and all that was said was contradicted by the very extracts, which, without forfeiting every pretension to fairness, it was found absolutely impossible to keep back. The whole brunt of the reviewer's eloquence was directed against the principles laid down by our authoress in her Preliminary Discourse-against the scheme which she had in viewand against the end which she proposed in its execution. As we have never heard the name of Joanna Baillie mentioned in society, without hearing the repetition of some of the objections that were then raised against her works, we will briefly suggest an answer to them.

The principle laid down by our authoress in her Preliminary Discourse is, that truth of character is the paramount source of the interest that we derive from dramatic compositions. This has been disputed. We will not enter upon the arguments of objection, because we conceive that a moment's consideration will prove to any unprejudiced reader that Johanna Baillie is right, without putting him to the intellectual trouble of deciding a controversy. It will not, we presume, be doubted, that true and fictitious narratives move us on the same principles. And, in the ordinary course of private life, why are we more pleased with the success of one man than another, but from our previous knowledge of their moral qualities. Why are we so differently affected by hearing of the reverses of the honest or the dishonest, of the prudent or the careless, but that in one case our natural sense of justice commiserates an undeserved affliction, and in the other calmly contemplates a well-merited punishment. Why, while we read with the most complete indifference of the death of the vicious, do we feel our souls awakened into immediate sympathy with the fate of the virtuous, but that character is the powerful instrument in acting on the affections. We place the principle insisted on in this form, because it has been asked, whether interest of situation is not an equally effective means of exciting the emotions of the heart? To this we unhesitatingly answer, that it certainly is not; that situation of itself is nothing; that the most complicated scene of distress only becomes interesting when we are informed of the dispositions and habits of the persons; and that its

effect is augmented or diminished, in proportion as their dispositions are amiable or repulsive, or as their previous habits have rendered them easily susceptible to the stings of sorrow, or have prepared them for contending with it. If it were not so-if it were not that the expression of character formed the main principle of the interest which we receive from the works of art, in every department of art—the living busts of Chantry would attract as little of our regard as the symmetrical heads in the windows of the perruquier, the speaking portraits of Reynolds would fatigue the eye, like the flat delineations of Kneller,-and the finest scenes of Shakspeare would touch the heart as little as the gesticulations of a pantomime. But, according to Joanna Baillie, this principle extends still farther. It is not only that the just representation of character forms the soul of the drama, but it is also a propensity to investigate the workings of the human heart that conducts u sto the theatre. Whether

our greatest dramatic authors had each, for himself, discovered the truth of this theory, and concealed it as a mystery of art, or whether they acted upon it from an intuitive impulse of their talents, without entering into any philosophical consideration on the subject, it is now impossible to determine; but that they have written as if they entertained the same convictions with our great modern tragic writer, is perfectly undeniable. They have been so persuaded, that if they could present the audience with a strong and consistent portraiture of the workings of the human mind, they should have gratified the expectations by which they were collected within the walls of the theatre, that we find Ben Jonson, Massinger, Moliere, and Shakspeare, -not to mention a multitude of inferior names,-each founding the subject of many of their plays on the developement of a single character; framing the plot so as more effectively to disclose the peculiar properties with which they had conceived it; setting aside all other means of interesting the affections; and confidently assured, that, if their task were adequately achieved, they might rely, for the certain success of their production, on that "strong sympathy which most creatures, but the human above all, feel for others of their kind; and from

which nothing has become so much an object of man's curiosity as man himself."*

It is also a strong corroboration of Joanna Baillie's theory, that the plays so formed, though their respective authors may have written others infinitely more striking in dramatic effect, or pathetic situation, have been among the most popular of their works; and that audiences are as readily collected to contemplate the fraudulent machinations of Volpone-to detect the grasping passions that swayed in the bosom of Sir Giles Overreach-to survey the guilt, and await the unmasking of the Tartuffe or to trace the ambitious cunning by which Richard of Gloucester raised himself to a tottering and a short-lived throne, as to assist at the exhibition of those pieces which are more intrinsically pathe tic-which have a more powerful command over the light sensations and deep emotions of the soul; and which shake us with louder bursts of laughter, or swell the breast with stronger throes of sensibility. It certainly appears to us, that Joanna Baillie has discovered the true origin of our interest in the Drama. Plays seem to be effective, or otherwise, exactly in proportion as they have, or have not, been composed in coincidence with those principles to which she has recalled the observation of her cotemporaries, and by which her great predecessors appear to have been successively actuated. From admitting the truth of her principles, we must necessarily admit, that in making each passion the subject of a separate play, she has directed her talents to an object legitimately dramatic; for, if the developement of a single character be sufficient to sustain the interest of an audience, with only such accessary circumstances as are required to excite and illustrate its qualities, there can be no doubt but such a character, displayed under the influence of a grow ing passion, by which all others are gradually over-mastered and absorbed, and which the author has placed in situations skilfully designed to call forth its attributes, to shew its extent and bearing, and to evince the malignity of its consequences, would be as much more powerful, as the means em

ployed are of a more impressive and exciting nature. That the metaphysical exposure of the operations of a single passion in a course of dramatic action, is among the legitimate objects of dramatic talent, may be discovered by the very names which have been selected by some of our popular playwriters as attractive titles for their works. What other promise was held out to collect an audience when Young, and Fielding, and Coleridge, gave to their several productions the names of The Revenge-The Miser-and The Remorse?

We are almost afraid lest we may have made this part of the defence of Joanna Baillie against the objections of those who have sought to depreciate her labours too evident-we fear lest we should seem to be defending what none could have had the temerity to oppose; we can only say, that we should not have thought it necessary to fatigue our readers with the repetition of such truisms, if the attempt to diminish the celebrity of our authoress, had not been made by attacking those very principles which only require to be stated to be admitted as axioms in dramatic criticism. We shall say a very few words upon our authoress's scheme of composing a tragedy and comedy on each passion of the mind. It must be immediately perceived, that any objections against such a design, can have no real bearing on the plays themselves. It is like casting aside the pearls of price, to vent our spleen upon the petty thread that strings them. But, wholly irrelevant as the question is to the merits of the plays themselves, it does appear to us that such a collection would make a very valuable supplement to the library both of the moralist and the metaphysician-that it was one very likely to have been formed by selec tions from the works of various authors, and that it cannot possibly be the worse for being executed by the hand of an individual. All that really bears against the grand and extensive scheme of our authoress, would be just as appropriate to a work collected from those writings of our best dramatists, which most skilfully elucidate the operations of the different passions; and in which Romeo and Juliet, and

The Wonder, might have been given as exhibiting the force of love in its tragic and its comic situations; while Othello and The Jealous Wife were produced as exemplifying the mournful and the ridiculous effects of Jealousy. It has been said, that the scheme is impracticable. We have been told of the absurdity of writing "Tragedies on Hope and Joy, and Comedies on Hatred and Revenge."* On Joy, there was no necessity to attempt a tragedy. It was only with the permanent dispositions of the mind that Joanna Baillie had proposed to occupy her talents, and she had expressly stated that Joy and Anger were excluded from her plan, as being the results of the gratification or the irritation of those deeper affections which her scheme was designed to embrace. But why should any critic attempt to limit the powers of the human mind, or measure the extent of another man's capacities, by the narrow limits of his own imagination? On Joy a very powerful and affecting tragedy might be written. Under certain circumstances it is a passion eminently pathetic. The scene in Douglas, which discovers to Lady Randolph the existence of her lost child, might have formed a principal scene of such a drama. Would it be difficult to devise a tale of sorrow, leading on through deeper and more deep distresses, which the sufferer hinself imagines to be inevitable; the agency of kind friends is secretly working for his deliverance the spectator is interested in the uncertainty of the event-the good arrives; and the sudden revulsion from sorrow to unexpected joy, is the thrilling pang of death. With respect to a tragedy on Hope-which has also been declared impracticable we can scarcely conceive a more exquisite subject for that sweet, and touching, and domestic interest, which was excited by the muse of Heywood, than the mild and gentle temperament of a hopeful man, bearing up against the accumulation of evil-wronged by those he trusted, but still unsuspicious of those who had not yet deceived him; injured in his most dear affections, but only attaching himself with a closer love and more reposing confidence to those that remained;-and,

when fortune and fame, and friendship and love, had left him, still wringing tears from the spectators, by the charm of his unmerited affliction by the mild accents of his religious resignation, by the expressions of sincere forgiveness to the foes that had wronged and the friends that had deserted him, and with the native spirit of his soul enduring to the last, sinking into the arms of death, amid the beatific visions of religious hope. We are aware that such a drama would afford no opportunity for the starts and rants and melo-dramatic extravagancies of Messrs Kean and Macready; but it might make the subject of such a play as The Woman killed with Kindness-a play that was sufficiently effective to move the stoutest hearts of our ancestors, in those good old times when the theatres were small enough for the business of the scene to be heard and understood. It is said that comedies cannot be written on Hatred and Revenge-Nonsense! The bad and violent passions are only grand as long as they are terrific:-They are mean the moment their effects cease to be fearful, and when baffled; they evince their real littleness, and become ridiculous, the moment they fail of being sublime.

The end which Joanna Baillie proposed to herself in undertaking this laborious work, was to warn the mind against the access of passion-to disclose to our observation the progress of the enemy, and to point out those stages in his approach, where he might most successfully be combated, and where the suffering him to pass may be considered as occasioning all the misery that ensues :-This is an object worthy of the exalted talents which were dedicated to its accomplishment, and, if the moral influence attributed to theatrical representations be as powerful as has been ascribed to them by every individual who has treated of the subject from the days of Aristotle to our own, the object was rationally pursued. But, though it had always been conceived that the very object of the drama was to inform the public mind, by addressing its affections-though the instructions communicated from the stage have been always considered as so effective, that

every country has found it necessary to establish a controlling superintendance to regulate the exhibitions of the theatre, lest by their means the multitude should be imbued with injurious sentiments, or violently excited to sudden tumults and insurrections yet, that a female's genius might be impugned, or an attractive article produced, or a paradox ingeniously defended, the authority of all preceding times, and the experience of all the nations of Europe, have been encountered by the bold assertion, that plays have no moral effect at all." They are seen and read," says the reviewer of the Plays on the Passions, "for amusement or curiosity only; and the study of them forms so small a part of the occupation of any individual, that it is altogether fantastical to ascribe to them any sensible effect in the formation of character." If this be true, under how strange a delusion has the world been labouring! The observation, of course, equally extends to all works of fiction that are designed to instruct the understanding, and to refine the heart, by the force of imaginary examples:-It extends, perhaps, even to history itself, which, according to Bolingbroke, is but philosophy teaching by examples. But we cannot consent, on the mere unsupported assertion of any individual, to suppose that all former poets, and philosophers, and legislators, have been deceived-that so many highly gifted intellects have dissipated their faculties on superfluous efforts; and that there is no other result to be expected from witnessing Macbeth, or Othello, than the reproach of having misemployed the hours which were occupied by the performance.

Such plays as these address to the reflecting mind a grand and important moral. They appeal to us in the form by which mankind are most willingly instructed-Pauci prudentia, honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis, discernunt; plures aliorum eventis docentur : Such was the opinion of Tacitus; and whether the example is contemplated in the events of real life, or the representations of the stage-in the page of biography, or of the moral tale, as far as our own observation and ex

perience can be trusted on such a subject, we should say that it made very little difference in the strength or the permanency of the impression produced. All men willingly coincide in opinion with respect to the evil effected by the immoralities of the stage; because they come in a shape that cannot be contradicted. We acknowledge the force of its agency, when we hear of troops of young men forming themselves into bands of freebooters, seduced by the malignant influence of Schiller's Robbers-or of the night offences in our own streets being more than doubled during the representation of a late popular burletta at a minor theatre. These consequences are admitted, because they cannot be denied; and the conviction to be derived from them is this:-that the theatre is indeed a very powerful instrument both of evil and of good-of evil, when the exhibitions are of an immoralof good, when the exhibitions are of a moral tendency; and from the evil which is seen, we may fairly presume the existence of that good, which, from the very circumstances of the case, must necessarily be concealed among the secrets of a man's own mind, and impervious to another's observation. We read the confessions of the man who is converted from honesty to vice by the gay profligacy of Macheath; but we never can be informed of the secret reformations, and of the many families who have been saved from ruin by the timely admonition of the fate of Beverley. To say that "plays have no sensible effect, because they are only seen and read for amusement or curiosity"-is as perfect a non sequitur as ever disgraced the pages of criticism. It has always been considered as their highest recommendation, that they instruct by pleasing. The mind is, as it were, self-taught by the reflections awakened as the scene proceeds, without being wearied by the dry discussion of abstract questions of ethics; and the affections, deeply touched, retain an apprehension of the horrors and consequences of guilt, which could never have been inspired by the cold and systematic precepts of the moral philosopher.

The reflections into which we have

been led are absolutely due, as an act of justice, to the literary reputation of the distinguished writer, of whose works we shall now proceed to give some account, and lay some specimens before our readers.

The first of Joanna Baillie's productions was the tragedy of Basil. A young and victorious General, hastening to unite his forces to those of Francis the First, previous to the battle of Pavia, is detained by the artifices of the Duke of Mantua and his minister, who successfully work upon his passion for the Princess Victoria. While he is hesitating between his love and his duty, the news of the defeat of Francis arrives; and, overwhelmed by the sense of the calamity which the arrival of his reinforcements might have prevented, and by the recollection of the ignominious motives to which his absence might be attributed, he seeks from his own hand the conclusion of his life, his love, and his disgrace. The characters of this play are most skilfully delineated. The generous, the noble, and love-betrayed Basil; the honest and good-natured Rosenberg;-the envious Frederic; the mean spirit of the Machiavellian policy, exposed to deserved contempt, in the persons of the narrow-minded Duke of Mantua and his more crafty minister;-the high-principled Albini ;-the petted cunning of the child Mirando; and above all, Victoria-the beautiful, vain, playful Princess Victoria, form altogether a group so forcibly depicted, and so skilfully assorted and diversified, that it is only in the volumes of Shakespeare that we could have any chance of discovering its equal. The charm of language which enriches this tragedy, may be estimated by the following sweetly modulated lines, which will remind the reader, who is familiar with our elder dramatists, of many passages of theirs, with which it may boldly challenge a comparison.

Victoria. Nay, speak not thus, Albini, speak not thus

Of little, blue-eyed, sweet, fair-hair'd Mirando :

He is the orphan of a hapless pair,
A loving, beautiful, but hapless pair,
Whose story is so pleasing and so sad,
The swains have turn'd it to a plaintive
lay,

And sing it as they tend their mountain sheep.

Besides, I am the guardian of his choice;

Time.

Time never bears such moments on his wing,

As when he flies too swiftly to be marked.
A Summer Cloud.
As though an angel in his upward flight,
Had left his mantle floating in mid air.

Such are the inferior gems which are cast off involuntarily from her pen, and give a life and brightness to the progress of her story.

As it is our intention to give a series of scenes from Ethwald, which shall, at the same time, afford a just specimen of the talents of the author, and contain the interest of a dramatic story, we shall not be able to afford any room for extracts. But we would particularly direct the attention of the reader to the scene of the meeting, and to the scene between Basil and Victoria in the grove, in the fourth act. It has always astonished us, that Basil should never have been produced upon the stage. It is as striking in situation and character as any tragedy can possibly be, without forfeiting all pretensions to an imitation of nature, and degenerating into melo-drame. And if the authoress had anticipated that perfection in his art which has been achieved by the study and the talents of Charles Kemble, she could not have devised a part better calculated for the display of that manly tenderness and generous intrepidity which he so admirably personifies. By the by, the Edinburgh Reviewer has said, that there was nothing culpable in Basil's passion for the Princess Victoria. Surely this is bad morality. To a certain degree, vice and folly are commensurate, and he who surrenders up his heart to an attachment, which, from the very circumstances of his situation, must be hopeless, consents to all the evil to himself and others, which so unblest