a soul so alive to everything great and good, with the deepest relish for all that is valuable in life, and living in the love of others and for others, giving up all hope and all joy for the sake of others, and seeking death without a reluctant thought. Angelic benevolence and loveliness could do no more. Yet we should have been better pleased if our author had painted Ion with more struggles when ready to cast life away; it would have given more human probability to his character, and would have shown, that he had counted the cost, and knew what it was to die. Here we come again to what we conceive to be an original and serious defect in our author's conception of Ion. As he himself says, his hero does not overcome evil by the force of will, but escapes it by insensibility to its approach. In other words, Ion does not partake of that part of human nature which renders our life on earth so important, susceptibility to temptation; and therefore needs no struggles of soul to resist it. His is not that virtue which "unshaken, unsubdued, unterrified, keeps its loyalty, its love, its zeal;" but by a self-prompted, spontaneous instinct, he recoils from evil, or by an insensibility to it he can breathe it like some atmosphere of pestilence, without apprehension or danger. He is like a man who has lost the sense of feeling, and throws himself into the fire for some good end. What would the Romans have thought of Scevola if his arm had been of stone? Now it is no sufficient bar to our objection, that the character of Ion is ideal. We do not quarrel with our author on that account. Let him paint a character as ideal as he will, it is thus only raised above ordinary human nature, and not withdrawn from its sphere. But our author exhibits a romantic goodness which has no base to rest upon. We take the difference between the ideal and the romantic in character, to be something like this,-the one is man approaching that perfection which is possible for a nature like his, and therefore equally beautiful and moral; the other is man approaching a false standard of perfection, or approaching it without being under those laws which can or should guide our nature, and therefore only beautiful to the diseased eye, and moral to the unregulated moral sense.

We shall have more to say of this before we are through. At present we shall break the chain of our remarks, no doubt to the great satisfaction of our readers, by quoting one or two passages as samples of the whole. The first shall be the first interview between Ion and Clemanthe, beginning with her appeal to him against exposing himself to the plague, and ending with their confession of love :

ION.

'How fares my pensive sister?

CLEMANTHE.

How should I fare but ill when the pale hand
Draws the black foldings of the eternal curtain
Closer and closer round us-Phocion absent-
And thou, forsaking all within thy home,
Wilt risk thy life with strangers, in whose aid
Even thou canst do but little?

ION.

It is little :

But in these sharp extremities of fortune,

The blessings which the weak and poor can scatter
Have their own season. "Tis a little thing
To give a cup of water; yet its draught
Of cool refreshment, drain'd by fever'd lips,
May give a shock of pleasure to the frame
More exquisite than when nectarean juice
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.
It is a little thing to speak a phrase
Of common comfort which by daily use
Has almost lost its sense; yet on the ear
Of him who thought to die unmourn'd 'twill fall
Like choicest music; fill the glazing eye
With gentle tears; relax the knotted hand
To know the bonds of fellowship again;
And shed on the departing soul a sense
More precious than the benison of friends
About the honor'd deathbed of the rich,
To him who else were lonely, that another
Of the great family is near and feels.

CLEMANTHE.

Oh, thou canst never bear these mournful offices!
So blithe, so merry once! Will not the sight
Of frenzied agonies unfix thy reason,

Or the dumb woe congeal thee?

ION.

No, Clemanthe;
They are the patient sorrows that touch nearest ;
If thou hadst seen the warrior, when he writhed
In the last grapple of his sinewy frame,
With conquering anguish, strive to cast a smile
(And not in vain) upon his fragile wife,
Waning beside him,-and, his limbs composed,
The widow of the moment fix her gaze
Of longing, speechless love, upon the babe,
The only living thing which yet was hers,
Spreading its arms for its own resting-place,
Yet with attenuated hand wave off

The unstricken child, and so embraceless die,
Stifling the mighty hunger of the heart;
Thou couldst endure the sight of selfish grief
In sullenness or frenzy ;-but to-day
Another lot falls on me.

ION.

That is with the gods!

I go but to the palace, urged by hope,
Which from afar hath darted on my soul,
That to the humbleness of one like me
The haughty king may listen.

CLEMANTHE.

To the palace!

Knowest thou the peril-nay, the certain issue
That waits thee? Death-The tyrant has decreed it,
Confirmed it with an oath; and he has power

To keep that oath; for, hated as he is,

The reckless soldiers who partake his riot
Are swift to do his bidding.

ION.

I know all ;

But they who call me to the work can shield me,
Or make me strong to suffer.

CLEMANTHE.

Then the sword

Falls on thy neck! O Gods! to think that thou,
Who in the plenitude of youthful life

Art now before me, ere the sun decline,

Perhaps in one short hour, shalt lie cold, cold,

To speak, smile, bless no more!-Thou shalt not go!

ION.

Thou must not stay me, fair one; even thy father,
Who (blessings on him!) loves me as his son,
Yields to the will of Heaven.

CLEMANTHE.

And he can do this!

I shall not bear his presence if thou fallest
By his consent; so shall I be alone.

ION.

Phocion will soon return, and juster thoughts
Of thy admiring father close the gap

Thy old companion left behind him.

CLEMANTHE.

Never!

What will to me be father, brother, friends,

When thou art gone-the light of our life quench'd— Haunting like spectres of departed joy

The home where thou wert dearest?

Humanity and charity never were painted in lovelier colors, than in the beginning of this extract. It made us feel, when we read it, the words of Christ, that he who gives a cup of water in his name shall not lose his reward. With the declaration of love we are not entirely satisfied. The author seems afraid of himself, like a person upon the ice, and therefore represses the feelings which should have burst more freely from both parties. Clemanthe ought not to excuse, or half excuse her affection by what she says in her last speech; still less ought she to dream, that Ion can despise her for telling it. What noble person would think conventional reserve necessary at a crisis like this. Ion also, we think, might have manifested a little more strength of feeling, in perfect consistency with his enthusiastic pursuit of the object before him. Was it not right for him to feel a struggle, to hang for a moment poised between the sweet hope now assured to him and the strong call of duty? One would think the fascination had deadened, to some degree, even his emotions. We should like to extract a deeply tender scene from the beginning of the third act, but our limits will only allow us to quote part of another, and, as we conceive, a very beautiful scene at the close of the play. It is the last interview between the same pair. Fate, having revealed to him his lineage, has made it necessary for him, if he will not break his oath, to destroy in himself the last scion of the Argive race of kings. He means to do it at the coronation, and conceals it by a disguise of coldness from Clemanthe, but yet must bid her farewell. In this interview, the weak disguise bursts apart:

VOL. X.

22