those upon which we have just commented. In the second scene we find ourselves in Seville, with Dons Miguel and Lopez, the representatives respectively of the old and new schools of Spanish chivalry, who hold an entertaining dialogue upon the comparative merits of the olden and recent times. Calaynos arrives at Seville and engages the latter to be his second in the duel to which he has challenged Don Luis. An interview, full of tenderness and noble sentiment, takes place between Oliver and his lord; it is very much to our regret that we cannot now possibly make room for this. The closing scene is in the field near Seville. The fight is very well conducted: Calaynos is twice mortally wounded, when he disarms Don Luis and cuts him down. He then falls, and dies with composure in his secretary's arms. His servants enter upon the stage, group round the body and-the play is over.

We have now gone very fully into the details of Calaynos; indeed we have been more elaborate, both in regard to the introductory remarks and the notice of the tragedy itself, than is customary; and the only apology we have to offer-if any be demanded-is that the work is by an American author, and the review by an American critic. There is, at the best, so little to encourage literary talent in our country, that it does not become us to bestow praise with any illiberal or grudging hand upon the productions of native effort; the least that we can do for any work of desert from an American pen, is to give it a full and candid notice. A few more words upon the general merits and defects of Calaynos, and it will pass from our jurisdiction to that higher and appellate one-the public's. the plot enough has already been said. The dialogue is easy and natural, not overrun with what we are constrained to regard as empty declamation, nor rendered tedious by the frequent interpolation of mere turgid description. The versification is free and correct, though it is too often aided by elisions and transpositions. The diction is not quite so pure and classical as tragedy is supposed to require, and yet it is deficient in neither flexibility, variety, nor force. The characters are very well described in a line of the prologue

Upon

they are all after the model of veritable human beings,

mon frailties and passions of his race, yet keenly alive to others' woes, dedicating his energies to the studies of nature and the soul, breathing forth the most exalted sentiments towards God and man, there is a nobler, holier feeling than that of icy terror or mere admiration--a feeling of awe, of worship; and it is the highest stretch of the dramatic art, the highest felicity of the dramatic author, to call this feeling into exercise. If in "Calaynos" this is not fully accomplished, yet such is the evident tendency of those characteristics of the hero upon which we have animadverted.

Oliver is but an ordinary character, readily conceived and easily maintained. He has, to a partial extent only, the dramatic defects of his master; though he is his humble disciple, yet he does not follow him so far into the clouds that he cannot, at the same time, see and hear all that is going on beneath. Unfortunately, however, he cannot see for both Calaynos and himself; his acuteness of vision cannot compensate for his lord's obtuseness: and it was no part of the author's intention that it should. Don Luis is a very ordinary specimen of a courtly villian; one who makes no distinction between the mala in se and the mala prohibita; who would seduce a friend's wife, or cut a friend's throat, with as much indifference as he would evade a tipstaff, or spit a toad. His character is conventional and dramatic. Soto is perhaps as well drawn and susstained as any character in the play. Whenever he appears, we expect to be entertained. He is one of those shrewd, good-natured, witty fellows, who

"fortune's buffets and rewards

Have ta'en with equal thanks ;"

who do not seem to be born knaves, and, under more favorable circumstances, would make moderately good men. Martina is a very fine counterpart of Soto; with more, however, of the native "miching malecho" in her composition. She is the Maria or Nerissa of the play, and compares not unfavorably with either of her prototypes. She is full of life and mischief; and her wit is ever on the alert, whether to vex Oliver with her sallies and sarcasm, or to fascinate Soto with her pleasantries and wantonness. Few dramatists need be reluctant to acknowledge paternity to Martina.

Our task is now finished. We have patiently and fairly considered both the merits and the defects of "Calaynos, " and although there are not a few of the latter, yet the former greatly exceed them, as well in weight as in number. We welcome it as a valuable addition to our dramatic literature-as a work which reflects no little credit upon its author. If he has not entirely succeeded, he may console himself with the reflection that many others, whose names are among the very first on the rolls of literary fame, have been even less successful. If he has not produced a play which will meet with an enthusiastic reception, and be repeated week after week, yet it is not one which will be hissed and catcalled from the stage.

This is our first meeting with Mr. Boker, but we feel sure that it will not be the last. With more care and art in the choice and management of the plot, he will produce a successor to "Calaynos," more worthy of the abilities of which it is only an indication.

ART. V.-The Anatomy of the Navigation Laws; by JOHN LEWIS RICARDO, Esq., M.P. London: Charles Gilpin. 8vo. 336. 1847.

It may be said of navigation, generally, what Sir Frances D'Ivernois said of the fisheries, that it is, "in fact, no other than the tillage of the sea," while agriculture is the tillage of the land. The navigation laws, originally measures of mistaken policy, were most of them devised by ship-owners, to enrich themselves at the expense of the community, and the corn laws were similar devices, for advancing the interest of the great land-holders at the cost of all others. We think we have seen it somewhere stated, that the whole number of English laws restricting transportation in their foreign commerce, from the earliest period, amount to upwards of four hundred. Mr. Ricardo, speaking of those generally classed and published in the code of navigation laws, says that he himself has counted one hundred and forty-four passed since that of 1660, the famous Cromwell act, so readily adopted by Charles II.

well conceived, well mingled and well sustained; but, and we think this the main defect of this play-there are no very strong ones-none whose single presence rivets all eyes, enchains all hearts, and presses the stamp and seal of tragedy on the whole performance. There is no Richard, no Hamlet, no Lady Macbeth, no Belvidera, not even a Juliet. They are not eminently good, nor perhaps infamously vile. Doña Alda is an indifferent woman, who displays very little ability, and possesses so little affection, that she can scarcely define her own feelings towards her husband. She does little but chat with her waiting maid upon the beauties of Seville, or chide her for her flippancy. Her part is mainly that of a passive instrument. She exhibits no passion in extreme, and excites but little dramatic interest until she is carried off. The author, however, has breathed around her an atinosphere of simplicity, amiability and virtue, which leads us to regard her with pleasure and esteem, and greatly increases the natural effect of her words and conduct. Neither have our strictures any application to the scene of her abduction, or that of her death; here, she is certainly very closely allied to the best models of the tragic heroine; in the whole of the fourth act, she is unquestionably as dramatic as the "most original Bill on record" would have desired. Although, then, we except to her, as a character, we by no means, intend to pronounce Doña Alda a failure. Calaynos, in a dramatic point of view, is an anomaly. Seldom, indeed, has one so quiet-so little qualified for action, been chosen as the tragic hero. The actor who should personate him would never be mistaken for the work of some of "nature's journeymen;" there seems to be no room whatever for either strutting or bellowing. He comes before us frequently; yet we associate him more with the studio, than the arena of active life. He appears to us more as the philosopher; one who should have been the friend, the fidus Achates of the hero, and not the hero himself. There is not enough of the violent and the active in his composition; no strong and constantly developing principle of love, or hate, or ambition. or avarice; nothing, in short, in sufficient intensity to make up a great dramatic chief. Almost all that he does is done softly and quietly. If he debates with Doña Alda, it is in the tone of a father; if he goes to Seville, it is but to search for the house of

friend, to find that friend, to return with him, and he is there and back again without our being fully aware of it; on his arrival at home, he scarcely takes time to introduce his wife, ere he must retire; in the closet scene with Oliver, we might confound him with the author of the "Atlantis," or with the philosopher of "The Porch," to whom pleasure and pain were alike and indifferent; but we would scarcely imagine that to his tears, and his frenzy, a great tragedy is to owe its title to that name; and even in the closing scene of the fourth act, where he becomes truly dramatic, we feel a momentary surprise--he is, in an instant, transformed from the philosopher into the man, and exhibits the highest species of tragic inspiration; but the appearance, though natural, is novel and unexpected. We must not be understood to intimate an actual inconsistency of character here-the aggravation was sufficient to drive a stoic into fury-we merely affirm that it conflicts with our associations. Calaynos' love for Alda, though not shown in fondlings, may not have been the less warmthe stream is not deepest whose surface is most distorted by ripples; his passions may have been subdued and confined, but they were still in his bosom, and, like the molten wave beneath the crest of the volcano, which is only made manifest by the convulsion of nature, their outburst must be terrible. We do not wonder, then, at the outburst itself, much less do we condemn it; but we regret that in his previous character there was not less of the sage and more of the man; he might have been generous, trusting, the fit dupe of such a villian as Don Luis, and yet not so cold and grave in his exterior, not so much of the philosopher in his pursuits. Still, even with this defect, there is much in Calaynos to elicit our sympathy and admiration. In his simplicity, in his integrity, in his faith in his fellow-beings, in his seclusion, in his devotion to study, he is above ordinary mortals. Frenzied love, inexorable hate, bloody revenge, o'ertopping ambition, are not the only manifestations that can draw forth the sympathies of the humau soul. We do not need to see the bloody dagger, or the poisoned goblet, nor to hear the curses of disappointed villany, or the groans of the victim expiring upon the rack, in order to be moved or to applaud. These may make us shudder; but when we behold a man of lofty mental and moral power, superior, in general, to the com