both his charioteer and his associate warrior are depicted as slain during his flight. He escapes on foot to the draw-bridge which crosses the river to the gate of the town, whence the governor or one of the chiefs comes forth, to receive him in his flight, or to condole with him on his disaster. The latter is depicted offering to his humiliated monarch a peculiar form of reverential accolade or embrace, one hand being placed on the head, and the other on the heart. Beneath both the word Robourim is clearly written. Above is an inscription, which is meant to indicate the address of the defeated chief, whether to his vassal or his warlike associate, and which is somewhat to this effect: "Give me refuge, refuge from the wrath of the just King."

We have now gone through the illustrations of the first two livraisons of Champollion's work. Whatever interest may be found to attach to the sculptured battle-pieces which they preserve, they are, as we have reason to know, far inferior in interest and in the historical information they convey to those which remain extant on the walls of the various palaces and temples of Thebes and Nubia. These illustrations contain but a very small portion of the great campaign of Sesostris, only equalled in ambitious design by the march of Napoleon to Moscow, and in which he evidently aimed at the conquest of the whole then known world. But the wars of Amenoph the First against the shepherds, of Moeris, of Memnon, Petamon, Rameses Me-Ammon, and Shishak, though not embracing so wide an extent of conquest, are not deficient in interest, and descriptions of them equally extant with those of Sesostris, on various monuments at Thebes and Nubia, remain to be produced. We need not in conclusion say more than that we await their production with considerable anxiety and interest. In conjunction with the civil, domestic, and commercial details, to which we adverted in our former article, as supplying materials for a history of Egypt and its contemporary nations, during the three hundred and forty-eight years of the 18th dynasty of kings, these military details will fill up a vast chasm in human knowledge, and supply an authentic history of the human race during the most critical and influential periods of its existence, periods as well corroborated by demonstrable chronological dates as any later period of the ancient history of the world. It will complete, such is our expectation, the chronological chain of historical events-comprehending with adequate accuracy a period extending from 1322 B. C. to the date of the 1st Olympiad, 779 B. C., with which, and not before, authentic history could not be permitted to commence, previously to the extraordinary discovery of the Egyptian monuments, to which we have been referring in terms of high but deserved appreciation.

ART. VI.-Tragedie di Giovanni Battista Niccolini, Florentino. (Tragedies by G. B. Niccolini, a Florentine.) 2 vols. 8vo. Capolago. 1835.

AT a very early period of the existence of this Review, we took occasion to introduce the living Florentine tragic poet to our readers; and in so doing expressed a strong persuasion that he was capable of far better things than his Antonio Foscarini, the tragedy then under our consideration. That we did not judge him erroneously the volumes before us prove; and, although we still see room for great improvement, and, as we think, powers adequate thereto, Niccolini has already so far justified our favourable opinion as to entitle himself to more circumstantial notice, to more elaborate criticism, than we then bestowed upon him. This he might indeed claim at our hands, had he since produced nothing but his Nabucco, an extraordinary play, in which he has dramatized the fall of Napoleon, and displays far more force and originality than in any of his other tragedies, though we by no means consider it as the sole, or as likely to remain even the chief, foundation of his fame. But, before we dissect or discuss that or any of his new productions, we must say a few words of the poet himself, whom we formerly scarcely deemed worthy of so much attention, of his general character as a dramatist, and of the causes to which we ascribe most of his faults.

Niccolini is a noble Florentine,† and hereditarily a poet, descending, by his mother, from the greatest Italian lyrist of the 17th century, the justly celebrated Filicaja, who might alone redeem the Seicentisti from reprobation. He was esteemed by his admirers, the classicists, the chief rival of Manzoni, as long as that highly gifted writer continued to cultivate the sisters of Castaly, by whom he was so profusely favoured; and since the author of the Conte di Carmagnola, Adelchi, and I Promessi Sposi, bas, in excess of devotional zeal, abandoned the fair fields of imaginative poetry, Niccolini is in Italy, we believe, unanimously acknowledged as his only successor. An Italian poet thus valued by the Italian literati is neither to be lauded nor censured by foreign critics, without good and sufficient reasons alleged; and to do this satisfactorily we must take a rapid and general survey of Italian Tragedy.

The drama seems to have arisen in Italy upon the revival of classical literature, for though there were Italian mysteries, they

See Foreign Quarterly Review, Vol. II. page 368.

It is, perhaps, scarcely worth mentioning that the name of Niccolini is one of the historical names of Florence, and that Filicaja was employed by the grand duke in the government of the country. The honours with which he was loaded by almost all the then living sovereigns of Europe, including the eccentric Christina of Sweden, were of course paid as a tribute to his poetical not to his political fame.

were few, we believe, and never very popular; the drama was consequently modelled upon classic originals, without assuming a national form, except in comedy, when the Commedie dell Arte appeared. This classic influence was of course most ap parent in the works of the earliest dramatists, but it continued through the last century, although gradually modified by the softer Ausonian nature, and may be traced even in the operas of Metastasio. Towards the end of the 18th century, indeed, Alfieri formed a new and severer school of tragedy, excluding those superfetations, the amours obligés of the French classics, Corneille and Racine, and of the mellifluous Metastasio; but he thus in fact rendered Italian tragedy more truly classical, whether he took his subject from Greek mythology, from history, ancient or modern, or even from the Bible. Alfieri may perhaps be said to have exaggerated the severe simplicity of Greek tragedy with respect to plot and dramatis persona, while he rejected the pomp of poetry which, in the classic drama, supplied the place of complex incident and thrilling interest; and the result is, if we may hazard the confession, a sense of barren coldness, that renders the perusal of his tragedies, in spite of the powerful genius they display, a somewhat heavy task. But the striking contrast presented by the vigour of Alfieri with the tameness, or the tame sweetness, of his predecessors and contemporaries, awoke vehement admiration, and has established him as the model of most subsequent tragedians, and especially of such as, like himself, are ardent lovers of liberty.

In this state Niccolini found the tragic theatre of his country, when, deeply imbued with classic lore, he devoted himself to the worship of Melpomene. Could he draw his dramatic ideas from other than classic sources? Could he seek other modification or adaptation of those classic ideas to modern notions, than those offered by Alfieri? Even the political circumstances of his times were calculated to confirm this classic tendency of his mind, inasmuch as he glowed, through the inconsiderate impetuosity of adolescence, half-ripening to the fervid passions of early manhood, amidst the wildest modern hallucinations of pseudo-Roman liberty, and of Roman military glory; being favoured and promoted, during this last most misleadable, if not most leadable, age, by Maria Louisa, temporary Queen of Etruria, and her successor the Princess Elise, both dependents and creations, the last the sister, of the anti-romantic Napoleon. Let us then, in considering the works of our poet, their merits, and their failures, constantly bear in mind the various but concurrent influences under which they have been produced.

In the year 1810, Niccolini, then 24 years of age, brought forth his first Tragedy. It was Greek throughout-the title, Polissena,

See For. Qu. Rev. Vol. II. page 62.

the Italian form of Polyxena; the subject, the sacrifice of the royal Trojan virgin at the tomb of Achilles. The character of the personages, and the conduct of the play, are sufficiently Hellenic to impress us with respect for the writer's knowledge of, and love for, Homer, Eschylus, and Co.; the only deviation from the sternest classicism is Polyxena's invincible, involuntary, and thoroughly concealed and controlled, though not conquered, love for Pyrrhus; and even this modern sentimentalism is so happily managed as at once to aid the catastrophe and interest readers and audiences, accustomed to the strong stimulants of our own times, without offending the Hellenic sense of the severest classicist. Niccolini's purity of language, sweetness and richness of poetry, and tenderness of feeling, have been so abundantly eulogized by all critics, Italian, French, and German, that upon these we dwell not; occupying ourselves chiefly with what we deem higher points, to wit, the structure and conduct of his pieces, and the development of character. Three more Greek tragedies were probably the fruit of the enthusiasm that greeted Polissena; and then our poet, after having, at the suggestion of an English lady, Italianized rather than translated Douglas, locating the Scotch hero in Sicily, betook himself, touched perhaps by the spirit of nationality springing up around him, to the annals of his own country in search of materials for tragedy.

But before we examine his historic tragedies let us recollect that Niccolini was now, and had for some time been, acknowledged by the classicists as their head, as the great, the successful rival of the romantic Manzoni, and must necessarily have been chary of risking the loss of so exalted a station in the literary world. If he felt the superior interest possessed by national subjects, the richer field offered by national characters to his powers of embodying individuality, he would seek to combine these advantages with his classic fame, by treating modern history, in the Continental language of the day romantic subjects, classically. Bearing these circumstances in mind, turn we to the Historic Tragedies before us.

Niccolini's first trouvaille in Italian history was the fate of Antonio Foscarini. For an account and criticism of his tragedy upon this subject, we refer to our former number already quoted, but must add one observation, appropriate to the view we are now taking. It is that this trouvaille was one of peculiar felicity, real treasure-trove to a classicist, since most of the great incidents of the story can be represented in the play with due subservience to unity of time, and no other sacrifice or strain of probability, than supposing the trial and execution of Antonio Foscarini to have taken place, without a moment's delay, in the night that succeeded the evening of his offence and capture; that being the

evening of the day in which the law, constituting the entrance into a foreign envoy's garden a crime, was passed.

Antonio Foscarini has had two younger brothers, tragedies founded upon Italian history. One of these, Giovanni di Procida, attempts a mighty subject, were it so treated as to display the growth and working of human passion; the other, Lodovico Sforza, is, to our mind, essentially undramatic. A few words will suffice for all we have to say of the latter; of the former, we shall speak considerably more at length, esteeming it our Author's best historic tragedy, and, perhaps for that very reason, a striking instance of the defects of his system.

The subject of Lodovico Sforza, though sad, perhaps even tragic enough, if we may use the epithet in a sense so qualified as to render it compatible with what is to follow, appears to us, as before said, decidedly and essentially undramatic. It is, and can be nothing but the death of the feeble Giovanni Galeazzo, and the usurpation of his able, unprincipled uncle, Lodovico il Moro (the Moor); an event of immense Italian importance and dignity, it is true, since it may be considered as the origin of the wars of the French and Spaniards in and for Italy; but utterly barren of vicissitudes. The opening scene shows us the poor youth suffering under the action of a slow poison; and his fate is so manifestly inevitable that we can hardly take any interest in the exertions of his heroic and highly talented consort, Isabella of Aragon, in his behalf. Neither is the catastrophe at all caused, or scarcely even precipitated, by the vacillations and credulity of the would-be chivalrous Charles VIII. of France, whose character is however admirably drawn, or, shall we say? touched.

The Sicilian Vespers is a subject of a very different kind, yet, perhaps, equally unfit for the drama, if the drama be doomed to struggle helplessly within the trammels of the Unities. An historical play, in the Shakspearian acceptation of the term, assuredly might be constructed upon it; and, in the hands of Shakspeare, or even in those of Kit Marlowe, what a powerfully interesting play it would have been!* We should there have seen the tame submis sion of the conquered Sicilians, provoked by the lawless violence, the outrages upon female honour, the generally insulting and ca pricious tyranny, of their French masters, into a sullen dissatisfaction or a passionate indignation, offering fair materials to be worked upon by Procida; we should have seen in the hero himself the gradual ripening of resentment for private injuries, patriotically sympathizing with public injuries, into the calm, steady, but irresistible determination to avenge the wrongs of his country, to break

We should not be sorry to see Joanna Baillie grapple with the Sicilian Vespers, did we think that her feminine heart could work itself into sympathy with the perpetrators of such a massacre.