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in slavery invite the Russians; but free, they would repel them. The safety of the Turkish Empire requires the independence of Greece, because Greece revolted weakens the Ottoman armies; emancipated, she would strengthen them. The prosperity of commerce and industry requires the independence of Greece; for the same country, of which all the riches are at present destroyed dest by robbery, when it begins to prosper under a protecting government, will attract to itself, by rich exchanges, the produce of all the universe. If you wish nations to be tranquil, make them happy. This maxim, which policy ought to borrow from morals, is so easily comprehended, that it makes a writer blush to have to develope it. Cease to render life insupportable to the Greeks, as it has been for two centuries, and they will no longer call upon other nations to be their deliverers. Cease to favour their extermination, as you have done for five years. and their cries will no longer disturb your repose. Cease to outrage humanity, religion, and the wishes of your subjects, and public opinion will no longer invoke avengers to deliver the world from your tyranny. But be assured, on the contrary, that the longer you pursue your execrable policy, the more will you be heaping burning coals upon your heads. If you consent to the extermination of the Greeks, you must very speedily consent to the extermination of the Macedonians, the Bulgarians, the Servians, and the people of Monte Negro: but each of these crimes will prolong the fury of the Levant, and augment the fermentation in the minds of your own people: every new crime will enfeeble the Turkish power, increase the preponderance of the Russians, and render more inevitable the catastrophe which you seek to avoid. You will perish then, but you will perish with shame and with guilt; whereas, by now listening to the voice of religion and humanity, you will save yourselves in saving Greece, and you will confirm, as far as it depends on you, the peace of all Europe, and the balance of power in the West.

NOTES ON THE MONTH.

WEBER. On occasion of the death of this composer, the proprietors of Covent Garden issued a notice that, " anxious to give his survivors, (that is to say, all the rest of this breathing world) the advantage of the benefit intended for Weber, his last Opera of Oberon should be performed on Saturday June 17." This notice is abundantly absurd-but we quote it less for the sake of amusing our readers, than of expressing our regret, that the house was not by any means full; so that Weber's wife and family, who are evidently meant by the singular phrase of "his survivors," we fear will have gained nothing by the exhibition. The fact is, that Weber was greatly overrated before his arrival in this country, and he was as undeservedly greatly under-rated before his death in it: people, however unreasonably, always expect a man of talent in all cases to surpass his last work, and if he falls below the level of his first, the disappointment is proportionate, and the recoil certain and powerful. The Oberon of Weber turned out a signal failure, and was, after a few unsuccessful repetitions, withdrawn from the stage. The music was found to be common-place in the extreme-as insufferable as Bishop's worst, or Braham's best. Even the Freischütz was a secondary opera, and utterly unworthy to be ranked in the same class with even the middling operas of Rossini, to say nothing of the loftier efforts of his muse. As to Oberon, it is just as much beneath even Weber's secondary operas, as they are inferior to the Freischütz. This gradation of failures has given rise to numerous stories, and among the rest, to a report that Weber did not compose, but bought that great musical work of the real author. We merely allude to this story as one of the on dits of the day, or rather of the month: for the supposition is preposterous. If the Freischütz had really been the first work of some unknown master, we should soon have had another from

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his pen; or even, to speak musically, a score. Such a genius must have been speedily déterré, by means of new works, or else he must have been, what it is as easy to suppose of Weber, a man of one opera. Why should there not be men of one opera as well as men of one book? a class, by the way, on whose singular perfo erformances Mr. D'Israeli has written an amusing essay. [See his Curiosities. Another story connected with the Freischütz is, that Weber disposed of the copy-right of that fine opera in discharge of an inconsiderable debt. If the fact be so, it is a lamentable one: and it may fairly be said, that if Weber gained credit with an individual by his first opera, he has lost it with the public by his last. There must have been soine suspicions about the merits of Oberon in the mind of the Covent Garden proprietors, for they are said to have refused to allow the music to be seen or heard by the music-sellers, who have purchased it for eight hundred pounds! While we are on the subject of operas, we may quote a caustic saying which is now going about town, and ascribed to a

Bishop's Aladdin was

ed to

its

high musical authority. produced rival Oberon, and fairly rivalled it, in failure. Some one asked Sir if he had seen Bishop's last opera? "No," said Sir --; " but if you can assure me that it is his last, I shall see it with pleasure."

DRAMATIC AUTO-BIOGRAPHY. - This kind of writing seems to be coming into fashion. We have lately had "Kelly's Reminiscences,"* Reynolds's Memoirs are published this month, and the newspaper advertisement, "show us many more" in perspective. The autobiography of dramatic authors is, generally speaking, the most amusing of all kinds of autobiography, on account of the variety of anecdote which it gives room to introduce. A dramatic author is almost necessarily connected with all the three classes who compose, as it were, the kingdom of anecdote-fashionable people, literary men, and players. Perhaps there never was a more delightful book written than Goldoni's life of himself, though the reader has scarcely heard of half-adozen of the persons named in the book. Marmontel and Cumberland are charming auto-biographers; Goethe and Alfieri less so, because the one professes to trace the springs of his own genius, and to give a philosophical analysis of his works, and the memoirs of the other present us only with a bold picture of terrible misanthropy, and the anatomy of one proud and ardent heart. If we were to compare Reynolds's Memoirs to any others that have yet appeared, it should certainly be to Colley Cibber's; to whose adventures, especially in the early part of his life, Mr. Reynolds's bear a singular resemblance,-with this deference, that the latter became a play-writer, while Colley Cibber was attracted to the stage, and wore alternately the sock and the buskin, till "reduced," as he himself pathetically and emphatically tells us " to become an author."

It is curious, in the auto-biography of dramatic writers, to find them involuntarily giving a ton de théâtre to their narrative, and heightening the drollery of their stories by all the exaggeration they have been accustomed to think necessary for the stage. Thus Reynolds tells us that "his mother and aunt were like the compass, bent on a still farther variation to the westward," a blunder which would have told very well in a farce; and he makes Lord Effingham prove his oyalty, by giving away "the portrait of his Majesty," as he styles a guinea.

PASTA AND PUFFS. - Some charitable concert had been announced for the evening previous to this great singer's benefit; and the Post told us, "that a night-rehearsal of the scenery being indispensable, Madame Pasta had professed herself ready to sit up till midnight, rather than interfere with the cause of charity." This was of course intended as a puff for Pasta's benefit; but, as the scenery only was concerned, we should think the presence of one or two scene-shifters much more likely to be useful than that of the prima donna.

• Kelly was only, to be sure, a composer of music; but when we recollect how much in modern operas depends on the music, he may fairly be allowed the honours, such as they are, of dramatic authorship.

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LECTURES ON POETRY, BY T. CAMPBELL.

CONTINUATION OF LECTURE ΧΙ.

Sophocles.

I PROCEED to the other dramas of Sophocles. The story of his "Philoctetes" has been told by Fenelon in his Telemachus, and by Thomson in his Agamemnon. Yet after we read it in those authors, and until we peruse the Greek play itself, it will hardly appear to be credible that a poet could have framed an interesting drama out of such simple materials; for its subject, in fact, is only the adventure of Ulysses and the son of Achilles bringing back to the siege of Troy a solitary exile from a desert island.

Philoctetes was the friend to whom Hercules had bequeathed his arrows; but, having been stung in the foot by a serpent, during the siege of Troy, his cries disturbed the Grecian camp; and its rulers caused him to be treacherously abandoned on the shores of the Lemnian desert. A prophecy, however, that Troy could not be taken without his arrows, induces the Greeks at the end of nine years to send for him; and the knot of difficulty in the plot of the drama, is to persuade the insulted and injured man to rejoin his countrymen.

A dramatic hero can scarcely be imagined less imposing in his outward circumstances, than the lame and wounded and lonely Philoctetes. At the outset it is difficult to foresee how his situation can be rendered more tragic. It is true that his cave is described as welcoming the summer breeze and the winter sunshine; that he could drag his foot after the quarry which he brought down with his bow, repose on his bed of leaves, quench his thirst at the spring, and find medicinal herbs that somewhat alleviated the pangs of his wound; and that habit had given him a feeling of fellowship with his dismal home. Yet still his condition is the most forlorn in which the heart can be conceived clinging to existence; and we wonder what he has to dread beyond his present sojourn, or why his release from it should be unwelcome or retarded.

But here, as elsewhere, our poet's characters are so spiritedly conceived, and so skilfully opposed in their motives and interests, that out of simple circumstances, and with a very few agents, he easily and naturally winds up a problem of most interesting complexity. Philoctetes is too proud to exchange even famine and a desert for the protection of his foes: Ulysses is too crafty to face the indignant archer till he has disarmed him by fraud: Neoptolemus is too young and ambitious, and too much smitten with the glorious prospect of conquering Troy by the arrows in question, to resist being ensnared into the Ithacan's device for obtaining them, and yet too ingenuous and compassionate to persevere in the cruel treachery. His penitence, therefore, makes the artifice of his wily helpmate overshoot its mark; whilst at the same time the detected perfidy of Ulysses, by confirming Philoctetes's hatred and reluctance to return to Troy, threatens to involve the repentant and compassionate son of Achilles in a forfeiture of glory and fortune, from which we ardently long to see him delivered.

It has been absurdly alleged by some critics, that this drama interests us merely in the physical sufferings of its hero. A glance at its August 1826. VOL. XVII. NO. LXVIII.

H.

contents, however, will show, that if the poet's conception of Philoctetes had been merely that of a sufferer from bodily pain, there could have been no obstacle to his departure, and no plot in the play. What should prevent him from burying his animosity, and embracing any chance of human solace and aid, if the compromise of his pride were not worse to him than the horrors of his solitude. True it is that corporeal pain aggravates his desolation; but our interest in him is founded on perceiving that he will rather brave it and bear it, than capitulate to those whom he hates and scorns. He is a human Prometheus as to physical suffering, which time and patience, he tells us, had taught him to support. But he is the martyr of baffled hope and betrayed confidence, and our poetical sympathy is with his spiritual wounds.

The drama opens with the arrival of Ulysses and Neoptolemus on the coast of Lemnos, and with the Ithacan sending forward the son of Achilles to reconnoitre the cave of the wretched exile, after which he recalls him to communicate the scheme on which they are to act. It is, that Neoptolemus should go and beguile the ear of Philoctetes by pretending to have quarrelled with the Grecian chiefs about his father's arms, and to be returning home to his native Scyros. "Prince of Ithaca," answers the son of Achilles, "I came to help thee by force or persuasion to bring off this miserable man, but not to circumvent him by lies and fraud; and I would rather, O Prince, be foiled in our purpose with honour, than succeed by baseness." Ulysses, however, is an overmatch in argument for his honester friend. He persuades him of the public necessity for sacrificing truth, and tempts him with the honours that he shall reap as the conqueror of Troy. When he has gained him over, and still continues to urge his counsels, Neoptolemus with beautiful simplicity replies, "Be it assurance enough that I have consented," as if impatient that his truth should be distrusted, even when promising to tell a falsehood.

Neoptolemus and his attendants, who form the Chorus, go forth to find the solitary man. Their meeting is a masterly scene. The son of Achilles is playing a part deeply at variance with his noble nature; and we feel that every word which is uttered by Philoctetes must be a dagger of reproach to him. The joy of Philoctetes at seeing the garb of his country, and hearing the sound of her language-his dismal story, so circumstantially and powerfully told-his forlorn hope and eager confidence at discovering in Neoptolemus the son of his ancient friendthe grief with which he weeps before that son on being told of the death of Achilles-all the emotions of the speaker excite our sympathy, not only for himself, but for the compunction which they must awaken in Neoptolemus. The discourse of Philoctetes is also finely intermingled with inquiries about his old associates at Troy, that indicate his kindly affections still to survive, unextinguished by his wrongs and wretchedness. The rooted fellowship of humanity has not been frozen in his heart by all its hatreds. He speaks compassionately of others in the midst of imploring compassion for himself; and by this pause in the pardonable egotism of grief, the last burst of his eloquent supplication comes like an irresistible torrent, that, by delaying, had gathered weight and strength for its fall.

Having wrung from Neoptolemus an illusive promise that he will take him with him to Seyros, Philoctetes bids a farewell to his cavern, or, as he emphatically terms it, his houseless home. At this juncture a spy from Ulysses, habited as a merchant, comes up, and by alarming him with the tale of a Greek fleet being in quest of Neoptolemus, aggravates his impatience to depart. A periodical fit of his agony then comes upon him, during which he delivers his bow and arrows to Neoptolemus, and falls into a swooning slumber from the exhaustion of agony. Awakening, he leans once more on the arm of his benefactor, blesses him for his fidelity, and urges their departure. The compassionate Neoptolemus can no longer dissemble. His hesitation alarms Philoctetes, who inquires if it be the burthen of his wretchedness that distracts him.

"All is distraction when we quit ourselves

And act a part at variance with our nature"

answers the son of Achilles, who reluctantly owns that he must take him to Troy, and not to Greece. Bitter reproach and remonstrance, of course, succeed on the part of the sufferer. Of going to Troy he will not hear; but by all the ties of faith, and justice, and compassion, he conjures the restitution of his arms. The other is silent, yet apparently half touched to consent, when Ulysses suddenly breaks in, and the effect of his entrance on his irresolute friend and startled enemy may be imagined electrifying. He forbids the arms to be restored, lays hold of them himself, and directs the Chorus to seize the despairing Philoctetes when he is preparing to dash out his brains upon the rocks. Finally the Ithacan insultingly tells him that he may remain at Lemnos, if he pleases; and departs with Neoptolemus, who thus far makes no atonement for his cruelty, except directing the Chorus to remain a short time with the unhappy man. In the Chorus Philoctetes finds but indifferent comforters. When he apostrophizes the cave, where he anticipates dying by famine and the savage beasts of the earth, who may now devour him with impunity, they coldly tell him that he provokes his fate by refusing to go to Troy. At the hated word his pride rallies, and he bids them depart. But anon he prays them to return. Will he change his purpose? they inquire. No, never; but he conjures them to give him a sword, in order that he may put a period to his misery.

When even this melancholy boon is likely to be denied, Neoptolemus and Ulysses are seen coming back. The latter demands why he is summoned to return. "Because I have committed a crime which I wish to expiate," Neoptolemus replies, "and the arrows must be restored to Philoctetes." -" And dost thou not fear Greece?" Ulysses asks. "I fear neither Greece nor thee," the other rejoins, "whilst I am doing a righteous action." Swords are mutually drawn; but the Ithacan, wishing rather to live than to die for the good of his country, gives up the treasure, which Neoptolemus restores to its surprised and grateful owner.

The first use which the rightful possessor makes of his arrows, is to attempt lodging one of them in the heart of Ulysses, and he is only restrained from doing so by the powerful arm of Neoptolemus. But all the entreaties of the young chief are ineffectual to persuade Philoctetes to embark for Troy; and as the other cannot face the Greeks without him, it is evident that he must bid adieu to glory, and fly back to his native Scyros. But from this necessity he is saved by Hercules descending from heaven, and enjoining Philoctetes to join the Trojan

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