformed in the human face divine, than the more harmonious and better traits by which the countenance of genius is animated; exhibiting what The ever was grotesque in his representations, but of their finer spirit attempting no resemblance. And no sooner did he in his Don Juan open a splendid seraglio for whatever was licentious, voluptuous, extravagant, and lewd, than the minor pandars of the worser half of human nature must needs set up at every corner their petty brothels for whatever was low, and despicable, and disgusting -abortive things, which, having done their little dirty jobs of impiety and pollution, are already gone into perdition, The success of these novels, tales, and romances has produced the usual consequence-many are the apes, but they imitate humanity abominably!' Very few are capable of approximating to their excellence, but dozens attempt to catch the external manner, and that with too many passes off nearly as well. But the form of composition is so popular, and has such an effect in influencing the tastes, feelings, and conduct of the youth of both sexes, and of a considerable portion of the reading public, that it becomes a duty to preserve the excellence of this branch of our literature, which bids so fair to supersede the dramatic and poetical otherwise, instead of purging the passions by means of pity and terror, they will be nourished by improper excitements; instead of refining the feelings by generous sentiments, they will be degraded and blunted by a mere sentimentality falsely expressed; and to form the taste of growing men we shall have style every way mean, and subjects altogether unworthy. The mind becomes imbued with the character of what it is in the habit of conversing with, books or men; and the best of both give it the tone which is most desirable and advantageous both for our temporal and eternal interests. Let us, therefore, be careful to preserve from corruption a kind of writing, which from its comparative facility is liable to abuse, and which, even in our time, has been rescued from a state of seemingly hopeless degra dation by the might of a master. Let us keep it as much as possible in the hands of men of genius, and by so doing we shall gradually assimilate the general mind to theirs, and advance it to a state of excellence sufficient to enable it to relish nothing but excellence. We have done some injustice, perhaps, to the author of Waverley, by subjecting one of his inferior works to a comparison with a production of such elaborate merit as Wallenstein. We, however, did this purely from choice, and freely submit to censure. But in the task which we are about to perform, and which is one of necessity, we shall be enabled to make ample reparation. The author of Brambletye-House and Tor-Hill has a reputation chiefly as an imitator. The nom de guerre, by which he wishes to be known, is as one of the authors' of a little volume composed of of imitations of our popular writers, which, being well-timed, met with much success. Without genius of any sort, he appears to support his pretensions to authorship by a peculiar tact for the mimickry of the style of other men. But his resemblances are only external; of that which gives animation to arrangement, he appears to be utterly incapable; and we should be slow to believe that he had much to do even with the livelier portion of the 'Rejected Addresses.' His first novel, Brambletye-House, in style and structure, in many of its incidents and characters, and in its general idea, is an almost servile copy of the later productions of the Author of Waverley-for the imitator appears to be conscious of insufficient vigour to attempt the better models,-and, in particular, of Peveril of the Peak. But it is deficient in those marks, which the authority we formerly quoted demands, as indicative of original genius in an author's earliest work-in particular, the two last. He has not the power to modify what he copies by any predominant passion, nor by any associations awakened thereby; he transfers no human or intellectual life from his own spirit; neither has he any depth in his thoughts, or energy in his sentiments. The result has accordingly been a total want both of unity and of interest. Of this poverty of spirit the manner in which the historical circumstances and persons are introduced is a remarkable illustration. To make occasion for the introduction of these, appears to have been the writer's chief anxiety. In fact, it would seem as if his story were only framed for this purpose, and yet why they should have anything to do with the story at all, must, we are assured, puzzle the gentle reader. The author, after a sedulous perusal, for the nonce,' of some memoirs of the period, discovered that of persons there were Cromwell, Milton and Marvel, the Duke de Crequi and Monsieur Mancini, Charles II. and his queen, the Duke of Ormond, the Duke of Monmouth, Izaak Walton, De Witt, Elias Ashmole, Sir Jonas Moore, Lilly, and Booker, the Duchess of Newcastle, Dr. Wilkins (afterwards Bishop of Chester'), Waller ('the poet'), and a host of others; and for incidents, the plague, the king's-evil, and the fire of London. Accordingly, he proceeds to elaborate a fable that shall give opportunity for the introduction of all these things and persons. In the latter years of Cromwell's protectorate, a troop of the Lord Protector's own regiment come to Brambletye-House, to search the premises and arrest Sir John Compton, who had engaged in some premature plots for effecting the downfall of the usurper. They enter without resistance, during the absence of Sir John. Jocelyn, his son, a youth of twelve or fourteen years of |