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the capture of a fortress, seated himself at one of its gates, and causing the garrison to be led out, one by one, saw their throats cut to the last man. Proceeding in his career, he promised a thousand pieces of gold, and the most beautiful maiden in another fort that resisted him, to the man who should first enter it. The place was captured, and

"the principal adventurer was punctually paid his thousand dinaurs, and desired by Merwaun to take his choice among the fairest of the female captives. This he accordingly proceeded to do; and having fixed upon a young girl of exquisite beauty, was conducting her downwards from the fort; when, seizing her opportunity, the generous damsel suddenly clasped the odious foreigner in her arms with all the force of female revenge, and casting herself headlong from the works before he could disengage himself from her embrace, they were both together dashed to pieces in the fall. Enraged at such an instance of desperate and mortal antipathy, Merwaun caused every human being that was found in the place to be put to death, without mercy and without exemption." P. 506.

Opposed to these frequent instances of enormity, in which hundreds of thousands of human beings perished, to such an aggregate, indeed, in the first century of the Mahommedan era, as, making due allowance for the exaggerations of historians, may excite surprize, how, in such countries, such hosts could be produced and reproduced;-opposed to these enormities, occasional instances of humanity are recorded by the Arabian writers, and preserved by the author of the Retrospect, who does not withhold from himself and his readers the little consolation to be thence derived; but, with a generous sentiment, indulges in the contemplation of them, as the refreshing Oasis of the moral desart of Arabia.

We were desirous of noticing some parts of this work, in which the author treads the ground preoccupied by Gibbon; but for reasons that may be too obvious, must now decline it-remarking merely, that Major Price, in adhering to the authority of the original sources whence he has drawn the materials for his work, differs considerably in several instances from the relation of that celebrated writer; to whose general accuracy, in-as-far as agreeing in the main with such authorities may deserve that commendation, this Retrospect bears honourable testimony. Considering that Mr. Gibbon was unable to consult such original works, his industrious research, and discriminating talents, demand as much praise as can ever be due to great abilities allied to

overweening vanity, and grossly misapplied to purposes for which they were never bestowed.

Our readers will have perceived that our opinion of Major Price's work is favourable; and we were gratified at being accidentally afforded an opportunity of ascertaining, that a similar sentiment prevailed in quarters more important to its author's interests. It is patronized, we understand, by the Indian government, and we are fully warranted in saying that the importance of the subject, the competent knowledge of the author in the language of the originals, his indefatigable patience of enquiry, his judgment in selection, and facility in arranging and communicating the result, give him a fair claim also to the patronage of the literary public.

Notwithstanding the length to which this article is extended, there is yet another topic arising out of the work before us, that we were desirous of discussing at some length; but must be now content with merely glancing at it. This is, the similarity which may be observed in many instances in the conduct of the early Mahommedans and the modern French. The revolutionary and imperial system of warfare and of policy, may have been brought to the recollection of our readers by many of the preceding pages; and we do not think that the likeness would grow faint on a more extended comparison. We have for some time suspected, and now believe, that Bonaparte has projected a considerable, if not a radical, change, in the religion of France, and the countries immediately subjected to, or influenced by, him. What sort of religion such a man may see fit to introduce can be imagined only in the abstract. Its details will hinge on the political expediency of the day; for in his hands religion can be nothing more than an engine of policy. The unyielding spirit of the religion of Christ is ill adapted to his purposes, and he has more than once hinted, that his friends must adopt a different and a more convenient system of morals. That of Mahommed, though not, perhaps, exactly suited to his views, still offers greater pliancy and more facilities; and is as likely as any other, to serve as a basis on which to rear his anti-christian superstructure. The literature of Paris would oppose no material obstacles. The Koran is there much less insulted than the Gospel: and we are disposed to suspect that when it shall seem good to Bonaparte to raise his religious standard, its emblem, without perhaps any exact conformity, will partake much more of the Crescent than of the Cross.

172

ART. X. A Series of Plays, in which it is attempted to delineate the stronger Passions of the Mind. Volume the Third. By Joanna Baillie. London, 1812. Longman.

THOUGH it is not to be denied, that the end and purpose of dramatic writing is to affect the mind through the eye and car by living representations of manners, characters, and events, yet every reader of sensibility feels, that much of the interest which a well written play excites, is wholly independent of the stage and its apparatus. The impression produced by giving utterance to passion and sentiment in their natural language, instead of relating or describing their operations, is so well understood, that the epic poets have perpetually assumed the province of the tragedian to animate their story; and history itself has sometimes borrowed the graces of dramatic composition to give to its facts and characters a fresher colouring and bolder delineation. These effects are, in a great measure, produced by the mere dialogue of the drama, without any aid from personification or scenic exhibition. When the language in which passion is expressed, or rather expresses itself, is faithfully copied, the scene is present to the imagination and the heart of the reader, and a better arrangement for stage effect is often supplied out of the furniture of a creative fancy, than any contrivances of art could produce. To give a sort of ideal presence to a character or a transaction, to embody it, as it were, to the conception of the reader, and to place him in the midst of what he reads, is the privilege of the dramatic poet; but since much is within his power, much is expected of him, and if he moves us only with the force of narration or description, or inspires only a tranquil train of common feelings, we deny to him the honours of success in an art, to which the empire of the passions is committed.

This power of the dramatic art, Miss Baillie has made subservient to her purpose of exhibiting, in detail, the passions of the strongest cast, such as love, hatred, fear, and ambition. And her merit, as it respects invention, appears to consist in this, that, whereas the subject of ancient tragedy was chiefly the accomplishment of some great event, in which the destiny of a hero was involved, the passions being rather the effects, than the causes, of the vicissitudes which befal him;—and, whereas the modern drama so complicates the passion with the facts, and carries it so suddenly to its height by artificial contrivances and violent provocation, that it exhibits few of its complexional hues, or of the steps by which it mounts to its crisis; the

authoress of the present work has framed her incidents in entire subserviency to the display of the passion she has chosen as her subject; shews it to us in its unmixed and specific operation, and acquaints us with the earlier stages of its growth, as it secretly draws its nutriment from the recesses of the heart. Where the passion is necessary to urge on the catastrophe, it must be armed with its full strength for the purpose; and it is for this reason, that, in most of our plays which depend for the developement of the story upon the agency of some powerful passion, the passion comes at once full grown into action, is stimulated to its fatal purposes by the conflicts to which it is exposed, and there is time only for the disclosure of that full effulgence in which the shades of its early varieties are assimilated and lost. Keeping her purpose always in her view, Miss Baillie has made the stories of her plays extremely simple, well understanding that intricacy of plot, and the stir and agitation of complex occurrences, would distract the attention from that mental process of the passion by which it slowly arrives at its consummation. And we think it must be admitted, that in her three best performances she has, with great skill, contrived to fix the mind of the reader with so deep an interest on the dreadful phenomena of the victorious passion, as to require no stimulus from multiplied incidents, or the mysterious unravelments of a dark story. The pathos of her two plays of Basil and De Montfort, in which the passions of love and hate are purely displayed in the manner above described, is so forcibly impressive; the struggles which these passions maintain with opposite qualities, until their ascendancy is complete, are painted with so close an observation of nature; and the storm that accompanies the crisis of the passion, as well as the dead calm that succeeds to the accomplishment, are rendered so picturesque by the magic of this lady's pencil, that we can scarcely think any praise from us above the debt of gratitude we owe her for the pleasure she has given us.

We should have thought neither of these last mentioned plays ill adapted for representation on the stage. De Montfort, we believe, has had a trial, but with no good success, though supported by the best acting at this time within the competence of the stage to produce. Perhaps, after all, to the great majority of our mixed audiences, nothing is a substitute for the anxiety of suspense, the flutter of conjecture, and the surprise of discovery, which accompany the mysterious and eventful scenes of our favourite tragedies. Perhaps, too, the ethical delineation of a solitary passion, not exhibiting itself in sudden and desultory emotions, as events excite it to action, but holding the mind in uniform subjection, though with gradually increasing violence,

through the whole drama, requires a delicacy of perception, and refinement of feeling, to comprehend its merit, which is the lot only of a small part of those who assert the right of judging for themselves, if not of deciding for others. We may add, that the features of a passion so diabolical as deadly hate, without an adequate cause, produce too blank and uniform an impression of gloomy disgust in the mind, to be compatible with those transitions of feeling, those mingled perturbations of joy and sorrow, which give vivacity and strength to emotion and sympathy, by the succession of transient reliefs which they afford.

It must be admitted, that the genius of Miss Baillie has but a very limited range of subjects on which it can properly be exercised in fulfilling her plan. After exhausting the topics of hate, love, ambition and fear, she has scarcely any pure unmixed passion remaining. Jealousy and revenge are little more than modifications of love and hate, and must pass, at least, through these passions to their consummation. Anger, joy, grief, hope, and pride, are too transitory or weak in their duration or effects, to suit the design of the authoress. In their simple displays they are calculated rather to give force to the incidents of the piece, and to accompany as their natural attendants those vicissitudes of fortune indicated by the peripetia of the Greek tragedians, than to become the entire subjects of dramatic illustration. The characteristics of joy and grief are the same in all mankind, except the superficial differences in the expression, which the modes of education, or the habits of society, may create. The occasions which produce them cannot perpetuate them. They soon mellow into calmer feelings, and expire in their own excesses. Hope, indeed, admits of some continuance, and upon the strength of this quality, Miss Baillie has attempted a play upon it. But it is evident, that though it may continue, it does not vegetate in the bosom like other passions, but becomes gradually weaker by the delay of its accomplishment. Miss Baillie has done the most that could be done with it. She has made a pretty story, in which its eagerness to catch support from shadows, to draw assurances of bliss from trifles lighter than air, to see signs and prognostics in every occurrence, and revelations in every dream, are properly exhibited as the characteristics of this passion at its height; but at its height its influence is confined to the bosom which it inhabits. As we have not yet had an opportunity of delivering our sentiments upon this lady's performances, we think ourselves entitled to take a short retrospective view of some of her earlier productions. But we cannot pass to the consideration of the plays themselves, until we have produced an extract from the introductory

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