Mr. Lewis will excuse us for the liberty we take in commenting on a few passages in his play which appear to us rather exceptionable. The only information which Cæsario, imagining his father to have been dead for many years, receives of his existence, is in the following short speech of Melchior.

'MELCH. The Count San Lucar, long thought dead, but saved, It seems, by Amelrosa's care. Time presses

I must away: farewell.'

To this laconic, but important information, Cæsario makes no reply; but merely desires Melchior to meet him at one o'clock, under the Royal Tower, and for some other purposes.

In the few cases which have fallen under our observation, of fathers restored to life after a supposed death of twenty years, the parties concerned have, on the first information, appeared a little surprised, and generally asked a few questions; though we do not go the length of saying it is natural so to do. This same Cæsario (whose love of his father is a principal cause of his conspiracy against the King) begins criticising the old warrior, upon his first seeing him again, much as a virtuoso would criticise an ancient statue that wanted an arm or a leg.

Amelrosa, who imagines her father to have banished her from his presence for ever, in the first transports of joy for pardon, obtained by earnest intercessions, thus exclaims:

Lend thy doves, dear Venus,

That I may send them where Cæsario strays:
And while he smooths their silver wings, and gives them
For drink the honey of his lips, I'll bid them
Coo in his ear, his Amelrosa's happy!'

What judge of human feelings does not recognise in

these images of silver wings, doves and honey, the genuine language of the passions?

If Mr. Lewis is really in earnest in pointing out the coincidence between his own dramatic sentiments and the Gospel of St. Matthew, such a reference (wide as we know this assertion to be) evinces a want of judgment, of which we did not think him capable. If it proceeded from irreligious levity, we pity the man who has bad taste enough not to prefer honest dulness to such paltry celebrity.

We beg leave to submit to Mr. Lewis, if Alfonso, considering the great interest he has in the decision, might not interfere a little in the long argument carried on between Cæsario and Orsino, upon the propriety of putting him to death. To have expressed any decisive opinion upon the subject, might perhaps have been incorrect; but a few gentle hints as to that side of the question to which he leaned, might be fairly allowed to be no very unnatural incident.

This tragedy delights in explosions. Alfonso's empire is destroyed by a blast of gunpowder, and restored by a clap of thunder. After the death of Cæsario, and a short exhortation to that purpose by Orsino, all the conspirators fall down in a thunder-clap, ask pardon of the king, and are forgiven. This mixture of physical and moral power is beautiful! How interesting a waterspout would appear among Mr. Lewis's kings and queens! We anxiously look forward, in his next tragedy, to a fall of snow three or four feet deep; or expect that a plot shall gradually unfold itself by means of a general thaw.

All is not so bad in this play. There is some strong painting, which shows, every now and then, the hand of a master. The agitation which Cæsario exhibits upon his first joining the conspirators in the cave, previous to the blowing up of the mine, and immediately after stabbing Ottilia, is very fine.

'CÆSARIO. Ay, shout, shout,

And kneeling greet your blood-anointed king,

This steel his sceptre! Tremble, dwarfs in guilt,

And own your master! Thou art proof, Henriquez,
'Gainst pity; I once saw thee stab in battle

A page who clasped thy knees: And Melchior there
Made quick work with a brother whom he hated.
But what did I this night? Hear, hear, and reverence!
There was a breast, on which my head had rested

A thousand times; a breast which loved me fondly
As heaven loves martyred saints; and yet this breast'
I stabbed, knaves stabbed it to the heart! - Wine!
wine there!

For my soul's joyous!'- p. 86.

The resistance which Amelrosa opposes to the firing of the mine, is well wrought out; and there is some good poetry scattered up and down the play, of which we should very willingly make extracts, if our limits would permit. The ill success which it has justly experienced, is owing, we have no doubt, to the want of nature in the characters, and of probability and good arrangement in the incidents, objections of some force.

NECKAR'S LAST VIEWS. E. REVIEW, 1803.

Dernières Vues de Politiques, et de Finance. Par M. Neckar. An 10. 1802.

IF power could be measured by territory, or counted by population, the inveteracy, and the disproportion which exists between France and England, must occasion to every friend of the latter country the most serious and well-founded apprehensions. Fortunately however for us, the question of power is not only what is the amount of population? but, how is that population governed? How far is a confidence in the stability of political institutions established by an experience of their wisdom? Are the various interests of society adjusted and protected by a system of laws thoroughly tried, gradually ameliorated, and purely administered? What is the degree of general prosperity evinced by that most perfect of all criteria, general credit? These are the considerations to which an enlightened politician, who speculates on the future destiny of nations, will direct his attention, more than to the august and imposing exterior of territorial dominion, or to those brilliant moments, when a nation, under the influence of great passions, rises above its neighbours, and above itself, in military renown.

If it be visionary to suppose the grandeur and safety of the two nations as compatible and co-existent, we have the important (though the cruel) consolation of reflecting, that the French have yet to put together the very elements of a civil and political constitution; that they have to experience all the danger and all the inconvenience which result from the rashness and the imperfect views of legislators, who have every thing to conjecture, and every thing to create; that they must submit to the confusion of repeated change, or the greater evil

of obstinate perseverance in error; that they must live for a century in that state of perilous uncertainty in which every revolutionised nation remains, before rational liberty becomes feeling and habit, as well as law, and is written in the hearts of men as plainly as in the letter of the statute; and that the opportunity of beginning this immense edifice of human happiness is so far from being presented to them at present, that it is extremely problematical whether or not they are to be bandied from one vulgar usurper to another, and remain for a century subjugated to the rigour of a military government, at once the scorn and the scourge of Europe.*

To the more pleasing supposition, that the First Consul will make use of his power to give his country a free constitution, we are indebted for the work of M. Neckar now before us, a work of which good temper is the characteristic excellence: it every where preserves that cool impartiality which it is so difficult to retain in the discussion of subjects connected with recent and important events; modestly proposes the results of reflection; and, neither deceived nor wearied by theories, examines the best of all that mankind have said or done for the attainment of rational liberty.

The principal object of M. Neckar's book is to examine this question, An opportunity of election supposed, and her present circumstances considered-what is the best form of government which France is capable of receiving?' and he answers his own query, by giving the preference to a Republic One and Indivisible.

The work is divided into four parts.

1. An Examination of the present constitution of France.

2. On the best form of a Republic One and Indivisible.

3. On the best form of a Monarchical Government. 4. Thoughts upon Finance.

* All this is, unfortunately, as true now as it was when written thirty

years ago.