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continued, as he remarked the deathlike stillness of Nina.

Fainted, no- that delicate frame, so beautiful in its stillness, so solemn in its aspect, lay there never to move again. The agitation of Porro's presence the sight of her destroyer-the fierce struggle that had ensued-the danger of Porro, still beloved in the inmost recesses of her heart's coreall combined, had been too much for her constitution, weakened and tortured, and there had expired, without a word, a sign of departing life, the soul of Nina Ezzelinni. Beautiful victim! true spirit of Italia's daugh ters! thy fate still lives within the minds of many an exile; and rest assured, soul now in eternity, the hour must, and will come, when the sword of avenging justice, beaming brightly in the light of heaven, will carry destruction on the enemies of thy peace, and of thy country's welfare. Hour of joy! of heartfelt gladness! I kneel before thy approach, and in earnest prayer thank that God who, in placing faith within my heart, assures me of its speedy and certain coming. Glorious be that hour! the hope of the exile the ray of Italy's sunshine!

With jeering tones of consolation, that sounded like a mockery of death, did the menials of the police depart from the dungeon, leaving Porro alone stretched on the floor-the corpses of the victim and the destroyer untouched by their hands. Scarcely had the sounds of their steps died away in the distance, when Porro, bound as he was, made effort after effort to reach the corpse of his bride. After bruising himself severely, he succeeded in reaching all that remained of her so much loved, so much prized. With frantic expressions of grief, with bitter sobs, did he press again and again that corpse, even in death still so dear to him, and bedewed her face with his tears. Exhausted by the agony of the mental torture he endured, by the fearful excess of his grief, he at length lay in a kind of utter forgetfulness on the ground. In deathlike silence passed away another hour, and then was heard, creeping along, the footsteps of some person. A key inserted in the door soon opened it, and the person who had first introduced Porro entered the dungeon. Approaching Porro, he after a short time succeeded in rousing him from his state of ob

livion, and proceeded quickly to undo the cords that bound him.

"Quick, Signor Porro, you must come with me immediately, for soon it will be no longer in my power to save you."

"Yes, yes; I will leave immediately, but not alone-the corpse of my bride must accompany me."

"Are you mad, signor? you never could pass the streets unquestioned with a corpse as a burden, and will you ruin me by this delay? Come, signor, come; I will bury the corpse carefully, and promise you no one shall touch it."

"A moment longer and I am with you; wait without for me."

The moment the man had left the dungeon, Porro knelt once more by the corpse, so calm, so still, and pressed her cold lips to his own.

"Nina! farewell, even in death! I leave you but to revenge you; for never shall this hand clasp an Austrian save to slay him, in memory of this hour. Once more, Nina, farewell!"

Rising from the ground, and with one look more, he passed from the dungeon, and following the person who waited for him in the passage, he soon arrived without the walls of Milan.

Along a narrow path, near the Lombard frontier, rode a solitary horseman. Armed to the very teeth, he kept his eye glancing from side to side, as if in expectation of some momentary danger, which he knew not from what quarter might arise. The path he was pursuing led up to an eminence, from which a person could obtain a view of the country around. The instant the horseman had reached it, he took a small telescope from his pocket, and placed it carefully to his eye. For a few moments alone did he take a survey, and then setting spurs to his horse, he dashed on, careless of accident, exclaiming to himself, "The King is betrayed!"

Away, away, over field and hill, spurred that gallant horse and his rider, now swimming across the river Glavellone, and narrowly escaping two or three shots that were fired after them by some Austrian sentinels. In half an hour more, and that panting steed was drawn up before a small body of soldiers wearing the cross of Savoy.

"Where is your leader?" exclaimed the horseman to one of the soldiers.

"He is there, signor," answered the man, pointing to a group of persons who stood a short distance off.

Riding to the spot, Alberico Porro, for it was he, recognised in the leader the gallant Manara.

"Signor Manara, quick, for the love of country; are you not aware the Austrians, in large masses, are passing the bridge of Glavellone?"

"Can it be possible, signor? I fear you are deceived."

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No, no, I have seen them with my own eyes, and before long they will be upon you. Is this the only force you have to oppose their progress ?"

"With the exception of some pickets, the entire force under my command is here. General Ramorino's* division is on the other side of the Po."

"Then he is either a traitor or a fool. Not a moment is to be lost,

however. Send a message to inform him of the fact; and, Signor Manara, I know well you will do your duty as becomes a Lombard. Farewell; I will instantly forward and give the alarm."

Scarcely had Porro uttered the words, when the trumpets sounded to arms, and Manara, the true and noble, marched with his men to resist the advance of an overpowering force. Passing through La Cava, without resting his steed for an instant, he sped onwards towards the town of Novara, everywhere giving notice of the approach of the Austrians, and, fatigued and tired, he at length, after informing General Chrzanowski, the commander-in-chief, of the passage of the Austrians, who received the news with surprise and astonishment, entered the small town, which soon was to give name to the battle-field on which would fall, for a time, the hopes of poor Italy's freedom.

CLYTEMNESTRA, AND OTHER POEMS.†

AUGUSTUS VON SCHLEGEL, in his inimitable lectures on dramatic literature, has finely compared the Greek tragedy to the Greek sculpture, and illustrates the genius and power of the former by constant references to the latter. This is profoundly true as a criticism, as well as exceedingly beautiful as a theory; and in both senses capable of being followed and wrought out to an extent and perfection that at first sight can be little anticipated. The grand, sublime, and terrible images of Eschylus-strong, massive, and sharp in their outlines_ vigorous, passionate, and energised in their postures. solemn and severe in their expression-ever remind us of those wondrous works of Phidias, whereby the genius of the great sculptor wrought into stone the impersona

tion of power and suffering, of intellect and moral grandeur, and made them immortal. Nor do the more finished and symmetrical compositions of Sophocles, or the luxuriant and ornate, but feebler, works of Euripides, fail to find apt exponents in the graceful and exquisite works of sculpture which the chisels of Greek artists have wrought, and which time has left untouched, to be the wonder and the instruction of modern students.

After all, it is not strange that this should be so. The Beautiful, in its human developments, sensuous and moral, was the great thought that filled the souls of the Greek sculptors. This they worshipped with earnestness and single-minded simplicity, and this thought they reproduced. The Greek tragedian had ever before him the same

* General Ramorino was the principal favourite of the Mazzini party, and time has only too truly shown he was an enemy of his country. On his trial, revelations of a most unpleasant import to the Republican section were made, which it is earnestly hoped will warn Italy of the danger of entrusting her liberties to men who forget every claim of honor and dignity, in the insatiable desire to gratify their own wild ambition.

Clytemnestra, and other Poems." By Owen Meredith. Hall. 1855.

London: Chapman and

Beautiful in thought, but he had it, too, in the creations of the sculptor, a study for his eye, even as his spirit had it for intellectual contemplation. In them he saw all the poetry of physical loveliness and power, of action and passion, take a bodily shape and significance; and so he learned from them how, with most force, and dignity, and effect, to represent in language what they represented in form. Hence it is, at this day, that we invariably associate the Greek drama with the Greek sculpture; that all its personages and situations partake so largely of the statuesque; so that, to use the striking observation of Schlegel, "it is only before the groups of Niobe or Laocoon that we enter into the spirit of Sophocles."

In one other respect the analogy between Greek sculpture and Greek tragedy holds good. While both have had a large influence, in all succeeding ages, upon literature and the fine arts, they have never been so thoroughly fused into them as to lose their own distinctive existences. The great works of the Greek sculptors, even in the best days of Italy, have never been equalled they stand far removed in unapproachable excellence, when compared with the schools of modern Europe. The tragedies of the Grecian poets stand also insulated and distinct; they have few imitators, and of these few, scarcely one, who has been successful. But the causes that have operated to produce this distinctiveness in each are different. The great, strong, simple, poetic element that inspired the hand of Phidias, and Polycletus, and Lysippus that filled their whole hearts and occupied their every thought — would seem not to be present, in such measure and potency, in the souls of men in times when society is more artificial, and life more full of distractions. And thus perhaps it is—if we may venture a speculation upon the subject that we fail in approaching the works of the antique, though the externals, so to speak, of humanity, in passion and feeling as well as in bodily configuration, remain unchanged, and make Greek statuary at this moment as truthful exponents of the beautiful, physical and moral, around us, as they were at the time they were produced beneath the hand of the artist. But it is not so with the Greek tragedy. While mankind, in action and in pas

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sion, is but little changed since Agammemnon and Creon immolated their daughters since the matricide Orestes, or the double sin of Clytemnestra-yet the religion which justified these crimes on the principle of an avenging justice, or extenuated them as the results of an inexorable fatality, has given place to the light of Christianity, which inculcates a_totally diverse standard of morals. The Greek tragedy was essentially religious, as well in its institution as in its constant allusions to the gods, and the elucidation of their power and dealing with mankind. It must therefore result from these considerations, that it could find but little place in the sympathies of modern times. The characters which evoked, and not unnaturally, the admiration of an audience in the Theatre of Bacchus at Athens, would excite unmixed disgust if presented on our own stage; while those to whom the ancient Grecian would freely accord his pity, the modern European would hate as criminal, or despise as guilty of unpardonable error. Thus, even if the structure and scenic peculiarities of the Greek drama offered no impediment, the total change of moral feeling would make its permanent revival impossible. It would no longer appeal to popular sympathy, because it would no longer be true. This is well expressed by a modern critic:"The Greek tragedy, in its pure and unaltered state, will always, for our theatres, remain an exotic plant which we can hardly hope to cultivate, with any success, even in the hot-house of learned art or criticism. The Grecian mythology, which furnishes the materials of ancient tragedy, is as foreign to the minds and imaginations of most of the spectators, as its form and manner of representation."

It is true, that within a few years an attempt was made to revive the ancient tragedy in all its primitive features of plot and scenery; and though the musical genius of Mendelssohn, and the classical purity of gesture, action, and conception of Helen Faucit, induced the scholar to witness, night after night, the representation of the Antigone of Sophocles with refined pleasure, and compelled the uneducated to look on with a strange wonder, yet there was no kindly element in the popular feeling to sustain the exoticthe forced vigour which the warmth of

it was

momentary excitement gave but short-lived. Thymele and chorus, logeum and encyclema, have passed away, in all probability, for ever, leaving, indeed, our memories haunted by the chastely severe acting and delicious tones of the artiste, and the richly sonorous but somewhat too florid music of the maestro.

The

We have been led into this train of thought by the principal production in the volume of poems before us. The "Clytemnestra "of Owen Meredith (if any such person there be, for we must confess the words are strongly suggestive of a pseudonym), is an attempt to reproduce a Greek tragedy, such as a Grecian dramatist would have written it five hundred years before the birth of Christ. subject which he has chosen is one preeminently suited for the Greek drama; indeed, the misfortunes of the fated house of Atreus was a favorite theme of the three great dramatists with whom the sun of Greek tragedy may almost be said to have risen and set. The wretched queen is one of the dramatis persone in the trilogy or Oresteia of Eschylus; in the Electra of Sophocles, and the Electra and Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. If, on the one hand, this gives our author the advantage of an almost personal knowledge of his principal character, it, on the other hand, places him in a position whose perils are infinitely greater than any such advantage. The more thoroughly he is imbued with the spirit of his prototypes, the more is he in danger of degenerating into mere imitation; the more he ventures to depart from the historical characteristics and feelings with which antiquity has invested those personages of his drama, the more liable is he to be untrue to the times, and the country, and the people, back into which he seeks to transmit himself and his readers. It appears to us that both those results have attended him. He has, in a great degree, availed himself of the advantages which the selection of subject held out to him. We find throughout the drama the evidences of extensive scholarship and intimate acquaintance with the language and spirit of the great Grecian masters; but he is sometimes even too strongly tinctured with this spirit, and the imitation becomes painfully apparent. Thus, in the fifth scene, the chorus, which is singularly beautiful and classic, apos

trophises first Justice and then Love; the latter at once brings to our recol. lection one of the choruses of the Antigone

“Έρως ἀνίκατε μάχαν.κ. τ. λ. And these two lines:

"Thou art unconquered in the fight,
Thou rangest over land and sea,"

Are manifestly suggested by the line“ φοιτᾶς δ' ὑπερποντιος ἔν τ' αγρονομοις ἀνλᾶις. And again :

"Why light thy red couch in the damask cheek?" is nearly the same, but unquestionably inferior, to the thought of Sophocles—

“ ὅς εν μαλακᾶις παρειᾶις
νεάνιδος εννυχένεις.”

There is another chorus which for melody, and pathos, and true poetic excellence, we know not how to praise too highly; nevertheless, its very excellence detracts from it. Where it is strictly classical, it leaves upon our mind the feeling that the author is so imbued with the Agamemnon of Eschylus, that he unconsciously plagiarises from him. Where he is most melodious in his rhythm, most rich in his imagery, most affluent in picturesque language, we feel that he is not Grecian but English-not Eschylean but Tennysonian. We shall give the first two portions of this chorus, to exhibit both the detractions we have alluded to, and the poetic powers of the author:

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But sat, dumb-dreaming. Then would some one rise,

And look toward the hollow hulls, with haggard, hopeless eyes

Wild eyes, and, crowding round, yet wilder eyes

And gaping, languid lips;

And everywhere that men could see,
About the black, black ships,

Was nothing but the deep-red sea;
The deep-red shore;

The deep.red skies;

The deep-red silence, thick with thirsty sighs;

And daylight, dying slowly. Nothing more. The tall masts stood upright;

And not a sail above the burnish'd prores; The languid sea, like one outwearied quite, Shrank, dying inward into hollow shores, And breathless harbours, under sandy bars; And, one by one, down tracts of quivering blue,

The singed and sultry stars

Look'd from the inmost heaven, far, faint, and few,

While, all below, the sick, and steaming brine

The spill'd-out sunset did incarnadine.

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As tho' some wind had broken from the blurr'd

And blazing prison of the stagnant drouth, And stirr'd the salt sea in the stifled south. The long-robed priests stood round; and, in the gloom,

Under black brows, their bright and greedy eyes

Shone deathfully; there was a sound of sighs,

Thick-sobb'd from choking throats among the crowd,

That, whispering, gather'd close, with dark heads bow'd;

But no man lifted up his voice aloud, For heavy hung o'er all the helpless sense of doom."

The similarity between this and the latter portion of the first chorus in the Agamemnon will, at once, occur to the classical scholar. The passage we allude to is familiar to every reader of Eschylus, and commences thus :—

« Εΰτ' απλοια κεναγγεῖ βαρυ
νοντ Αχαιικὸς λεως. - κ. τ. λ.

The plot of the play, the action, and the characters, are those which we find

in the Grecian dramas; their treatment more particularly resembles the Agamemnon of Eschylus, in which, we may observe, the character of Clytemnestra is brought out with a vigour and fullness that is not to be found in any of the other dramas. In the piece before us, the Argive Queen is also the engrossing personage; but she is neither the Clytemnestra of Eschylus, nor of Sophocles, though she has somewhat of each. Bold, haughty, and determined, like her of the elder dramatist, the resemblance to Lady Macbeth is even greater than in the Agamemnon ; she has some of the weaknesses that detract from the tragic power of the heroine of Sophocles, though she is neither so sensual nor so superstitious; her love for Ægisthus is brought out not in as odious, but certainly in as strong a light as in the Electra, while it is relieved of all coarseness by a tenderness and devotion that are scarce in accordance with the strong and haughty character of the Queen. Nevertheless, we must admit that the author has shown no small skill in the delineation as a whole. She is, in his hands, neither the bold virago, indifferent to consequences, of schylus, nor the depraved woman, by turns violent, sophistical and weak, that Sophocles represents her. She is a woman haughty, proud, self-willed, yet possessed by one sentiment, her love for Ægisthus, which exhibits her a woman in her heart, and is the mainspring of all her errors and sins:

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