"At home in Kilkenny, as the clock struck six on each Christmas evening, all glasses were filled to the brim when the last vibration ceased, my father raised his bumper, and gave the toast 'HEALTH AND LONG LIFE TO POOR JOHN AND ELLEN FAR AWAY.' By agreement, as the clock struck the same hour in London (we overlooked the difference of time) there was the answering toast of— 'HEALTH AND HAPPINESS TO ALL AT HOME.' Even when our mother was no longer able to leave her bed, her glass of wine was brought to her, and she joined in the pledge from the inner room." CHAPTER V. ANXIETY FOR FAME AS A DRAMATIC POET-COMPOSITION OF HIS 66 It will have been remarked by the attentive student of Banim's mind, as exhibited in his letters, that the old love of poetry and of dramatic composition, recurs frequently in evident forms. It was, indeed, never entirely lost, and he seems to have cherished hopes of brilliant and steady success in that most difficult of all literary labours, the production of a really poetical, original drama. He was ever, in his leisure hours-and these, truly, were few-engaged in poetic composition; he had no pleasures, save those springing from literature. In this, he did not resemble Scott, or Byron, or Pope, or Moore; and he, more than any literary man of our time, could declare, with the great Chancellor of France, D'Aguesseau, "le changement d'étude est toujours un delassement pour moi." The hero of his drama was always selected from those historic names, whose deeds, and crimes or virtues, have afforded the fullest scope for the display of the genius of the dramatist and the art of the actor. It is also worthy of remark, that in all his dramas, as in all his novels, Banim ever chooses the portrayal of the wildest and fiercest passions, or the most harrowing and striking situations. Ancient history seems to have been the storehouse whence he selected his plots; "Damon and Pythias" was one of these subjects thus drawn, and of its treatment the reader has been already enabled to judge; but, in the latter months of 1826, Banim commenced the composition of his tragedy entitled "Sylla," and it was completed in the last week of January, 1827. He appears to have supposed that his play was the first attempt to paint the character of Sylla in the English language; and, doubtless, his was the first attempt worthy the theme. A drama in three acts, and entitled "Sylla," was, however, written by Derrick, and printed, though never performed, in 1753; it grossly misconceives the character of the Dictator, and makes him, in addition, sing three songs. : By a strange coincidence Derrick founded this drama on, and in part translated it from, a French play of the early part of the seventeenth century, and Banim formed his tragedy upon, and in part translated it from, the "Sylla" of M. Jouy and thus it comes to pass that the only dramatic authors who have taken Sylla for their subject have had one common fountain of inspiration-a French original. Of his own design, and of his opinions of Sylla's character as conceived by M. Jouy, Banim thus wrote: "The present is, so far as the writer is aware, the first attempt in the English language to illustrate, by dramatic action, the character of Sylla, and to account plausibly for the motives for his last astounding act of power-namely, his laying down the dictatorship. That the man, and the events of his public life, particularly the one specified, are strikingly dramatic, will not be denied; and the previous want of an English tragedy, built with such materials, is almost as striking. Perhaps it may have been caused by the apparent difficulty of the task. It is quite true that history supplies very little to make such a task easy. Sylla's heart and mind have been less unveiled to us by old writers, than have those of any other celebrated personage of antiquity. His own reasons for some of his actionsactions, sometimes noble, sometimes atrocious, always startling,— remain at best but as matters of guess-work to us. The outline of his character is blurred to our eyes. We do not understand him. Cæsar, Antony, Brutus, Catiline, and a score other citizens of old Rome, occur to our thoughts like intimate, well-known acquaintances, while of Sylla our notions are vague and unformed. As to what must have been truly his state of mind, when he laid down the palm and purple, and dismissed his lictors in the Forum amid a crowd of people, from scarce one of whom he had not good reason to dread a stern and dangerous remonstrance regarding his reign as dictator-upon his reasons for this prodigious and sublime act of hardihood, history is silent. And hence indeed would seem to arise such a difficulty as had just been conjectured. If you make a man the hero of a play, you must necessarily make him speak in his own person; and just as necessarily, sooner or later, in the progress of your five acts, you must make him account, out of his own lips, for what he does. But how is this to be easily effected with an historical character, of whose incentives to what he does, ancient historians seem to decline all explanation? "In another country, however, a tragedy of 'Sylla' has been produced, and its author, M. Jouy, of the French Academy, has, in his own apprehension, found no obstacle in the way. Upon the authority of Montesquieu, that gentleman refers to what can be nothing, or little less than patriotism, not only Sylla's abdication, but even his usurpation of the dictatorship, thus— (I quote from M. Jouy's preface to his tragedy) :— "Sous la plume de l'auteur de la Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, Sylla devient le réformateur de Rome; et veut les ramener à l'amour de la liberté, par les horreurs de la tyrannie, et quand il a suffisament abusé du pouvoir dans l'intérêt de la république, qu'il ne separe pas de ses vengeances personnelles, satisfait de la leçon sanglante qu'il a donné à ses compatriots, il brise lui-même la palme du dictateur qu'il a usurpé.' "And therefore "Ce n'est point Sylla si imparfaitement esquissé par Plutarque, c'est ce Sylla si admirablement indiqué par Montesquieu, que je veuille à reproduire sur la scène.' "But there is no reason, notwithstanding M. Jouy's preference, why Montesquieu, who lived about seventeen hundred years after Sylla, should be authority for his patriotism, when Plutarch, who lived only about two hundred and twenty years after him, says nothing on the subject, nor Appian, who was a contemporary of Plutarch; nor Valerius Maximus, who lived very nearly a century still closer to Sylla. And since Montesquieu could not have derived his reading of Sylla's motives from these authorities, where did he get it? “There is a point still more perilous to M. Jouy, and a curious and rather astonishing one it is. What M. Jouy says for Montesquieu, that writer does not say for himself. Nay, he says the very contrary, as follows-La fantaisie qui lui fait quitter la dictature semble rendre la vie à la république, mais dans la fureur de ses succès il avait fait des choses qui mirent la Rome dans l'impossibilité de conserver sa liberté.'-And Montesquieu supplies a frightful list of the things which Sylla did, tending to destroy the liberties of Rome. It will further be noticed, from |