Looking through these dramas thus conceived and constructed, we consequently do not find any single passages of uncommonly striking power or point. We are not startled by unnatural explosions, nor rapt into wonder or ecstacy by the bold strokes or the delicious dalliance of the plot. At the same time, we have a feeling throughout that this comes of no lack of power thus to sport with our sensibilities, but from a steady and conscientious self-restraint. The closing acts of the second part of Philip Van Artevelde, as well as the lighter and more fancy-hued interlude between the two parts, shadow forth into what regions of wild but profitless sensationalism our author might have led us, had he chosen. Hence, a sentiment of profound respect for his own spirit grows upon us, as we enjoy the fruits of his masculine genius. We thank him that he is not extravagant; we admire him as we again recall under what an overmastering reign of this very vice, he set and maintained a purer example. The best qualities of a reflective poetry mark these writings; a rare faculty for the unities and harmonies of dramatic adjustment gives compactness and coherence to their action; a dignified but never forced or artificial stateliness imparts a classic grace and impressiveness to the movement; while a chastened and diffused beauty spreads a clear, bracing atmosphere over the shifting scene. Real life walks the stage in the persons of the drama, and real life, as it existed when and where the plot is laid, with only the exceptions necessary to bring the people of dead centuries into an intelligent sympathy with our modern experiences. Beyond these few and unavoidable liberties, the historic verisimilitude is faithfully preserved. Neither the language or the passion is strained. Each takes the natural tone of the subject and the occasion, as well when the play glides smoothly along in pleasant companionships, as when the interest culminates in fearful perils and crushing agonies. Mr. Taylor has carried the art of giving expression to his conceptions, in transparent and befitting verse, to a degree of excellence which leaves nothing for unfavorable criticism. Nor do we remember an author who, at all points, presents so intangible a surface to the reviewers. Less mighty and magnificent than some, he is undeniably more faultless than most men of letters who have affected strongly the public mind. St. Clement's Eve, as the latest of this series of closet dramas, just now is giving the literary world an opportunity of renewing its acquaintance with this writer. Its scene is France in the days of the imbecile and idiotic Charles VI. The hinge of the story turns on the malady of the wretched king. Iolande, the lovely maiden of the plot, has been kidnapped by a ruffian knight, and rescued by the Duke of Orleans, the brother of the monarch. A strong attachment springs up between them, but is dashed into bitterness, in the maiden's bosom, by the discovery that the duke is already married. Throwing from her the fascination of his love by a great effort of self-control and selfsacrifice, she devotes herself to the relief of the maniac king, which a holy hermit has predicted might be effected by an unstained virgin making the sign of the cross on the royal brow, with finger wet in the tears of the Magdalene, kept as a relic among the monks. Iolande tries the charm and fails. She was forewarned by the ghostly prophet that she would, if her heart was under the sway of any human passion. The conflict is fearfully distracting between her fond devotion to her sovereign's rescue from demoniac powers, and her fears that the love to Orleans which she has tried so heroically to tear from her soul is still clinging there. Once she thought that she had triumphed over herself and the spirits of darkness alike, and her pæan of thanks and victory is a fine specimen of the author's impassioned mood. "Hear me Angelic Host! Seraphic Bands, And spirits that erst imprisoned here on earth But the madness returns to its regal victim. Iolande is adjudged and condemned for sorcery which is supposed to have rendered the charm powerless. Orleans strives to save her, but is killed by the knight from whom he rescued her. She, in a tumult which the mob then raised, is slain beside the corpse of her lover. This, with a multitude of complications of villainy, and magnanimity, and gentleness, and beautiful devotedness to noble thought, shaded in with skilfully wrought contrasts of character, and enlivened with the delicate play of varied emotion, gives the author the basis and the garniture of his finely accomplished work. But we must turn to the better known drama to which our remaining space is due. Philip Van Artevelde is a story of the struggle of the Flemish people for civil rights and independence against the feudalism of the fourteenth century. Europe, long pressed beneath the choking weight of that system of ignorant brutality, was just beginning to feel the agitation of the first waves of the rising tide of freedom. The towns of the Low Countries were among the earliest to come strongly under this new influence. They were rich and populous, the centres of commerce, full of enterprise the very communities to commence a resistance to the exactions of a class of lordly, overbearing feudatories. The city of Ghent was one of the foremost of these in power and a restless spirit of liberty. A bloody feud had long been raging between its inhabitants and the Earl of Flanders, who claimed the right of suzerainty over it. In possession of the neighboring and rival city of Bruges, this formidable foe had pushed his successes against the revolted people and magistrates of Ghent, until, their ablest leaders cut down in battle, and the city itself reduced to the extreme of suffering, its cause became the desperate conflict of a perishing state with impending ruin. In the midst of a famine, the horrors of which are portrayed with terrible vividness, Van Artevelde, a young Fleming, is summoned from his seclusion and placed by acclamation at the head of the sinking cause. Though son to a former patriot chief who had carried the glory of Ghent to an enviable pitch, but had been assassinated by personal enemies, Philip had lived in the strictest retirement, amusing his rather roving tastes with fishing along the Scheldt, and gratifying a contemplative and scholarly turn of mind with philosophical inquiries and speculations. He has done nothing to inspire confidence, has held himself aloof from the turmoil of the times, yet, by general consent, confidence gathers to him as one who has the latent powers of a ruler and saviour of the people. Taking up this leadership at the lowest point of depressed fortunes, by his force of will and genuine capacity for such a conflict, Van Artevelde restores the spirit of a beaten and demoralized community, raises the siege of the beleagured city, vanquishes the Earl of Flanders in battle, and winds up the action of the first part of the drama as the victorious chief magistrate of a delivered and grateful commonwealth. The story moves along through these alternations with but few digressions. A true lover's knot is tied, during its stirring progress, in the wooing and wedding of Van Artevelde and the queenly Adriana Van Merestyn. Another bright and sensitive being, Clara Van Artevelde, a sister worthy of so noble a brother, sheds the sweetness of her smiles and the vivacity of her frolicsome nature, over these sombre and harassing scenes. The second part of this tragedy (for this it emphatically is,) opens at a later period of Philip Van Artevelde's acknowledged and widely beneficent administration. His sway, regal in all but the name, has retrieved the fortunes of Ghent, and a dozen others of the Flemish towns yield homage to his greatness. But this prosperity has been dimmed to him by the death of his beloved wife. Affairs, too, are not settled beyond the danger of revolution. The fugitive Earl, his old enemy, has sought protection and alliance in France. An immense army, led by the chivalry of that kingdom, is hovering on the frontier, ready to take back the Earl to his lost dominions, and to reinstate him there by force. Van Artevelde rejects indignantly a summons to lay down the power which a freed people have confirmed to him. The issue is pushed onward. The legions of France overrun the Netherlands. Van Artevelde cannot hold his position against such odds. The final conflict comes. In the midst of it, the leader of the brave Flemings is stabbed by an implacable enemy, Sir Fleurcant of Heurlée, the unmitigated rascal of the plot, who thus revenges a personal quarrel with Artevelde, brought on by himself; and the curtain drops upon the ruins of the national edifice rent in pieces around the bleeding body of the murdered hero-another father of his country. The ascent and descent of this ladder gives opportunity to the poet to surround his central figure with whatever diversely working accessories his sense of dramatic fitness requires. Philip Van Artevelde is the living soul of the representation, from the opening to the closing act. He is a masterpiece of characterization. Strong of will, he is not demonstrative; given to contemplative moods, and of an introspective turn, he promptly seizes the circumstances of the hour, and strikes the right object with intuitive precision; fearless as a soldier, stern as a statesman, a woman's delicacy and tenderness are ever throbbing at his heart. Seemingly contrary as are these qualities, they are blended in him so as to produce no sense of incongruity. The author is true to nature in combining the thoughtful, philosophic, sensitive tendency and temperament with the energetic, practical, dominant spirit. The Duke of Burgundy's eulogy of the dead Artevelde when his corpse was discovered among the slain of the last battle field, is the poet's high conception of a true manliness. "Dire rebel though he was, Yet with a noble nature and great gifts Was he endowed courage, discretion, wit, An equal temper and an ample soul, Rock-bound and fortified against assaults Built on a surging subterranean fire That stirred and lifted him to high attempts. So prompt and capable, and yet so calm, He nothing lacked in sovereignty but the right, These subterranean fires emit a sparkle as, just on the threshhold of his career, he feels the imperative summons to action, yet pauses long enough to question the motive which impels him. "Is it vain glory which thus whispers me |