pulsiveness of the story is what gives it its critical interest ; for it is a studiously prosaic statement of facts, and naked declara tion of passions. It was not the least of Shakspeare's praise, that he never tampered with unfair subjects. His genius was above it; his taste kept aloof from it. I do not deny the power of simple painting and polished style in this tragedy in general, and of a great deal more in some few of the scenes, particularly in the quarrel between Annabella and her husband, which is wrought up to a pitch of demoniac scorn and phrensy with consummate art and knowledge ; but I do not find much other power in the author (generally speaking) than that of playing with edged tools, and knowing the use of poisoned weapons. And what confirms me in this opinion is the comparative inefficiency of his other plays. Except the last scene of “The Broken Heart' (which I think extravagant-others may think it sublime, and be right), they are merely exercises of style and effusions of wire-drawn sentiment. Where they have not the sting of il. licit passion, they are quite pointless, and seem painted on gauze, or spun of cobwebs. The affected brevity and division of some of the lines into hemisticks, &c. so as to make in one case a

gant from their having always the same fixed aim—the same incorrigible purpose. The fault of Sir Giles Overreach, in this respect, is less in the excess to which he pushes a favourite propensity, than in the circumstance of its being unmixed with any other virtue or vice.

“We may find the same simplicity of dramatic conception in the comic as in the tragic characters of the author. Justice Greedy has but one idea or subject in his head throughout. He is always eating, or talking of eating. His belly is always in his mouth, and we know nothing of him but his appetite; he is as sharpset as travellers from off a journey. His land of promise touches on the borders of the wilderness: his thoughts are constantly in apprehension of feasting or famishing. A fat turkey floats before his imagination in royal state, and his hunger sees visions of chines of beef, venison pasties, and Norfolk dumplings, as if it were seized with a calenture. He is a very amusing personage ; and in what relates to eating and drinking, as peremptory as Sir Giles himself.-Murall is another instance of confined comic humour, whose ideas never wander beyond the ambition of being the implicit drudge of another's knavery or good fortune. He sticks to his stewardship, and resists the favour of a salute from a fine lady, as not entered in his accounts. The humour of this character is less striking in the play than in Munden's personification of it. The other characters do not require any particular analysis. They are very insipid, good sort of people."

W

mathematical stair-case of the words and answers given to dif. ferent speakers,* is an instance of frigid and ridiculous pedantry. An artificial elaborateness is the general characteristic of Ford's style. In this respect his plays resemble Miss Baillie's more than any others I am acquainted with, and are quite distinct from the exuberance and unstudied force which characterized his immediate predecessors. There is too much of scholastic subtlety, an innate perversity of understanding or predominance of will, which either seeks the irritation of inadmissible subjects, or to stimulate its own faculties by taking the most barren, and making something out of nothing, in a spirit of contradiction. He does not draw along with the reader: he does not work upon our sympathy, but on our antipathy or our indifference; and there is as little of the social or gregarious principle in his productions as there appears to have been in his personal habits, if we are to believe Sir John Suckling, who says of him, in the Sessions of the Poets

“In the dumps John Ford alone by himself sat
With folded arms and melancholy hat.”

I do not remember without considerable effort the plot or persons of most of his plays— Perkin Warbeck,' «The Lover's Melancholy,' Love's Sacrifice, and the rest. There is little

;' character, except of the most evanescent or extravagant kind (to which last class we may refer that of the sister of Calantha in

The Broken Heart')-little imagery or fancy, and no action. It is but fair, however, to give a scene or two, in illustration of these remarks (or in confutation of them, if they are wrong), and I shall take the concluding one of “The Broken Heart,' which is held up as the author's master-piece.

Ithocles. Soft peace enrich this room.
Orgilus.

How fares the lady?
Philema. Dead!
Christalla. Dead!
Philema.

Starv'd!
Christalla.

Starvid !
Ithocles.

Me miserable !"

" SCENE-A Room in the Palice. A Flourish.— Enter Euphranea, led by Groneas and HEMOPHIL: Prophilus.

led by Christalla and Philema: NEARCHưs supporting Calantia,

CBOTOLON, and AMELUS.
Cal. We miss our servants, Ithocles and Orgilus. On whom attend they?

Crot. My son, gracious princess,
Whisper'd some new device, to which these revels
Should be but usher: wherein I conceive
Lord Ithocles and he himself are actors.

Cal. A fair excuse for absence. As for Bassanes,
Delights to him are troublesome. Armostes
Is with the king ?
Crot.

He is.
Cal.

On to the dance!
Cousin, hand you the bride: the bridegroom must be
Entrusted to my courtship. Be not jealous,
Euphranea; I shall scarcely prove a temptress.
Fall to our dance !

(They dance the first change, during which enter ArmosTES.)
Arm. (In a whisper to Calantha.) The king your father's dead.
Cal. To the other change.
Arm.

Is't possible?
They dance the second change.--Enter BASSANES.
Boss. (Whispers Calantha). Oh! Madam,
Penthea, poor Penthea's starv'd.

Cal. Beshrew thee!
Lead to the next!
Bass. Amazement dulls my senses.

They dance the third change.- Enter Orgilus.
Org. Brave Ithocles is murder'd, murder'd cruelly.

Cal. How dull this music sounds! Strike up more sprightly
Our footings are not active like our heart, *
Which treads the nimbler measure,
Org. I am thunderstruck.

The last change.
Cal. So; let us breathe awhile. (Music ceascs.) Hath not this motion
Rais'd fresher colours on our cheek?

In any who prefers our lawful pleasures
Before their own sour censure, to interrupt
The custom of this ceremony bluntly.

Near. None dares, lady.

Cal. Yes, yes; some hollow voice deliver'd to me How that the king was dead.

Arm. The king is dead,” &c. &c.

This, I confess, appears to me to be tragedy in masquerade. Nor is it, I think, accounted for, though it may be in part redeemed by her solemn address at the altar to the dead body of her husband.

" Cal. Forgive me. Now I turn to thee, thou shadow
Of my contracted lord! Bear witness all,
I put my mother's wedding-ring upon
His finger; 'twas my father's last bequest :

(Places a ring on the finger of ITHOCLES.)
Thus I new marry him, whose wife I am:
Death shall not separate us. Oh, my lords,
I but deceived your eyes with antic gesture,
When one news strait came huddling on another
Of death, and death, and death : still I danced forward;
But it struck home and here, and in an instant.
Be such mere women, who with shrieks and outcries
Can vow a present end to all their sorrows,
Yet live to court new pleasures, and outlive them:
They are the silent griefs which cut the heartstrings:
Let me die smiling.

Near. 'Tis a truth too ominous.

Cal. One kiss on these cold lips—my last: crack, crack
Argos, now Sparta's king, command the voices
Which wait at th' altar, now to sing the song
I fitted for my end."

And then, after the song, she dies.

This is the true false gallop of sentiment: anything more arti. ficial and mechanical I cannot conceive. The boldness of the attempt, however, the very extravagance, might argue the reliance of the author on the truth of feeling prompting him to hazard it ; but the whole scene is a forced transposition of that already alluded to in Marston's · Malcontent. Even the form of the stage directions is the same.

Enter MENDOZO, supporting the Duchess; GUERRINO; the Ladies that are on

the stage rise. FERRARDO ushers in the Duchess; then takes a Lady to tread

a measure. Aurelia. We will dance. Music! we will dance.

Enter PREPASSO.
Who saw the Duke? the Duke ?

Aurelia. Music!
Prepussa. The Duke ? is the Duke returned ?
Aurelia. Music!

Enter Celso.
The Duke is quite invisible, or else is not.

Aurelia. We are not pleased with your intrusion upon our private retirement; we are not pleased : you have forgot yourselves.

Enter a PAGE. Celso. Boy, thy master ? where's the Duke?

Page. Alas, I left him burying the earth with his spread joyless limbs; he told me he was heavy, would sleep: bid me walk off, for the strength of fantasy oft made him talk in his dreams: I strait obeyed, nor ever saw him since; but wheresoe'er he is, he's sad. Aurelia. Music, sound high, as is our heart; sound high.

Enter MALEVOLE and her Husband, disguised like a Hermit.
Malevole. The Duke? Peace, the Duke is dead.
Aurelia. Music !"

Ad IV. Scene 3.

The passage in Ford appears to me an ill-judged copy from this. That a woman should call for music, and dance on in spite of the death of her husband whom she hates, without regard to common decency, is but too possible : that she should dance on with the same heroic perseverance in spite of the death of her husband, of her father, and of every one else whom she loves, from regard to common courtesy or appearance, is not surely natural. The passions may silence the voice of humanity, but it is, I think, equally against probability and decorum to make both the passions and the voice of humanity give way (as in the example of Calantha) to a mere form of outward behaviour. Such a suppression of the strongest and most uncontroulable feelings can only be justified from necessity, for some great purpose, which is not the case in Ford's play; or it must be done for the effect and eclat of the thing, which is not fortitude but affectation. Mr. Lamb, in his impressive eulogy on this passage in The