an artist whose personal worth might grace any profession or rank, and who, in seeking to dissipate the languor which has crept over the general heart in reference to the stage, at the sacrifice of his own health and ease, and the risk of his well-earned fortune, has had the virtue and the courage to cast away all vicious appliances, and to discourage every blandishment except those by which Art embodies the conceptions of Genius. To Covent Garden Theatre the sternest moralist may now conduct those whose moral nurture he regards as his most anxious and most delightful duty, without fear lest their minds should be diverted from the blameless gaieties or noble passion of the scene by intrusive suggestions of vice, which he would screen, as far as possible, from their thoughts.* If, indeed, dramatic representation itself is essentially evil; if it is a crime to render historic truths more vivid by calling forth its august figures from the depth of time and the silence of books, 'in their habits as they lived;' if it is a sin to displace the vapidity of conversation, revolving in its own small circle of personal experiences, by presenting the genial eccentricities of character to be at once laughed at and loved, and imagining the graces of society without its bitterness; if it is an offence against the Beneficent Author of our Being, 'to hold a mirror up' to the nature he has moulded, in which its grandest and its fairest

*The effort which, at the time when these remarks were written, was in progress at Covent Garden Theatre, has since been repeated at Drury Lane Theatre, at a more costly sacrifice, and with more perfect success. If the loss nightly incurred by the extinction of those temptations to profligacy, which used to insure a receipt at second price, amounting in the course of the season to a large sum, was not compensated by the attendance of many who have shunned the theatre on the plea of their existence, it has at least conclusively shown that there is no inevitable connection between the blandishments which relax and pervert the heart of youth and the images of action and suffering which enrich it-and that consciousness is doubtless its own reward.

varieties shall be reflected in the happiest combinations, as that choicest of all His human works—a poet's soulhas cast them; the attempts to remove from the magic glass all external impurities must be fruitless. But if there are those who, while they hold the faith and morals of Milton, are not afraid to accept his precept and to follow his example, I would entreat of them to assist the lessee of a great national theatre in his generous struggle to rescue the stage from the pollutions which have too long debased it. I urge this on them thus earnestly, because in proportion as the dissipated and frivolous have withdrawn from this intellectual enjoyment, it becomes their province to sustain it; because I firmly believe that its maintenance is most important to the expansion of all that is social, and to the nurture of all that is great within us; because I deem it—not as an instructor in the way of direct moral invitation or purpose-but as dissolving the crust of selfishness which daily cares and labours gradually form about the kindest hearts—as softening the pride of conventional virtue, and bringing the outcasts of humanity within its sphere; and as combining all the picturesque varieties which external distinctions present with the sense of the noble equality which lies beneath them. If the introduction of this Drama to the notice of some who have hitherto abstained from visiting the theatre by objection to extrinsic circumstances, should induce them to enjoy the representation of plays of far deeper sentiment and far more vivid passion, it will not have been written nor acted in vain.

LONDON, 14th November, 1837.

THE TIME of the Action is comprised in one day and night, and the following morning.

ION;

A TRAGEDY.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-The Interior of the Temple of Apollo, which is supposed to be placed on a rocky eminence. Early morning. The interior lighted by a single lamp suspended from the roof. AGENOR resting against a column ;-IRUS seated on a bench at the side of the scene.

AGENOR comes forward and speaks.

Age. WILL the dawn never visit us? These hours
Toil heavy with the unresting curse they bear
To do the work of desolating years!

All distant sounds are hush'd ;-the shriek of death
And the survivors' wail are now unheard,
As grief had worn itself to patience. Irus!
I'm loth so soon to break thy scanty rest,
But my heart sickens for the tardy morn;
Is it not breaking ?-speed and look-yet hold,
Know'st thou the fearful shelf of rock that hangs
Above the encroaching waves, the loftiest point
That stretches eastward?

Irus.

Know it? O full well!

There often have I bless'd the opening day,
Which thy free kindness gave me leave to waste
In happy wandering through the forests.

Age.
Thou art not then afraid to tread it; there
The earliest streak from the unrisen sun

Well,