I have no triumph here, and this man's fall
Is not for my advancement. Let me now,
This perturbation to subdue, retreat
Awhile to solitude and peace."

We soon see that Dunstan's was not an idle threat: the king, with Edith by his side, is approached by his jester, who, after bandying with Edgar some of his privileged comicalities, at length discloses, in a way not to be mistaken, both the deceit which had been practised on the king, and the galling fact that he has become the laughing-stock of his own court!-on which, forgetful of the presence of poor Edith, he breaks out

"Now, as I live! ere many days are past, I'll see this wife of Athelwold's! Dunstan Threw shrewd suspicions on the man, but I Was resolute to disbelieve the priest.

If he have played me false-made me his jest

The jest has dug his grave! He wins the

These two give men religion and their God,
Their faith, their hope. It is not innocence,
It is not wisdom claims the skies for man,
Or wings his soul to immortality,
Tis guilt that leads to the celestial gate,
And weeping mercy stands to open it."

The fourth act presents us with Athelwold toying with his radiant bride. She says

"You talk the sweetest wildness, Athelwold, And give the sweetest kisses therewithal, That ever lover dealt in."

Suddenly a spy of Edgar hastily enters to announce the coming of the king. Athelwold's guilty conscience begins to manifest its uneasiness; and he expresses so much apprehension as to the effect of her beauty on the king that she fondly chides him.

"I thought my lord Too proud for jealousy. Oh, were this Edgar The greatest monarch underneath the sun, Outfacing him in splendour-were he great

As were those emperors in the Roman time When emperors were gods, or like the gods In their world-government - his offered sceptre

Could not a moment shake my constant faith

To thee and to thy fortunes."
At length he is compelled to disclose
what has happened, and the love of
Elfrida is consumed in the raging
fires of her anger and mortification.
We wished to present our readers
with the scene, but have not space.
It is very masterly-at once a bold
and faithful portraiture of a female
heart, under the exquisite trial to
which it has been so suddenly ex-
posed. Her swelling heart is in
flames with defeated ambition.

"Oh! what is this to be a sceptred queen,
To wear the robe imperial, to look down
From our serene and royal eminence,
With condescending and unruffled smile,
Upon all ranks below?

(Walks to a mirror and stands before it. Fair face, you were Defrauded of your rights; these brows, methinks,

Would not have misbecome the diadem. What! over-smear with some dull muddy dye

This delicate soft cheek, efface its bloom,

Perhaps never to return? Monstrous request! A suicidal thought!"

Elfrida arrays herself in all that can add splendour to her beauty, and Edgar, on his arrival, is overwhelmed by the sight. As soon as he has recovered from the first shock, he requests her, and all others but Athelwold, to retire. Who shall deny that the king has a fearful account to settle with his faithless thane? Edgar is fierce, but not more so than the occasion warranted; Athelwold desperate, but sustained by a strong pride, under the cutting reproaches of the king; who, on Athelwold's refusing to fight with him, commits him to the custody of his attendant guards. Edgar soon introduces himself to Elfrida, who, however, is shocked by the licentious rudeness of his approaches. She fears that the king's object is to make her his mistress only, since he so readily consents to spare the life of her husband. Better thoughts return to her; her stunned fondness revives, and is quickened by remorse. seeks and obtains leave to see her husband in his prison.

She

In the last act we see Dunstan authoritatively demanding access to the imprisoned Athelwold, to whom he utters a stately exhortation to take the vows, and so receive the protection of the Church-which Athelwold sternly rejects, and Dunstan withdraws, leaving Athelwold calm, but animated by implacable resentment towards the faithless Elfrida, who had so readily surrendered him to his fate. In this humour she enters his apartment, and passionately entreats him to forgive her, and receive her again as his wife-surely a reasonable request, and one inspiring us with high sympathy for Elfrida. It is impossible to peruse this highly-drawn scene without emotion. She offers to stab the king that night, if Athelwold will but be reconciled to her. She clings to him in desperate embrace, but he repels her; on which she exclaims

"Great God! if at the day of final doom
I stand at thy tribunal to be judged
For some unheard-of crime, let this repulse,
This agony, this penitence, and shame,
This deep humiliation I have borne,
Plead in behalf of mercy!

Athelwold, however, is inexorable, and, maddened by his bitter, contemptuous reproaches, she suddenly throws open the folding-door, the guard rushes in, and Athelwold is slain. The uproar, however, brings in the king and Dunstan, who sternly attributes the murder to Elfrida.

"Dunstan. Tigress! Oh thou savage, painted fair! Thou beautiful ferocity! Dar'st thou avouch this crime? Elf.

I dare.

What is there now I would not dare? I laugh To scorn your loud and tragic railings, priest The deed is mine. Oh for still wider field Of daring deed, and wild ambitious thought, Where sense of crime in the bold act of crime Is swallowed up and lost!-Let me look on him.

Dun. (Taking her by the wrist, and leading her to the body of ATHELWOLD.) Have thy wish. Look there-simply, thou fiend-look!

Peruse it, note it well-that blood-stained cheek.

Now, go thy ways-go wheresoe'r thou wilt-
That bleeding form shall never quit thy sight;
Ay, turn aside, or close thy aching balls,
"Tis there traced out indelibly.
Elf.
It is-
And I can meet it."

Then ensues a dialogue between the murdress and the archbishop. Her calm despair is depicted with thrilling power; but, somewhat unexpectedly, she turns to Edgar, saying, "Now, Edgar, I am thine." Dunstan vehemently protests that he has not sanctioned, nor ever will sanction, a marriage under such guilty circumstances: but Edgar makes his nobles do homage on the spot to Elfrida as their queen; and while they are successively performing that act, she suddenly falters, and, pronouncing the name of Athelwold, falls with a shriek upon his dead body, and the curtain drops.

It should be mentioned that Athelwold-of course, with considerable curtailments-was represented on the stage, in Covent Garden theatre, under the auspices of Mr Macready, with great splendour and considerable

success.

III. Of Guidone the reader has already had one or two glimpses. Its dramatic action is still more feeble than that of Crichton; but it is full of beautiful poetry, alternating between strength and tenderness, and overspread with a cheerless contemplative air, that would remind one of evening sunlight shining on sepulchres, suggestive of tranquil but mournful loveliness. The author calls Guidone "a dramatic poem." Its name is derived from the leading, virtually the only, character in it— that of a noble Italian exile, brokenhearted and guilt-laden; having assisted Manfred, aspiring to be king of Naples, in the murder of his natural brother Conrad, and being afterwards betrayed and banished by the royal partner of his guilt. Guidone's only daughter, Bianca, long destined to Camillo by their respective parents, is rejected by him, because of his having formed an attachment elsewhere-to Fiorinda. Camillo is a pensive, contemplative youth, shut out, since his youth, from the great world, and rendered unfit for it. Instigated by the Pope, the Count of Anjou makes himself in his extremity to Guidone, war upon Manfred, who betakes who retains great military power. Both Manfred, indeed, and the Count of Anjou, by turns solicit his aid

against each other, but in vain: he is deadened in heart to the world, and will interfere no more in its concerns. Manfred is slain, and the Count of Anjou mounts the throne. Bianca's grief and broken-heartedness are presented to us as though we beheld a lovely flower crushed under foot, and in death exhaling sweetness. The moody mind of the bereaved and woe-stricken Guidone is soothed by turns by two visitorsa hermit and a minstrel-introduced simply as ethical contrasts, to exhibit different views of life and feeling. The poem ends with a gloomy soliloquy of Guidone, on hearing of the triumphant entry of the Count of Anjou into Naples. The moral of the poem is to be found in these few lines, uttered by the hermit to assuage the remorse of Guidone :-

"As guilt brings terror on the soul of man, So calm returns with penitence - which

clothes

Now kneeling at her side, withheld the hand That should have put them back."

Such are the three "dramas" before us. They are well calculated to serve the purposes of men of dramatic genius, disposed to exercise their own powers in constructing the professed drama, or the novel, or romance. They wil teach, on the one hand, the consequences of imperfect dramatic structure, of languid action; but, on the other, they give out in every direction mably valuable to vivid and creative bright sparks of suggestion, inestigenius, principally indicative of novel contrasts and combinations of character, as well as unhackneyed situations for exhibiting them effectively. No one could have written these dramas who had not read extensively, thought deeply, and been, at the same time, a man of refined and original mind, exquisitely sensitive of the beautiful, the tender, the true, and capable of expressing his thoughts in language. at once exact, free, and, when the occasion required it, picturesque. Mr Smith's conceptions are always clear

C

as crystal: it is evident that he sees his own way with unwavering distinctness, and contrives to take his educated reader along with him. That companion, however, he continually delights and surprises, by, as it were, dropping at his feet rich pearls of thought which he must fain stop to pick up, to admire, and determine on treasuring; but he forgets, the while, that both profess to have set out upon a journey, and are like to be benighted, or lose their way, or forget their errand. On casting over, at the close of one of these plays, the course of thought which they have suggested, one beholds the slight vehicle of plot, of incident, of character, already melted out of sight, but leaving, in all its distinctness and entirety, the poetical and philosophical spirit which it had conveyed. And, in fact, to deal justly by the author, this seems to have been very nearly his professed object, which we shall explain in his own words. "In writing Sir William Crichton, and also its predecessor Athelwold, the author addressed himself immediately to the reader-and it was his ambition to be read: but, at the same time, he has been disposed to think that both these dramas, after the curtailment of certain parts manifestly of too reflective a character" that is, in one word, after pulling down the building, but leaving the scaffolding-" would perhaps be found not ill-adapted for the stage. Guidone is strictly the dramatic poem, and was written without even this secondary, or the most remote, reference to the theatre. It aims at exhibiting rather states of mind"-here is supplied a true key to the whole of this volume "than individual character, and pretends to no interest of plot or story." The delineation of states of mind rather than individual character, and the subordination of action to reflection, constitute at once the distinguishing delights and the excellence of this author; and he seems to be aware of it, yet unable to forego a secret yearning for the visible embodiment of his musings upon the stage, linked with

a secret suspicion that it might be ineffective.

There is yet another poem to be noticed in this little volume-the last, entitled Solitude: it is short, but full of beauty, and exhibiting occasionally very subtle thought. If any one were to commence the perusal of this volume with the poem in question, which stands in it last, he would find, in coming to the dramas, that he had gained a very clear insight into the mind and character of the author; that of a man of refined and sensitive mind of speculation rather than action, of a melancholy turn, and long habituated to solitary observation and reflection. Did he write thus, with a sigh ?—

"My thread of life stands still, And the tired fate forgets the sluggish wheel, And drops her song. Becalmed, yet anchored not,

No breath of heaven of all the winds that blow, Visits my flagging canvass ;-never mine The stir, the chase, the battle, and the prize."

We must, however, draw to a close. These dramas, though they have not hitherto made any noise in the world, and have come in a measure accidentally under our notice, we think entitled to take high rank iu literature. They are manifestly the production of a man of genius, and a well-trained thinker on moral and metaphysical subjects; some of the most difficult and perplexing points in which will be found touched in these poems with the delicate yet decisive touch of a masterly familiarity. We have afforded many illustrations of this in the foregoing extracts, which we could easily have extended. It is delightful to read, to hang over an author, in these days of superficiality, slovenliness, and vulgar mannerism, who does not meditate in order to come before the public, but comes before the public because he has meditated that which he believes worthy of their attention. In the present case, we have reason to know that the gentleman who has shown himself so capable of high excellence in poetry is himself an acute and accomplished critic.

TWENTY-SEVEN years ago-when children's books were rare presents, and so were prized, and read, and read again, until the very position of the paragraphs was known by heartI had a little volume given to me at the Soho bazaar, called The Peasants of Chamouni, which told, in a very truthful manner, the sad story of Dr Hamel's fatal attempt to reach the summit of Mout Blanc in 1820. I dare say that it has long been out of print; but I have still my own old copy by me, and I find it was published by Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, in 1823.

My notions of the Alps at that time were very limited. We had a rise near our village called St Anne's Hill, from which it was fabled that the dome of St Paul's had once been seen with a telescope, at a distance of some sixteen or seventeen miles, as the crow flew and its summit was the only high ground I had ever stood upon. Knowing no more than this, the little book, which I have said had a great air of truth about it, made a deep impression on me: I do not think that The Pilgrim's Progress stood in higher favour. And this impression lasted from year to year. Always devouring the details of any work that touched upon the subject, I at length got a very fair idea, topographical and general, of the Alps. A kind friend gave me an old four-volume edition of de Saussure; and my earliest efforts in French were endeavours to translate this work. I read the adventures of Captain Sherwill and Dr Clarke in the magazines of our local institution; and finally I got up a small moving panorama of the horrors pertaining to Mont Blanc from Mr Auldjo's narrative-the best of all that I have read; and this I so painted up and exaggerated in my enthusiasm, that my little sister who was my only audience, but a most admirable one, for she cared not how often I exhibited-would become quite pale with fright.

Time went on, and in 1838 I was entered as a pupil to the Hôtel Dieu,

at Paris. My first love of the Alps had not faded; and when the vacances came in September, with twelve pounds in my pocket, and an old soldier's knapsack on my back, (bought in a dirty street of the Quartier Latin for two or three francs,) I started from Paris for Chamouni, with another equally humbly-appointed fellow student, now assistant-surgeon in the-th Hussars.

It was very late one evening when I arrived at the little village of Sallenches, in Savoy-then a cluster of the humblest chalets, and not as now, since the conflagration, a promising town-very footsore and dusty. At the door of the inn I met old Victor Tairraz, who then kept the Hôtel de Londres at Chamouni, and was the father of the three brothers who now conduct it-one as maître, the second as cook, and the third as head waiter. He hoped when I arrived at Chamouni that I would come to his house; and he gave me a printed card of his prices, with a view of the establishment at the top of it, in which every possible peak of the Mont Blanc chain that could be selected from all points of the compass was collected into one aspect, supposed to be the view from all the bed-room windows of the establishment, in front, at the back, and on either side. I was annoyed at this card; for I could not reconcile, at that golden time, my early dreams of the valley of Chamouni with the ordinary business of a Star - andGarter-like hotel.

I well remember what a night of expectation I passed, reflecting that on the early morrow I should see Mont Blanc with my own practical eyes. When I got out of my bed the next morning-I cannot say "awoke," for I do not think I slept more than I should have done in the third class of a long night train-I went to the window, and the first view I had of the Mont Blanc range burst on me suddenly, through the mist-that wondrous breath-checking coup d'œil, which we all must rave about when we have seen it for the first time