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Short absence, to Tortona: there the smile
That ever met me,

Arm'd with new sting the viper at my heart.
I had less keenly suffer'd, had reproof
Scowl'd at my entrance: it was never so.

But oh! the curse! while Agnes clasp'd my neck,
My thought was of another! on a day,
When annual feast and revels rous'd Tortona,
In honour of our nuptials: as the pomp
Mov'd on, the Countess radiant at my side,
Forth rush'd the Banueret; yet, yet, I hear him.
'Traitor! receive from him who. sav'd thy life

Fit meed for guilt like thine: he spoke and struck me,
Struck me, Novara's daughter by my side.
Then my swift steel-

Pro.

I thought

Alf. [interrupting him.] "Twas there he fell,

But died in Ellen's arms: and his last breath
Bound her to break the tie that link'd her soul
To perjury and murder. I return'd:

At sight of me, for still our hearts were one,

Her woe to frenzy rose. That time this hand

Aim'd at my life: Heav'n will'd not so my death:

Tho' rumour widely spread it," &c. &c.

There is some good and touching poetry in the softened melancholy of Ellen's disorder; but our limits compel us to abstain from transcribing any part of it.

The Confession is also published in a separate form, for representation; though we did not see it, till after the preceding observations were written. On perusing it, we are compelled to retract much of the praise we have bestowed. Mr. S. has so defaced his literary offspring, as to create a suspicion, that he acts under the control of some judgment less correct than his own, but of more influence in the greenroom. In the alteration, the death-bed interview and the description of Ellen's disorder, are entirely lost; and her imaginative address to the scenes of her early childhood, which we considered interesting, as it resulted from the indelible impression left on the heart and the fancy by remote experience, is impaired in spirit, when given as the mere effect of immediate and renewed sensation. The recognition of the two wives and their husband takes place after the rescue from the assassins: Julian, as before, receives the forgiveness of both; but Ellen and the Count are respectively the victims of emotion, combined with the wounds and agitation of the past conflict.

Orestes comes next under notice. Our dramatic writers now seldom lay their scene on classic ground; but, notwith

standing our fondness for our native romantic drama, we confess that we should not be displeased, if those impressive and engaging themes, whose value and beauty have not been superseded by the revolution of ages, were sometimes to exercise our maturer faculties after employing the period of our childhood. The chief events of this play are the same as those in the Electra of Sophocles; and it ends with the death of Clytemnestra. The story of Orestes has, of course, too much horror for the stage; but, speaking in reference to the perusal, we are of opinion that Mr. Sotheby has used his materials with judgment. He has mitigated the harshness of Clytemnestra with some traits of reluctant repentance; and by depicting Orestes as averse to the dire retribution, he has finely heightened the awefulness of his situation, by subjecting him to a foreknowledge of the horrors to which he was doomed, in consequence of an act imperiously enjoined on him, under a still stronger anathema. The author has at last made Orestes rather the instrument than the perpetrator of Clytemnestra's death..

"Cly.

A death-groan strikes my ear-
What's this which bars my way? it is the robe

Which tangled him-there's one that stirs beneath:

And blood, warm blood, spouts thro' the heaving folds

Egis. [faintly.] Fly-I am slain-Orestes' dagger pierc'd meHe is the stranger-fly.

The dies.

[As she attempts to fly, Orestes seizes her with one hand, with

Cly.

the other holds the dagger over her.
grasps me?

What chill hand

Ores. Thou must not live

Cly.
Spare me my son! my son!
Strike not this breast that nurtur'd thee! have pity-
My son! my son! have pity on thy mother-

Ores. [turns his face away. I cannot wound her.

[the voice that spoke at the tomb.
Vengeance! vengeance! vengeance!"
Cly. [shrieks.] Oh! 'tis Atrides' voice-there is no hope-
Thus-thus-my arm shall aid thy lingering blow.

[seizes his arm, and rushes on the dagger.
[The curtain falls??

We

Having completed our progress through these tragedies, a few general remarks seem to be due to their author. His principal fault is the rage for striking situations and catastrophes, with a want of consistency in effecting them. well know that "le vrai n'est pas toujours vraisemblable:" we do not expect that either great events or characters should be common; but we must always demand, that mo

tives be sufficiently powerful to operate the ascribed results. The termination of Darnley is very uncouth; and we have hinted at a similar defect in Ivan. There is the same failure of likelihood in Zamorin resigning himself a hostage to the Spaniards, and in the conditions represented to actuate him. We acknowledge that we do not, upon the whole, consider these works as discovering a profound knowledge of human nature, or a powerful control over the emotions of the heart; but they do credit to the amiable feelings of the writer, his general resources of language, and loveliness of fancy. His style has enough of poetic idiom; but it is wanting in graceful and prevailing ease. Blank verse, notwithstanding its apparent obviousness, requires the hand of a master to manage its variabilities with full and apposite effect. The tragedies of Mr. Sotheby are better calculated to win upon the affections than to move the passions by storm; and, taken altogether, are not unworthy of a tasteful and cultivated age, which has both feeling to prize, and talent respectfully to emulate the superior and standard models of dramatic composition.

ART. IX.-Researches into the History of Playing-Cards; with Illustrations of the Origin of Printing and Engraving on Wood. By SAM. WELLER SINGER. 4to. pp. 373. 4 gs. Triphook, 1816.

KINGS, queens, and knaves, the deuce, clubs, and all hearts, seem interested in this subject. The gravest men and the gayest ladies are equally devoted to these pastimes; and, though inordinately, without feeling or expressing shame. Pope, who contends that the latter have "no character at all," admits them to have this prominent feature of distinction

"A youth of folly, an old age of cards."

But they are ill-used by the satirist, who might have recollected their attachment to Whist; an attachment singularly honourable to them, as that pastime requires serious attention, and during the game not a word must be said. This idleness in them is venial indeed, when compared with that of men, (who have higher destinies to fulfil,) as we find it

"Whist, or the silent game."-Complete Gamester, 1739, p. 194.

described by Sir-J. Harrington, in his Treatise on Playe, 1597

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what beto tell you "I will leave to the divines," says our knight, came of them that did eate and drinke, and rose up agayn to play. Lett us but morally and civilly (as I may say) lay before us an exampell of some one, of which there is too great a choyse, that spendes his whole life in play. As thus, for example; in the morninge, perhapps, at chesse; and, after his belly is full, then at cardes; and, when his sperites wax dull at that, then for some exercyse of his armes at dyce; and being weary thearof, for a little motion of his body, to tennis; and having warm'd him at that, then, to coole himselfe a little, play at tables (backgammon); and being disquieted in his patience for overseeing synk (cinque) and quater, or missing two or three fowle blottes, then to an interlude; and so (as one well compared it) lyke to a mill-horse, treddinge alwayes in the same stepps, be ever as far from a worthy and wise man as the circle is from the center. Would not one swear this were a marvellows idle fellow ?"-See Nuga Antiqua.

For these Sir John hints at "holy virtuous pastymes, which bee advised, such as singing salmes, and himms, and spiritual songs;" but of this idleness * (without profaneness be it said) we have too much. A far worse class of players might be noticed, with whom sine quæstu friget lusus; but as we have to do with the things used, and not with their users or abusers, it is time to leave off play and go to work.

A quarto on playing-cards may appear at first to be something like an attempt to anatomise a butterfly, and it may be called in tenui labor-at tenuis non gloria, as it respects our learned and very ingenious author. The fact is, that the subject, with all its bearings, is so handled as to be very likely to occasion great disappointment in those whose studies have been bounded by Hoyle or Bob Short, while it will amuse, gratify, and instruct, even to surprise, such as lend their minds to curious and interesting research.

It is impossible for us to go minutely into the various branches and merits of this volume. We shall therefore be obliged to do it the injustice to take a superficial view of the contents and information of the three sections, of which it is composed.

The first section is devoted to the origin of cards. The principal novelty consists in the specimens of Oriental cards, and in the opinions built upon them. Mr. Singer (p. 13) very satisfactorily disproves the assertion of Count de Gebelin, that cards were in use among the Egyptians, in the

Viz. Exemption from the militia, &c.

seventh century before our present era, and, at page 17, reasonably infers from his premises, that

"The game at cards, like the game at chess, travelled from India to the Arabians; particularly as it seems that the Gipsies were originally Indians, driven from their country; and as they traversed the north of Asia and Africa before they reached Europe, introduced the game of cards into those countries, from whence it passed over to Europe long before them. What were the objects represented on the Oriental cards, or the games played with them, at their first introduction into Europe, we have now no means of ascertaining; but we may presume that they were not very remotely different from the old Italian and Spanish cards, and the four suits, spade (swords), coppe (cups), denari (money), and bastone (clubs), adopted both by the Italians and Spaniards, were probably the suits of the Eastern game, as some of these objects are still retained in their modern cards."

Now, says Mr. S. "if the conjecture here thrown out, of the Oriental origin of cards, and their derivation from chess, be allowed to have much probability, there can be no doubt but that it would be possible to establish it more fully by directing inquiries among the intelligent natives of the East, or by an examination of their writers, from both of which sources we have been unable to derive any of our evidence."-pp. 69, 70, 104.

He proceeds to say, at p. 20, that, from the whole of the evidence before us, we have only a probability that cards were known in England soon after the second crusade, at the latter end of the thirteenth century. We have, however, certain proof that they were known here at least for some time previous to 1464; but whether we obtained them, in common with our neighbours from the East, or received them from the Spaniards, Italians, or French, remains to be proved. It is very probable they were not in common use at their first introduction, but confined to the court and the houses of the great; it is ascertained, however, that they were very generally known here early in the fifteenth century, and then played by the idle of all classes.

The cause of the European change in the suits is explained on the supposition that the original Eastern cards represented allegorically the orders or ranks of society, and that the Europeans had the same object in view in the representations upon theirs. Thus the suits on the Italian and Spanish cards have been said to signify by spade, or swords, the nobility; coppe, cups or chalices, the clergy; denari, money, the citizens; bastoni, clubs or sticks, the peasantry. The French suits have also been illustrated in the same manner; the analogy appears striking, and the deduction replete with ingenuity. Pique, it has been supposed, was intended for the point of a lance or pike, used by knights in their justs, and therefore represents the first order, or

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