Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 71, No. 438, April 1852Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 71, No. 438, April 1852
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
of aid; sends a peasant for a blacksmith to repair the carriage; and
sits down, depressed and feverish, on the stump of a tree. Suddenly he
looks round, and recognises the scene. It is the place where, five days
before, he had had the encounter with Louis dei Franchi, and he is
anxious to leave the spot. He is met by Fabian dei Franchi, in form and
semblance so exactly similar to Louis, that it amounts almost to
identity; a similar accident has happened to his carriage. He looks
around, and he also recognises the scene presented to him in the vision.
On that intimation, and no other, he has hurried from Corsica, in search
of Chateau Renaud; he has found him here. He is calm; there is no room
for human passion in a mission so evidently laid upon him by fate. He
challenges the murderer. The challenge is refused; he twits him with his
crimes--with cowardice--with falsehood--with assassination; and the
bravo is compelled to fight. They fence long and warily; they rest by
mutual consent. In trying the sword preparatory to the next bout, it
breaks in Chateau Renaud's hand. The second declares the combat at an
end, for the weapons are unequal. "No!" said Fabian quietly, and breaks
his across his knee. They muffle their hands in their handkerchiefs, and
seize the broken weapons. The fight is renewed. One must die. Which?
They hold the fragments of their blades like daggers, point downward,
and at one lucky opening Fabian strikes the blow, and Chateau Renaud
falls unpitied, unforgiven--a sacrifice to Corsican honour. "Now I can
weep for you, dear Louis," says the conqueror, and covers his face with
his hands. Again the murdered Louis crosses the stage in the same
mysterious manner as before. The brothers recognise each other;
vengeance is obtained, and the curtain falls.
The language contained in this play would occupy about twenty minutes;
the duration of the piece is two hours. It is a ghost story put into
shape--a chapter of Mrs Radcliffe, done into _tableaux vivants_. The
company at this theatre comprises Mr and Mrs Kean, Mr Wigan, Mr Meadows,
Mr Ryder, Mr Bartley, and last, not least, Mr and Mrs Keeley. There is
not a barn in England that could not furnish quite good enough
representatives of any person in the drama. The speeches are vapid and
commonplace; the situations, as regards the development of character,
very weak; and it possesses no strength whatever but the admirable stage
management of the supernatural and the frightful verisimilitude of the
carnival ball. Are these legitimate means of support to a theatre like
this? Should the Princess's be reduced to a _salle de spectacle_--
"Where from below the trap-door demons rise,
And from above hang dangling deities?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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