International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 8, August 19, 1850 — John Shaqi
International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 8, August 19, 1850Various
Science
International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 8, August 19, 1850
Various
Art -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
The _Examiner_, for July 20, contains an elaborate review, with
numerous extracts, of a play just published under this title in
London. "It is radiant," says the critic, "in almost every page with
passion, fancy, or thought, set in the most apposite and exquisite
language. We have but to discard, in reading it, the hope of any
steady interest of story, or consistent development of character:
and we shall find a most surprising succession of beautiful passages,
unrivaled in sentiment and pathos, as well as in terseness, dignity,
and picturesque vigor of language; in subtlety and power of passion,
as well as in delicacy and strength of imagination; and as perfect and
various, in modulation of verse, as the airy flights of Fletcher or
Marlowe's mighty line.
"The whole range of the Elizabethan drama has not finer expression,
nor does any single work of the period, out of Shakspeare, exhibit so
many rich and precious bars of golden verse, side by side with such
poverty and misery of character and plot. Nothing can be meaner than
the design, nothing grander than the execution."
In conclusion, the _Examiner_ observes--"We are not acquainted with
any living author who could have written the Fool's Tragedy; and,
though the publication is unaccompanied by any hint of authorship,
we believe that we are correct in stating it to be a posthumous
production of the author of the Bride's Tragedy; Mr. Thomas Lovell
Beddoes. Speaking of the latter production, now more than a quarter
of a century ago, (Mr. Beddoes was then, we believe, a student
at Pembroke College, Oxford, and a minor,) the _Edinburgh Review_
ventured upon a prediction of future fame and achievement for the
writer, which an ill-chosen and ill-directed subsequent career
unhappily intercepted and baffled. But in proof of the noble natural
gifts which suggested such anticipation, the production before us
remains: and we may judge to what extent a more steady course and
regular cultivation would have fertilized a soil, which, neglected
and uncared for, has thrown out such a glorious growth of foliage and
fruit as this Fool's Tragedy."
The following exquisite lyric is among the passages with which these
judgments are sustained:
"If thou wilt ease thine heart
Of love and all its smart,
Then sleep, dear, sleep;
And not a sorrow
Hang any tear on your eyelashes;
Lie still and deep
Sad soul, until like sea-wave washes
The rim o' the sun to-morrow,
In eastern sky.
But wilt thou cure thine heart
Of love and all its smart,
Then die, dear, die;
'Tis deeper, sweeter,
Than on a rose bank to lie dreaming
With folded eye;
And then alone, amid the beaming
Of love's stars, thou'lt meet her
In eastern sky."
* * * * *
WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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