Plask. It is past now;I could not bear to see the cruel herd Heap contumelies on his dying head, And mock the patience of his gentle

ness.

Stir not, dear lady. Oh! beseech ye, stir not,

It is a needless pang, and there's enough
Of cruelty already. I beseech ye,
Be patient now.

Agnes. Yes, I am calm.-'Tis past. Thou see'st that I am firm; and, were I not,

How should I bear that which is yet to come?

I would not die before him, if I might. There is yet much to do-Oh! much.How much!

And in how brief a time!-What agonies, Tearings of heart-strings, mortal throbs of the bosom,

Must make the business of a few short hours!

I must act now-whatever pangs await, They must not kill me in the thinking of;

Agnes. (Faintly.) Babington!
Bab. Agnes, speak! Alas! she's pale

have they sent thee

That it might kill thee, and thine innocent breath

Be added to my debt.
Unless I may die too.

Look up, dear saint,

Well; let it come. Haply they think to

Agnes. Where am I?-Babington! I shall be strong anon. 'Tis past; forgive me

scare me

By bringing death o' the sudden 'fore my face,

If, when I look'd upon this place, my heart

As they would fright a child. 'Tis baffled malice.

Did die within me-but forgive me, sir, It was a woman's weakness.

Bab. Thou art all good

Had not his visage been familiar to me, I had not been thus. I am now calm again

But who did guard thee here? Why would'st thou come?

As yesternight, when at my grated win

dow

I watch'd the sun go down, lovely as e'er He did in happier days-ere I knew sor

For my poor-ruin'd sake. O! I do see A glimpse-a ray, to which I have been blind,

Even like the fool, that gazing at the sun
O'ertrod the precious jewel at his feet. -
Look down, great God! But one half
hour ago,

The name of comfort to my loneliness
Were as a very echo, but the shadow
Of that which in itself was scarce a sound
-Oh! what an hour of contrarieties!
Speak to me, Agnes.

Agnes. And what should I say? What contrarieties?

Submit him to the cord-for on him first The villain hangman laid his horrid hand, -His manly visage changed, and on his

I heard one saying through his tears, that
thus
He lay: and, seeming more like death
The dying, she did look into his eyes,

She shall have fitting funeral and all duty.

We have not attempted any regular analysis of this tragedy, but have preferred giving copious extracts, which will speak for themselves, disjointed as they are, and reveal enough of the plot to enable our readers to perceive its drift and termination. The loves of Babington and Agnes constitute, indeed, the soul of the story. Nothing can be more beautiful. The pathos is simple, deep, and powerful. Without any apparent wish to excite tears, tears are made to flow over many a page. And passages there are containing thoughts and feelings that thrill through the heart. Mr Doubleday at all times writes like a scholar. His style is terse, concise, and elegant, to a degree rather uncommon in the writers of this age. He never overdoes anything. Conscious of his powers, he puts them forth with ease and command; and admirable as this composition is, both as a whole, and in numerous detached VOL. XVII.

parts, we have not a doubt that Mr Doubleday is destined to produce something infinitely superior-something that will take its place, permanently and conspicuously, in English literature.

Now that our readers have been delighted with so much true and powerful poetry, are not their minds disposed to admit, that even in the drama there is not only a noble course still to be run, but men of genius enow in the world for the career? Put Shakspeare out of existence, and what is there to hinder a hundred living men from equalling or surpassing all our other dramatic writers? There is no want of penetrating and philosophical knowledge of human life, and of the human heart; on the contrary, mental ana tomy flourishes as a science. That the thews of life are now tame, its ongoings sluggish and monotonous, its spirit cold and unimaginative, are mere Cockney dicta, fit for London magazines, and arbours in tea-gardens. As magnificent events have "flung their shadows before," and then advanced in substance, during the last thirty years, as ever darkened or illuminated the theatre of the world. There has been no lack of terrible passions and crimes. The peace of nations, families, single bosoms, has been troubled.. Tears of blood have flowed, "the voice of weeping heard and loud lament." The surface of life is not so smooth as many men-milliners have, in various periodical works, asserted it to be; but still continues to enjoy alternate calm and tempest, like the watery world. Poets yet feel towards life the same awful emotion that Wordsworth speaks of, as being felt by all men towards the sea, " of the old sea a reverential fear." And therefore-in spite of all the prating of those poor creatures about the exhaustion of the soil, the dearth of passion, the decay of fancy, the torpidity of imagination-year after year, ay, month after month, is some new writer of power appearing, walking of his own accord into some fresh path and province, and gathering laurels on spots where no one suspected the growth of the sacred tree. Since the first faint light of Crabbe and Rogers, what a galaxy of genius! Never, at any one period of English literature, did so many great poets co-exist; and along with these so many lesser lights, each orb having

R

its own beautiful satellites. There may be much dross mixed with the ore, and the glow of the metal may be sometimes dim; but this is, beyond all doubt, the Golden Age of Poetry.

Suppose that a man of genius were determined to write dramas about private-domestic life, in cities, or in the country-among peers, or peasantsWhat mighty scope! How delightful might such a writer be, were he even to confine himself to what has been done already, contented with doing it over again, as well or better, but differently! How much more delightful, were he not only to beautify the old, but to invent the new! To do so dramatically in the drama is easier far, as we have already shown, than in any other form of poetry; and yet how numerous are the orig original pictures of domestic life, that have lately been een painted in prose tales! Could not the authors of those tales have produced-may they not, will they not-produce domestic tragedies, in scenes and acts, and according to all the rules of the drama?

There is one field of dramatic composition almost entirely unoccupied the romantic. Take for models, The Midsummer-Night's Dream, As You Like it, The Tempest, the Winter's Tale, &c. and some of the works of Ben Jonson and Fletcher. There pure poetry may prevail. The exuberant imagination of this age may there wanton as in its prime. We have many writers amongst us who would excel in

Indeed, this last notion suggests another-that of the pastoral drama. Have Theocritus, Virgil, Allan Ramsay, and Burns, exhausted-that is still the word-the shepherd's life? Why, they have done little more than say,

"

Behold an opening into another world!" In pastoral poetry we have been accustomed to see a couple of idiots sitting, "sub tegmine fagi," with their pipes; far better had it been their cigars. But what we wish to see, is the spirit of the pastoral and of the agricultural life-shepherds and ploughmen people the earth. What signify a few millions of individuals congregated together in towns? What is a street in comparison with a glen-a square to a muir-boulevards to a twenty-mile-square pine forest? The pastoral drama may be made to overflow with tenderness and beauty, like the brightest dream ever broken by morning sunshine; or to wail with universal grief, like the land of Rama when Rachel was weeping for her children.