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Art VII. The Duke of Mercia, an historical Drama. The Lameatation of Ireland: and other Poems. By Sir Aubrey de Vere Hunt, Bart. 8vo. pp. 292. Price 10s. 6d. London. 1823.

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N the first appearance of a new candidate for literary honours, it is the readiest, if not the fairest method of trying his merits, to compare him with his predecessors; but, in a second publication, he is liable to be compared with himself. The Public are, perhaps, somewhat unreasonable in demanding that he should not merely equal, but surpass the maiden effort of his pen. Encores are dangerous experiments for the fame of the performer; and though, in literary performances, the subject is changed, the voice remains the same. Yet what successful poet ever had the pusillanimity or the magnanimity-call it which you will-to content himself, Jike Orator Hamilton of single-speech memory, with the fame of a first production?

Of Sir Aubrey's former volume, our readers will have in recollection, that we reported in very favourable terms; nor are we in the least disposed to retract or qualify the commendation bestowed upon "Julian the Apostate," although its Author must prepare himself to find that the Public will take their estimate of his talents from the average as it were of the two works; and if the second production be not equal, it will consequently lower the calculation. By this process the fame of Lord Byron has undergone a very considerable reduction, his latter works being so much subtracted from the value of his earlier works, on which they are a dead weight.

At the time that Julian fell into our hands, an historical tragedy of any dramatic merit was something new and rare. With the exception of Mr. Milman's Fazio and Lord Byron's didactic tragedies, there had been nothing of excellence, we believe, of this kind since Miss Baillie's plays on the passions. Within the past eighteen months, however, there has been an amazing supply of this species of poetry, and the rival and clashing claims of the competitors would not be very easily adjusted. As for those who have avowedly written for the stage, we leave them to the decision of that tribunal to which they have chosen to appeal ;-though a poet might as well carry his cause into the Court of Chancery, as regards either the competency of his judges, or the chances of a hearing. The lawyers may be indeed better critics than the players, and equity would be more likely to be obtained from a master than a manager. The folly of writing for the stage inflicts, however, its own punishment, as it infallibly vitiates the whole east and character of the composition as poetry.

But there have been put forth some two or three tragedies, which, though not entirely to our taste, will require more distinct notice at some future period. We must confine ourselves at present to the volume before us, and shall enable our readers to judge how far the Author has supported the brilliant promise of his " Julian the Apostate."

The subject ought not to be considered as ill-chosen, unless the prejudice which renders it unattractive, is reason good against the choice: it is taken from English-or, must we say? from Saxon history, the principal personages in the drama being Edmund Ironside, and his brothers, and Canute the Dane. Now, we know not how it is, but these our barbarian progenitors excite extremely little interest either in or out of history. Mr. Bowles has lately fallen into "the grave of the last Saxon," and we would have his juniors take warning by his fate. Even the Author of Ivanhoe has failed, we think, in the attempt to make his English readers better acquainted, or more sociable with their Saxon and Norman ancestors. The young Jewess is the heroine; for the name of Coeur de Lion himself is pronounced with more respect by the Mahomedans at this day, than by his countrymen. There is, moreover, a finical distaste for the good old Saxon names, which has been caught from the French. Mr. Bowles was afraid to use the name Magnus, and so substituted that of Marcus, as he said, for euphony's sake, though nothing in this respect was gained by it. Sir Aubrey has distributed among his personages, the names of Edric, Uthred, Edwy, Algitha, Ethelmar, Anlaffe, Gothmund, Sigiferth,-which have, it must be confessed, a somewhat uncouth appearance in the groupe, but are surely as euphonous and fit for poetical use as Frederick, Arthur, Edward, Hamlet, or Macbeth; while in Edmund, and Emma, and Eustace, history has furnished him with names which rival any of the favourites of verse. The poem opens with what the Author entitles Introductory Scenes,' in which the old Danish king Sweyn (who does not appear in the subsequent parts of the poem) lands with his son Canute and his train, on the coast of Cornwall,

• Timeless to save, yet timely to avenge.'

Gunilda, the daughter of Sweyn, meets them, in a state of distraction, occasioned by the butchery of her husband and children by the Saxons, and lives only to tell her wrongs. Part the first opens with a scene in the Palace of London, in which Edmund fronside announces to the assembled nobles, that the King his father had appointed himself and Edric, his brotherin-law, joint regents of the kingdom. This intimation is received with great dissatisfaction, so far as relates to the ap

pointment of Edric, whose character is regarded with wellfounded distrust;

A man of a most admirable presence,
Subtle of wit, and eloquent of speech,
Of station high, most noble in alliance,
Second to none for riches, and, with all,
Unbending in his selfishness; cool, crafty,
Scorner of truth, heartless, inexorable,
In fine, a man without a conscience.'

Edric enters unperceived, so as to overhear part of his charac ter, but smothers his resentment. In the following scene, his ambitious designs are developed, in a conference with the Earl of Cornwall, his friend and partizan, who whispers him that

There are among our nobles, men who recognise
Queen Emina's beauty and Duke Edric's wisdom,
And may be wrought upon to wish them mated.'

In Part the Second, Edmund discovers to his friends, and to Edric, an attachment which he has formed to Algitha, the ward only, as he supposes, but, as it appears, the young wife also of a Danish noble. Edwy, his brother, has fallen in love with the same lady; and Edric contrives that they shall meet, in the hope that a quarrel may ensue between the rivals. The issue is, that Sigiferth gets killed by Edwy; Edwy is severely, but not fatally wounded by his brother, and the young widow is led off by the conqueror. We cannot say that these scenes are either very pleasingly or very vigorously written. The language of Edwy is offensively coarse, and the cool atrocity with which he first assassinates Sigiferth, and then attacks his own brother, is involuntarily resented by the reader; nor can the Poet escape the charge of being an accessary before the fact, for he ought not to have wantonly married Sigiferth to his ward, when he knew the bloodshed it must indispensably cost to make Algitha a widow. The Second Part closes with a Council of State, in which Edmund peremptorily declares his determination to put an end to the negotiations with the Danes, and to take the field on the morrow.

In the first scene of Part the Third, Edric makes his suit to Queen Emma, who coquettes with him, but intends to make a conquest of the royal Dane, if she can; in which of course she succeeds, and Edric is, in the sequel, contumeliously dismissed. In the mean time, the battle of Ashdown is fought, in which Edwy and Northumberland are slain through the treachery of Edric, and Edmund escapes only by flight. The cause of the battle is not, however, so clearly made out as it might have been, and Dane is opposed to Dane in the two armies some

what unnaturally. There is too much despatch too in the disposal of these mighty events, and the Danes have been in London some time before the reader can be aware that they have reached Romford. By the way, how the Danes came to land at Cornwall, and to fight this first battle in Essex, is not explained. The Part closes with a scene between Canute, Emma, and Edric, in which the latter receives his congé from the lady, and is basely treated by the foreigner whom his treachery has put in possession of the capital and his royal mistress.

Edric now resolves on humbling himself to his brother Edmund, and playing the penitent. Ironside has rallied his par. tizans, and is some fifty miles off · in the mountain-den of the • dead fox, Northumberland.' It is unfortunate that there are no mountains within fifty miles of the metropolis, or of Ashdown. Sir Walter Scott would have explored the country, before he sketched the story. Edric finds Edmund on the eve of his marriage to Algitha, and a love-scene ensues between the bride and bridegroom, followed by a masque, which contains some elegant poetry: but it is impossible to forget, as Edmund himself does, that he is a fugitive and crown-less king, not in a situation to marry with prudence, and certainly no longer competent to banish another from the soil. In the concluding part, Edmund sends a challenge to Canute, to terminate the quarrel by single combat. The Dane bravely accpts it. They meet, and Edmund at length strikes down his antagonist, shattering his sword, but bids him take another. Canute invokes some valiant arm to rid him of the shame of defeat; and Edric, catching the word, stabs his brother in the back, for which Canute unceremoniously orders him to be instantly executed.

We must, we believe, reluctantly admit, that the obvious defects in the conduct of the story, are such as no occasional beauties in the composition could redeem; and yet it is evident, that the Author has relied on the interest of the events for his success. The only character in the drama is Edric, and this is an unnatural one: the rest are shadowy outlines. But the truth is, that there is nothing like the grace, and elegance, and spirit which were conspicuous in Julian. If “the Duke of Mer« cia” be not an earlier production, it must be a very hasty one, and Sir Aubrey has, in either case, committed an indicretion. We are persuaded that we shall do the Author a kindness by taking our extracts from the minor poems. Among these there is an Ode to April, which we feel pleasure in transcribing, as it breathes the spirit of the month and of poetry.

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ODE TO APRIL.

Sweet April month! that, like a gentle maid,
Coms't with a changeful look, as half afraid,
With all thy train of buds, young Flora's daughters,
And balsam-breathing airs, and bubbling waters;
Now walking brightly through the sunny hours,
Now, shadowy, hid behind a veil of showers:
Oh! how I love thy blush of delicate bloom,
And that young breath of thine of faint perfume-
And all those swift varieties, that glance
Charms ever new from thy mild countenance :
Still beautiful, whatever they express,

In kindling smiles, or touching tearfulness!
Now, in thy secret places,

Where Nature tends thee with her sylvan Graces,
Thou lovest to dwell;

Down in the bosky dell,

Where the stream lapses from its shadowy well,
Mark'd by the willow-bush that silent stoops
O'er the cool margin, and those briary groups,
With wild fern mingled, where, in furry troops,
Young rabbits gambol, and the hare sits still,
Screen'd by the golden-thronging daffodil,
These are thy haunts-and thou hast leisure hours
To clothe with bloom the blackbird's vocal bowers;
And thou hast some to spare

(King cups and daisies) for the wild deer's lair;
Where the gorse spreads a wilderness of bloom ;
Or on the lonely heath-or in the gloom

Of some old wood, whose glades of sunny moss
Dark, ivied oaks stretch their great arms across.
Thou lovest, too, on some high-bosom'd hill,
Thy youthful lap to fill

With cowslips, and to woo

The morning sun, and the soft evening dew, With scatter'd violets, and from primrose-banks; While, with his starry ranks,

The pale Narcissus, from the neighbouring mead,
Steals to the upland air his fragrant head.

Blithe April! like another Hebe, bringing
Sweets in thy cup-in primal freshness springing
From the cold bosom of a rugged nurse-
The Psyche of the kindling universe!
Although the task be thine

Some careless wreaths to twine
For thy maturer sister's radiant brow,
That steals apace upon thy footsteps now—
(Enchanting May)-yet, in thy virgin eye,

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