Loose on the earth, the parting blessing given,
Our sacred master doth not go to rest.

No-not e'en then, though more o'erspent than all,
Languid and weak, those fainting limbs do claim
A respite of repose. The other night

I heard him groan, and, starting up, beheld
His wasted figure, dark against the sky,
Pass out before me. I arose in haste,
And followed him aloof. Unto the grove
We haunt for prayer, he dragged his feeble steps,
And, entering, cast him down. I heard him sob
And watched the agony of his wrung hands,
And the clear whiteness of his hallowed brow
Marbled against the sky. I hid me there,
An humble watcher of the sacred prayer,
Thinking to see him gradual faint to sleep,
The death of sorrow. Never, friend, did close

All night that anguished eye. Not once were stretched
Those limbs in rest. Incessant poured the prayer

In fervent agony from his pale lips.

My spirits must have failed, but that my eyes
Were held by fascination on his form,
Bent in the moonbeam, till I fancied shapes
Of superhuman loveliness hung round,
Clustering to catch the accents as they fell,
And bear them up to heaven. When the morn
First glimmered in the East, he sighed, and rose,
And turned him to depart. I drew aside

To let him pass; but from his eye, thou knowest
No man can hide; he fixed it on me, passing,

And murmuring "peace," returned the way he came.

One sample more: it is Satan's description to Judas of what is hell.

I tell thee what is hell: thy mind-thy mind,
No more by clouds of prejudice obscured,

But opened to discern the real truth

Of all that thou hast never learned before.

The majesty of virtue, and the rank

Of Him from whom it flows, the Almighty source
Of it and happiness--the power of love-
The privilege of prayer-the bliss of praise-
The vastness of creation, and the scope
Of God's all-seeing eye, which shines among
His beings, as the sun upon the flowers,
Source of their being and their beauty too;
And by that knowledge doomed itself to know
Alone unlighted by the all-gladdening ray.
-I'll tell thee what is hell: thy secret soul,

Immortal, conscious, vigilant, intense,
Quivering with life, and impotent to stand
Inactive in a fervent universe,

Wherein undying labour is the meed
Conditioned unto all; and to observe

That soul, by the still-conscious mind informed,

Slow drifting on the eternal course of things

Down that dark stream o'er which the arch of death

Bends and obliterates the face of God.

-I'll tell thee what is hell: to own, and teach,

As I do now, great truths, when nought

Instruction, or confusion, but to add
Honours to the Omnipotent and write

With conscious hand the sentence of our crime
Above the portal of our punishment;

And thus be wrung by that tremendous Power
That bends all being to His sovereign will,
To swell heaven's anthem, and repeat His praise
In deep responses to the Cherubim ;
And for the hated homage yet be paid
With deeper bale, as they with brighter bliss.
-I'll tell thee what is hell: thy memory,
Still mountained up with records of the past,
Heap over heap, all accents, and all forms,
Telling the tale of joy and innocence,
And hope, and peace, and love; recording, too,
With stern fidelity, the thousand wrongs
Worked upon weakness and defencelessness:
The blest occasions trifled o'er, or spurned;

All that hath been, that ought not to have been,
'That might have been so different, that now
Cannot but be, irrevocably past!

-I'll tell thee what is hell: thy grangrened heart,
Stripped of its self-worn mask, and spread at last
Bare in its horrible anatomy

Before thine own excruciated gaze!

The author of "The Banished Lord" declares that "it is not a dramatic poem," but "a transcript of life,-a domestic tragedy. He has striven to avoid all merely melodramatic effects, but while writing for the stage has endeavoured to give "the inner life,-the concealed passion that works its way through characterisation, revealing its intent, and sounding the human heart as it winds along. The intention however has been better than the result, the effort greater than the ability to sustain it. The tragedy would not be effective, we think, in representation. The story is improbable, at least the plot is not consistently worked out, nor by the directest and most vigorous march; uncalled-for characters, dull dialogues, and feeble or undignified colloquialisms are frequently obtruded. It is

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heavy charge against the piece that it occasions no tears,--no great distress is felt; we took hardly any interest in any one of the characters. Some of them talk a great deal, but frequently as few would express themselves in similar circumstances.

Still, with all the blemishes that may mar the Banished Lord, obstruct the interest of the reader, or unfit it for the stage, it yet contains many beautiful passages, at times evidences of tragical power, and not a few bursts of deep-seated passion. The author is manifestly but little experienced as a dramatic writer. At the same time there are abundent evidences of talent and powers to produce a superior dramatic work, unless indeed, self conceit, of which the preface affords some tokens, stand between him and that success which would attend earnest and hard-trained effort.

We do not trouble ourselves with going into the story of the piece, or outlining the plot. Suffice it to say that the time is that of a Douglas and Percy; that the Banished Lord has become unpopular at court and keeps to his castle in the North of England; that there is a Shylock in the piece, who is as rich as Lord de Mortimer is haughty, as mean by birth as the Banished is aristocratic. There is large money-lending; embarrasment on one side, merciless exaction on the other. But to embroil matters, and yield the proper amount of love and love-crossings, his lordship's daughter, Agnes, is in love with Charles Galbraith, the wealthy villain's son; that a private marriage is contracted between them; that Galbraith's great ambition is to have the union brought about with the avowed consent of De Mortimer, whose mind is so far unseated from its throne, that he raves and acts in maddest fashion. The rest of the story, its windings and incidents, must be sought for in the book.

Having alluded to the author's inexperience, the indications of genius in the piece, and the passages of passion and power, the best thing that we can do for him, is to allow a considerable space to samples, it being proper and pleasant on all occasions to herald

merit.

The old but still stalwart lord is in his armoury, and discourseth of his swords.

See, sirrah! That morion stands awry.
This little armoury is like a nest

Where Fate hath brooding sat. How many souls

Those antique pikes have loosened from the earth!

Again

(Takes up an old sword.).

My hand's at home here yet, tho'. Why-yes!
It was this very Douglas that is dead.

Faith! they were well-meant blows; this deepest one,-
Ay! this one 'twas that snapped his sword like glass.
How like a thing of yesterday it seems!
'Twas at the pine-hill foot, just as the Percy
Fell o'er the haunches of his wounded horse,
The red-haired Mordoch roaring for his cub,
Madder than boar that gnashes tusks of foam,-
A thick skull'd race they were ;-How wast !—No;
Yes-yes! it was;

I had him on his knee, and had upraised

My sword to pin him down; when this same Douglas,
Bellowing revenge, rushed in between us

With his bloody hoof.

De Mortimer holdeth forth anent ambition.

It is the climber's fate: each step's advance,
But brings us the reversion of a fall.
Ambition's goal is planted in the grave,--
And what's the gain? a mouldy epitaph.
Ah fools-poor fools! We lie in glory's dream,
Mounting th' Elysium of our golden hope;
And even when we think to clutch the prize,
Making ourselves immortally secure,—
Truth draws aside the curtain and looks in ;
Creation feigns to muster up a tear,
And we, like the very puppets of an hour,
As if in mockery of the former pomp,
That fawned upon our pinnacles of pride,
Are thrust off-hand into a gorgeous shroud,

And couched beside the beggar;-that's all the sum
Of all the thousand pageantries of earth.

The very serpents that now lick my dust up,

Will grudge my bones a coffin,-and that's ambition!
To be chewed up by Time's enormous maw,

And spat out like a morsel of disgust,

For common worms to-(Shudders.)—Adam!

Enter ADAM. DE MORTIMER gives him the sword.

ADAM.

Shall I hang it in the hall, my Lord! beside the old
French armour?

DE MORTIMER.

Why there?

ADAM.

Your favorite sword, my Lord! a noble blade it has been.

DE MORTIMER.

Ay-has been. Wherever England's banner flew,
That sword was in the van; yet now-

It is as rusty as a butcher's knife.

Charles describes to his friend Harry his marriage scene with Agnes.

We stood before the shattered altar-stone,

Her hand on mine; but nothing could I hear.
Nor nothing saw I, but the lovely face

That gazed upon the earth and thus we stood,
Scarce conscious of the trance that bound us there,
Until her eyes upturning upon mine,

With such a dawn of blushing eloquence,

That our lips drew together, as if to seal

The extacy we shared; and then-we parted:

She, to her home, and I

HARRY.

Come, come-shake melancholy off; You've now
No right to sigh, and grumble at the stars;-

You've won the game; she's yours, your wedded wife-
Flesh of your flesh.—

CHARLES.

That such a blessing should contain a curse!
She is my wife,-should pillow on my heart;
Yet, when her angel footsteps would meet mine,
She must steal forth, like some unhallowed hag
That wanders out to conjure with the moon.

Agnes and her friend Ellen have also a talk about the cares of matrimony.

ELLEN.

Ha, ha, ha! Poor Ag! The cares of matrimony have already shaded her brow her eye kisses the earth, as if in love with a docken root; her breath comes in gushes, like the water of a broken-hearted pump; and to see her pretty feet tripping out of tune, one would swear that she had been taking lessons from a wounded robin. Ha, ha, ha! dear Ag! one may be married without imitating Lot's wife. Well! I will keep thee in countenance, here we shall stand like two pillars of sugared salt, with no more thoughts of laughter than a pepper-box.