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Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood-"As false as Cressid!""

These lines he pronounced with great emphasis and effect, and continued:

"But what has poetry to do with a play, or in a play? "There is not one passage in Alfieri strictly poetical; hardly one in Racine.”

Here he handed me a prospectus of a new translation of Shakspeare into French prose, and read part of the first scene in 'The Tempest,' laughing inwardly, as he was used to do; and afterwards produced a passage from Chateaubriand, contending that we have no theatre.

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“The French very properly ridicule our bringing in

enfant au premier acte, barbon au dernier.' I was always a friend to the unities, and believe that subjects are not wanting which may be treated in strict conformity to their rules. No one can be absurd enough "to contend, that the preservation of the unities is a defect,—at least a fault. Look at Alfieri's plays, and tell me "what is wanting in them. Does he ever deviate from the

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"rules prescribed by the ancients, from the classical simplicity of the old models? It is very difficult, almost impossible, to write any thing to please a modern audience. I was instrumental in getting up 'Bertram,' and "it was said that I wrote part of it myself. That was not "the case. I knew Maturin to be a needy man, and interested myself in his success: but its life was very “feeble and ricketty. I once thought of getting Joanna "Baillie's' De Montfort' revived; but the winding-up was

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faulty. She was herself aware of this, and wrote the last "act over again; and yet, after all, it failed. She must have "been dreadfully annoyed, even more than Lady "When it was bringing out, I was applied to, to write a prologue; but as the request did not come from Kean, "who was to speak it, I declined. There are fine things

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in all the Plays on the Passions: an idea in 'De Montfort'

struck me particularly; one of the characters said that "he knew the footsteps of another.*

*"De Montfort.-'Tis Rezen velt: I heard his well-known foot! From the first staircase, mounting step by step.

"Freberg.-How quick an ear thou hast for distant sound!

"I heard him not."

Act II. Scene 2.

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There are four words in Alfieri that speak volumes. They are in Don Carlos.' The King and his Minister are secreted during an interview of the Infant with the "Queen Consort: the following dialogue passes, which ends "the scene. 'Vedesti? Vedi. Udisti? Udi.' All the dra"matic beauty would be lost in translation-the nominative cases would kill it. Nothing provokes me so much as "the squeamishness that excludes the exhibition of many "such subjects from the stage ;-a squeamishness, the produce, as I firmly believe, of a lower tone of the moral

sense, and foreign to the majestic and confident virtue of "the golden age of our country. All is now cant-me"thodistical cant. Shame flies from the heart, and takes

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refuge in the lips; or, our senses and nerves are much more refined than those of our neighbours.

"We should not endure the Edipus story, nor 'Phèdre.' 'Myrrha,' the best worked-up, perhaps, of all Alfieri's tragedies, and a favourite in Italy, would not be tolerated. 'The Mysterious Mother' has never been acted, nor Massinger's 'Brother and Sister.' Webster's 'Duchess "of Malfy' would be too harrowing: her madness, the dungeon-scene, and her grim talk with her keepers and coffin-bearers, could not be borne: nor Lillo's 'Fatal

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Marriage.' The Cenci' is equally horrible, though perhaps the best tragedy modern times have produced. It " is a play,—not a poem, like 'Remorse' and 'Fazio ;' and "the best proof of its merit is, that people are continually quoting it. What may not be expected from such a beginning?

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"The Germans are colder and more phlegmatic than we are, and bear even to see 'Werner.'

"To write any thing to please, at the present day, is “the despair of authors."

It was easy to be perceived that during this tirade upon the stage, and against Shakspeare, he was smarting under the ill-reception 'Marino Faliero' had met with, and indignant at the critics, who had denied him the dramatic faculty. This, however, was not the only occasion of his abusing the old dramatists.

Some days after I revived the subject of the drama, and led him into speaking of his own plays.

"I have just got a letter," said he, " from Murray. What

"do you think he has enclosed me? A long dull extract "from that long dull Latin epic of Petrarch's, Africa, which " he has the modesty to ask me to translate for Ugo Fos"colo, who is writing some Memoirs of Petrarch, and has "got Moore, Lady Dacre, &c. to contribute to. What am I to do with the death of Mago? I wish to God, Medwin, you would take it home with you, and translate it; " and I will send it to Murray. We will say nothing about "its being yours, or mine; and it will be curious to hear "Foscolo's opinion upon it. Depend upon it, it will not "be an unfavourable one."

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In the course of the day I turned it into couplets, (and lame enough they were,) which he forwarded by the next courier to England.

Almost by return of post arrived a furiously complimentary epistle in acknowledgment, which made us laugh very heartily.

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There are three good lines," said Lord Byron, “in Mago's speech, which may be thus translated:

* Ugo Foscolo afterwards took them for his motto.