career of this play, which was handled by the diurnal critics (one or two excepted) with unmitigated severity. Sheil had made altogether something above two thousand pounds by his tragedies, but his dramatic ardour was now cooled; the stage had lost the bright star for whom he delighted to write, and he turned his time and abilities thenceforward more exclusively to law and politics.

In 1824, Sheil, at the request of his friend Mr. Macready, altered and adapted to the stage Massinger's tragedy of The Fatal Dowry, without reference to Rowe's previous transformation of The Fair Penitent. The alterations are judicious, the chief point being to heighten the character of Romont, which has been ably accomplished. With the exception of Macready and Wallack, the actors were unequal to their parts, and the play only commanded seven repetitions at Drury-lane. The first performance took place on the 5th of January, 1825, but the run was interrupted by the sudden and severe illness of Mr. Macready, which suspended his performances for three months. In the following year The Fatal Dowry was acted twice in Dublin without attraction.* It was a bold imposition of Rowe to put forth The Fair Penitent as his own, without the slightest hint as to whence he had derived the plot, incidents, and characters; but in those comparatively dark days there were. few readers and fewer periodicals, and piracy ran little danger of detection. Where was The Spectator that he did not discover and castigate the fraud? Cumberland, in The Observer, has compared the two plays in a long discussion. He gives the palm to The Fatal Dowry. Gifford does the same in the introduction to his edition of Massinger; but, in matters of critical taste, every one has a right to judge for himself, and opinions will always continue to be divided. Massinger has drawn the character of Charalois in a masterly manner, while Rowe has shrunk him up into the insignificant Altamont. But he has invested the heroine and her seducer, Calista and Lothario,with infinitely more spirit than

Massinger has bestowed on their prototypes, Beaumelle and Novall. With Calista we sympathise, although we can scarcely call her a penitent. She is sorry when she can no longer help herself, but she may plead some faint apology in the attractive qualities of her betrayer, the "haughty, gallant, gay Lothario," who, as Dr. Johnson says, "with gaiety which cannot be hated, and bravery which cannot be despised, retains too much of the spectator's kindness." The guilt of Beaumelle is greater than that of Calista, with less shadow of excuse. She is an absolute wanton, and sacrifices her honour to a contemptible wretch, who has nothing to recommend him in mind or person-deficient even in the vulgar attribute of courage. In The Fatal Dowry, Rochfort, the father, excites more interest than Sciolto in The Fair Penitent. Gifford says that Rowe's Horatio sinks into perfect insignificance in comparison with Massinger's Romont. Cumberland observes,

that as Rowe had bestowed the fire and impetuosity of Romont on his Lothario, it was a very judicious opposition to contrast it with the cool deliberate courage of the sententious Horatio. As regards the language of the two plays, the superiority rests with Rowe. He does not soar so high as some of the flights of Massinger; but, on the other hand, he never sinks so low. Massinger has contaminated some of his best scenes with vulgar comic expressions. On the score of prurient descriptions and allusions, there is not much to choose between them. Sheil has expunged all these with skill and judgment, although the pertinacious admirers of antiquity will contend that he has done so by the sacrifice of original vigour.

Gifford says

"It is told in the preface to The Bondman, 1719, that Rowe had revised the whole of Massinger's works, with a view to their publication; unfortunately, however, he was seduced from his purpose by the merits of The Fatal Dowry. He conceived the ungenerous idea of appropriating the whole of its merits, and from that instant appears not only to have given up all thoughts of Massinger, but to have avoided all mention of

his name. It may appear strange that Rowe should flatter himself with the hope of evading detection. That hope, however, was not so extravagant as it may appear at present. The works of Massinger, few of which had reached a second edition, lay scattered in single plays, and might be appropriated without fear."*

As Rowe grew older, his conscience smote him for his robbery of Massinger, or he became more scrupulous in his ideas of literary fair-dealing, or perhaps more apprehensive of discovery. In the preface to his Lady Jane Grey he says, that Smith† had designed to write a play on the same subject, and that Smith's papers had been put into his hands, but that he could not take from them more than thirty lines at the most. He adds

"I should have made no scruple of taking three, four, or even the whole five acts from him; but then I hope I should have had the honesty to let the world know they were his, and not take another man's reputation to myself."+

The Fatal Dowry, as altered by Sheil, has not taken permanent possession of the stage, and does not appear likely to be again revived. The play is too deeply imbued with the besetting sin of the old dramatists, indecency and an objectionable plot, which no power of writing or acting can render palatable to a modern audience.

Sheil had none of the petty jealousies of authorship. When he left off writing for the stage himself, he was ever ready with pen or influence to assist others, and hailed the success of Sheridan Knowles with loudly expressed satisfaction. When William Tell was first acted in Dublin, in 1826, and met with great success, although his own alteration of The Fatal Dowry had been coldly received a week before, he wrote the following notice of Knowles's play, which appeared in a leading paper of the Irish metropolis, and de. serves reproduction as a good sample of amateur criticism, divested of the conventional style and peculiar phraseology which seem to be the natural in

"On Saturday (18th February, 1826) the new drama of William Tell was acted at our theatre. The production of an admirable writer was assisted by the performance of an actor of whom it may be justly said, that he is Tragicus Spirans.' It is somewhat remarkable that Mr. Sheridan Knowles (we like his prenomen) should have been the first dramatic author who has done justice to two of the grandest incidents in the chronicle of liberty. Although Alfieri was of opinion that the story of Virginius afforded him the most noble materials, his tragedy upon the subject is ponderous and declamatory. Mr. Knowles's play approaches more nearly to the pathetic majesty of that tender and lofty theme. After the production of Virginius, its author sought amongst the mountains of Switzerland new materials for the exercise of his genius, and found in the market-place of Altorff as moving, and perhaps as grand an incident, as in the forum of Rome. Schiller had anticipated Mr. Knowles. Madame de Stäel, in her Germany,' has given large extracts from the play of that great dramatist, but they do not appear to us to be deserving of the praises which she has lavished upon them. Schiller has made a metaphysician of William Tell. His hero of the mountains would make an excellent teacher of scholastic logic in the Alpine monastery of Mount Saint Bernard, but has little of the rugged spirit which should characterise the immortal peasant by whom his country was delivered. Mr. Knowles has drawn William Tell with more fidelity and force. He has made use of Florian's novel, and could not have drawn from a better source. His romance upon liberty was written by the unfortunate Frenchman in a gaol. He had never interfered in the sanguinary politics of the revolution. His birth, which happened to be aristocratic, was his only crime. After remaining for several months in prison, when death had forgotten to strike him,' in the hope of obtaining his release, he resolved to compose a panegyric upon freedom. He was weak enough to imagine that the Geslers of the Directory would be moved to compassion by an encomium upon liberty, in whose name so many atrocities had been committed. The unfortunate nobleman sat down in his dungeon, and by the feeble light that gleamed through the grated window, painted (for his works are paintings of nature), the immeasurable mountains and the lonely valleys, where

freedom and the eagle reside together. Poor Florian! His manuscript was not even opened by the democratic tyrant to whom it was transmitted. Not long after he died of a broken heart. We have said this much of Florian, because the principal scenes in Mr. Knowles's play are founded upon suggestions in the tale of the French novelist. It is, however, but justice to add, that Mr. Knowles has greatly surpassed his original, and from mere hints in the French work our Irish dramatist has drawn many pathetic effects. This observation is particularly applicable to the second act, in which Tell instructs his boy in archery. It must be confessed that the admirable acting of Mr. Macready greatly contributes to bring the beauty of the scene into high relief. Indeed many of the finest touches belonged exclusively to that originating and creative actor. But putting aside all consideration of the performer's merit, the composition is most admirable in itself, and is entitled, in our mind, to unqualified panegyric. We are disposed, after an attentive perusal of Mr. Knowles's play, and having reflected upon the nature of the materials of which his work is constructed, and the singular skill, as well as genius, with which the passions are gradually and insensibly raised into intensity, to pronounce the author to be a dramatist of the very first order. We make, of course, no reference to Shakspeare, but we do think that there are scenes in Virginius and in William Tell which Otway and Southern have scarcely surpassed. The tears of a silent and breathless audience outweigh all the cavils of criticism; and when we see persons of all classes and conditions, the refined and the uneducated, the hoary matron and the rosy-cheeked girl, the haughty lord and the poor mechanic, the man of business and the man of pleasure, the caustic critic and the frivolous coxcomb, all equally under the influence of that assimilating power, which it is the property of genius to exercise over the heart — when, during the representation of a tragedy, we see tears hanging upon the wrinkled eyelids of the old, and upon the long lashes of the young - when we perceive the quick emotions in the dry and rigid, as well as in the soft and vermilion lip — when we see the loquacious hushed into attention, and the grave and taciturn roused into exclamations of sympathy-when we see the habitual vanity, foppery, impertinence, and self-conceit, which are generally observable in the theatre, giving way to deep and unaffected sorrow-we then dismiss the measured dogmas of criticism with disregard, and becoming careless about an obscure phrase or a rugged and in

artificial line, we assign the highest place to the writer, who realises the description which Horace has given of a genuine dramatist :

"Ille per extentum funem mihi prope videtur,
Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet; falsis terroribus implet,
Ut magus.''

"The praise (and it is most genuine) which we have given to Mr. Knowles, may justly be extended to the gentleman who has been the means of familiarising the public with his works. It has been said of Mr. Macready, that his features want symmetry and grace, and that he has not the classical expression which many consider necessary for the representation of lofty tragedy. He has what is much better than a classical countenance---a mind deeply imbued with the spirit of ancient literature, and has applied his intellectual endowments to his profession. We admit that his face is not made like one of those tragic masks which the Athenians used to employ in their theatres, and without which John Kemble might have played in the tragedies of Sophocles. The extraordinary physical qualifications of Kemble have led the public to require a countenance like sculpture upon the stage; but it should not be forgotten that some of the greatest performers of ancient or of modern times were deficient in this particular. There hangs in Voltaire's bedroom at Ferney a picture of the famous Le Kain.† The face is not unlike that of Curran, whose expression must be acknowledged to have been of an anti-heroic order; yet Le Kain, who was called 'Le Convulsionaire,' was one of the greatest masters of the passions that ever lived. We are free to confess that Mr. Macready labours more or less under the imperfection to which we have adverted, and we are not blind to his other faults. His cadences are sometimes too elaborately fine; his transitions of voice have too much purpose in them. He uses the circumflex accent too frequently. He gives his hearer an admonition of the art by which his effects are produced, and forgets that its concealment is the supremacy of skill-'ars est celare artem.' The quotation is trite, but apposite. There is also at times a precipitation in his utterance, which renders him inaudible. He is too deep and guttural, and descends too rapidly from the loftiest pitch of declamation to the dead level of ordinary discourse. The trick is certain to catch applause; but genius ought not to have recourse to tricks. In the headlong fury of passion, Mr. Macready comes too instantaneously to a sudden stop, and looks as if he was struck on a sudden by some cataleptic power. The eagle shot by the magic

VOL. XLVI.-NO. CCLXXV.

2 P

ball in Der Freischutz does not come to the ground with a more precipitous fail. These are defects which, with all our partiality to a powerful and original actor, we perceive as clearly as any critic of the pit. But imperfections of this kind vanish before transcendent merit, and when we see an auditory compounded of many elements, alternately melted and appalled by such a master of pathetic as well as of terrible emotions, we care little about the science of his tones, or the symmetry of his countenance. 'Macready has not got a Roman nose,' exclaims the critic, and yet Macready can fill the critic's eyes with tears. We think it right to observe, that in William Tell his countenance, however in other characters it might be more felicitously constructed, presents an expression in perfect conformity with the ideal picture of the mountain hero. Although deficient in grace, it is full of manly energy and power.

In the scene where Tell meets his son, and the son and father mutually conceal their knowledge of each other, the expression of subdued agony, intermingled with the fondness of paternal affection, were beyond all praise. The concluding portion of this scene was moving in the highest degree; and when Tell at length discloses that the boy who is doomed to death is his offspring, the simple phrase, he is my child,' went into the core of every heart. We are not acquainted with any incident in the whole range of the British drama more affecting than that to which we have referred; and we have no hesitation in saying that there is no other actor upon our stage who is capable of producing effects more powerful than resulted from the performance of Mr. Macready in that admirable scene.

"Mr. Southwell performed the part of Gesler. Mr. Southwell* is a well educated, a very modest, and a very clever man, and is greatly superior to actors upon the London boards to whom the parts of villains are generally assigned. This gentleman went through a difficult character with much

ability, but not sufficient skill. He did not husband his resources, and in the very first scene, in which he appears amidst a tempest in the Alps, became hoarse in shouting after his attendants for relief. It is very true that a man in a snow-storm will roar with all his might and main; but an actor should recollect that it is not his business to enter into competition with the stage-thunder; and that by too great a physical exertion, his voice becomes harsh, obscure, and dissonant, and that he thus disqualifies himself for the due performance of the residue of his part. It is, however, but justice to say, that Mr. Southwell evinced in the tempest no ordinary talent. He gave a strong picture of exhaustion and dismay; his acting throughout in a repulsive part was very creditable to him; but with a view to the general effect of the play we shall give him an advice, which is not unkindly meant. In those scenes where Gesler and Tell meet together, the latter is so situated that much of his emotion is necessarily of a subdued and secret kind. He does not dare to give vent to his feelings, and speaks in the low tones of a man whose agony fears its own disclosure. In order to give a full effect to the acting of such a part, stillness is required— there must not be any noise or clatter upon the stage. The attention of the audience, which should be riveted upon Tell, must not be distracted by the boisterous ferocity of Gesler, and the person who represents the latter should be as calm as the nature of his character will admit. Now, it is not ne cessary that every tyrant should be in 'King Cambyses' vein.' Cruelty is not of necessity always turbulent. It seems it is not only calm, but even merry. A judge in one of Scott's novels (mind, we are speaking of a judge in Scott's novels) cracks jokes on a man who is undergoing acute torture. Since mirth is consistent with atrocity, so is repose. A villain can murder with a smile, and the utmost savageness of the heart may be reconciled with a calm forehead and an unim

passioned aspect. Robespierre was an accomplished gentleman, whose manners were as polished as the wedge of steel of his favourite guillotine.* It is not, therefore, at all requisite, in the fictitions delineation of atrocity, to stamp, and foam, and tear a passion into tatters The main business and end of the scene should be paramount in the mind of every actor who bears in it a subordinate part. We do not mean to say that the performer of Gesler fell into any excess of stormy emotions, which were not warranted by his part. The character itself is not very happily drawn, the whole genius of the writer having been concentrated in his hero, Tell; but it is the business of a judicious actor to correct any mistakes of this nature into which an author may have fallen. The part of Tell's child was admirably played by Master Webster, who gives great promise of future excellence. Mr. Abbott and Mr. Calcraft played subordinate characters, and did everything for them which could be effected. It does these gentlemen great credit, that in a theatre where they have the selection of their parts, they should consent to place themselves occasionally in inferior positions, and thus hold out a useful example to every member of the company. Upon the whole, the play was admirably got up, and was far better acted at our theatre than upon its original representation at Drury-lane."

William Tell was repeated seven times during the engagement of Mr. Macready above alluded to, and always to crowded houses. Thirty years have rolled on since Sheil penned the criticism inserted above, and which we have preserved as a specimen of his style in that line of writing, as an instance of the warmth with which he rendered full justice to superior genius, and as a record of how plays were sometimes acted in Dublin, before what may be now called a departed generation, who flourished sub Consule Planco. Great changes have taken place since then. Young, at eighty, asks for the world in which he was born. Lord Byron says that a tenth

portion of the time suffices for a complete revolution of everything. The rapidity of universal mutation has assuredly not diminished since he wrote"Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings, And actors-all are gone on the wind's wings."

Sheil, in 1827, when the Dublin theatre opened under a new manage ment, wrote a poetical address for the occasion, which was delivered with happy effect. Some bitter lines were omitted, much to the dissatisfaction of the writer, who printed and disseminated them amongst his friends. They were not considered eligible for public recitation, as bearing with heavy satire on those who vehemently oppose the theatre on what are called religious objections.‡

In 1830, Sheil, as we have mentioned in the preceding number of this series, took a very active part, in conjunction with Mr. Macready, in the preparation and production of Maturin's posthumous tragedy of Osmyn the Renegade; and again, in 1835, in conjunction with many others, exerted himself warmly to promote a benefit for Barim, which took place in the Dublin theatre on the 21st of July, under the immediate patronage of the Marquis of Normanby, at that time Lord Lieutenant, and the warmest patron of all connected with the drama which the Irish metropolis had ever seen.

Our record of Sheil's principal dramatic doings closes here. This is no place to discuss his politics, in which he was undoubtedly sincere, although, as in the case of the unlucky speech on the death of the Duke of York, and the attack on Archbishop Magee, he sometimes suffered himself to be carried away into extremes, which it is idle for personal partiality to attempt to justify, and over which, if possible, his true friends should desire to throw a