361 ART. XX.-Remorse, a Tragedy, in five Acts. By S. T. Coleridge. London: Printed for W. Pople. 1813. In the most exposed and perilous station among the ranks of literature stands the dramatist. But in the proportion in which his danger from inherent disqualifications is increased, the field of fortuitous success is widened. We are all sensible of the lucky force of stage effect, and the artificial aids of scenic representation. Had the writer of Remorse composed his tragedy merely to be read, we hesitate not to pronounce that he would completely have failed in his object: but genius has more resources than one, and the dramatist who has both the eye and the ear to appeal to, where his claims are feeble with the one, knows how to make his court to the other. We can easily imagine the triumphant feelings of the author when the plaudits overwhelmed the dismal note of disapprobation in the eventful moment that was to decide his doom; and very far is it from our wish or intention to alloy the thrillings of his self congratulations. We have, however, a duty to the public to perform, in taking a strict and impartial view of the merits of the piece under consideration; and this is the more imperative, as we are sure that none of our readers, after having seen it performed, have made it the lucubration of their closets, or can charge their memories with any very accurate account of it,' however great their resignation and devotion may have been at the time of the exhibition. We are desirous of shewing them, by the short notices we shall offer, how much both in quality and quantity may have escaped their penetration, and how many have been the aberrations to which, as true penitents at the shrine of offended authorship, they will have to confess themselves guilty if ever they should be called to account. Mr. Coleridge informs us in his preface, that his tragedy was written in the summer and autumn of the year 1797; why it has not been brought forward till now is a matter of no importance, but we question if it is a property that was, or ever will be, the better for keeping. At the present moment, however, any thing relating to the Peninsula is an object of interest; together with our victorious dispatches we have Spanish buttons, chocolate, mantles, fans, feathers, and bolderos; was it then to be supposed that the zeal of managers, shouldering each other in the eager discharge of a new office, should forget to provide us with a Spanish play? Undoubtedly not. Circulars, we conclude, were distributed with diplomatic diligence by the secretaries of the green-room, to all the tributary drudges of the drama wheresoever dispersed. It is not unlikely that these poor souls, rendered desperate by the fate of their "Rejected Addresses," had flung away their slighted quills, and turned out their lean Pegasuses to grass, and their vagrant Muses into the streets. What was to be done?—the theatre had been burnt, and all the rubbish in and about it had been either consumed, or stolen, or lost. Whether the tragedy of Remorse had been taken away from the theatre before the conflagration, or dug out like a precious monument from the ruins of Herculaneum, it is not of much importance to determine; it was found that its scene was laid in Spain; there were Dons and Donnas for the chief agents; and this was exactly what the managers wanted. The time of the story is the reign of Philip II. at the close of the civil wars against the Moors, and during the heat of the persecution in which an edict had been promulgated, forbidding the wearing of Moresco apparel under pain of death. The Marquis Valdez, who seems to have been a respectable old lord with an excess of credulity, which is of great service, as will presently appear, to the plot, has two sons, the elder Don Alvar, and the younger Don Ordonio, and a beautiful and amiable ward called Donna Teresa. A tender attachment takes place between Don Alvar and Donna Teresa, and nothing seems to counteract their mutual wishes. Some delay, however, is interposed by the departure of the young lord from his native country, for the purpose as it should seem of travelling; though this, like many other incidents, is left to be supplied by the good-natured reader or spectator. The younger son, Don Ordonio, who seems to enjoy the larger share of his father's affection, is secretly his brother's rival, and as he flatters himself that he has only to remove Don Alvar out of the way to ensure his own success with Donna Teresa, he engages a certain Morescan, by name Isidore, to murder his brother whilst on his travels; and it is upon a firm conviction of his death, that he is pressing his suit for the hand of the fair Donna Teresa, when Don Alvar returns to his native shore with a faithful attendant, whose name is Zulimez. The Morescan, who had been suborned to murder Don Alvar, had spared his life on the condition that he would bind himself by oath to a absence and of secrecy." 66 year of Zulimez is of opinion, that his master might have returned before with great propriety, as the oath was not binding, and seems a convert to the poet's doctrine, that it is "He who enjoins the oath that breaks it, Not he that for convenience takes it.” The fratricide is not wanting in an excuse for his brother's absence, and the old marquis is put off with a story which he readily believes, that his son had been attacked on his homeward-bound voyage by an Algerine, and that his "brave Ordonio Saw both the pirate and the prize go down." Thus satisfied of the death of his eldest son, the credulous old man uses all his influence with his ward to persuade her to accept the hand of Ordonio. Nothing, however, can shake her constant affection; she raises some queries upon the voucher; and when she is told that her union with Ordonio will make "her aged father Sink to the grave in joy,” she replies with frankness and firmness, "I have no power to love him, His proud forbidding eye, and his dark brow, Closes beneath his touch." We Such being the state of affairs at the beginning of the first act, our readers may pretty well guess at the development of the piece. Do they imagine that Teresa's constancy is rewarded by the hand of her unfortunate lover,-that Ordonio pays the price of his infamy by some unlucky end, do they guess this is the case?because if they do they are right. And yet we will not say that they will not be disappointed. The catastrophe of this play is like a distant mark on a wearisome road, constantly in sight, but constantly inaccessible. The play has a sort of secondary story in the fortunes of Isidore and his wife Alhadra, which, however, is totally destitute of any attractions or interest of its own. have already heard of the expedition on which Isidore had set out at the request of one brother to murder the other, and of his shrinking from the horrid act when just on the point of executing it. Isidore, it seems, had professed himself a Christian, but in some points having fallen short of satisfying the scruples or the cupidity of Monviedro, an inquisitor, he is of course consigned to a dungeon, a circumstance which very naturally inflames the irritable and revengeful disposition of his wife Alhadra. Whilst she is brooding over her vengeance, her husband is released through the interest of Ordonio, and is invited to another little piece of secret service, which however he at first refuses upon very creditable grounds. He accounts for his conduct in the following terms; เ "Why, why, my lord, You know you told me that the lady loved you, This is doing evil that good may come of it with a vengeance. The upshot of the conversation is that they both agree to turn conjurors, for, says Ordonio, "We would wind up her (Teresa's) fancy With a strange music that she knows not of- At last, Isidore, reflecting upon some strange things he had heard drop from Alvar, (who was wandering about disguised as a Moor, and thus kept himself unknown to every one but the faithful Zulimez,) whilst questioned on the sea-shore by an inquisitor; and that he had called himself "He that can bring the dead to life again;" and thinking the assertion, upon consideration of the person addressed, to be very tolerable evidence of the truth of what was professed, intimates that this wizard would be a desirable agent in the business. Ordonio is of the same opinion, and immediately sets off for the supposed conjuror's abode; and here he gets a promise, after a great deal of niysterious emotion, hints, and gestures, that every thing should be done according to his proposed plan, which was no other than by some very unintelligible means to play off certain illusions upon the fancy of Teresa which might satisfy her beyond all doubt of the death of Don Alvar. To forward this curious contrivance, he leaves with Alvar the miniature of which he had been robbed in his travels. When the time comes, the conjuror fairly outwits his employers, for, instead of this miniature, he commands the spirits to represent the picture of his intended assassination. At the moment while the minds of Teresa, Valdez, and Ordonio are filled with astonishment and horror, a band of inquisitors appear, and march off the sorcerer without further ceremony, whilst Ordonio, having great reason 'to be displeased at what had been done, exclaims, "Why haste you not? Off with him to the dungeon!" Ordonio very naturally begins to distrust Isidore, and invites him to a cavern under some pretence with intent to kill him. They meet accordingly, and a strange dialogue takes place. Or donio, who seems to have no small difficulty in working up his mind to the execution of his bloody purpose, entertains his companion, who, from some ominous dream of the preceding night, appears to be full of frightful apprehension, with a long rambling story which affords very strong hints of what was intended; so strong, indeed, that Isidore draws upon the Don by way of anticipation, and a fight and a scuffle ensue, which end in the precipitation of the ill-fated Moor down a horrid chasm at one end of the cavern. And thus Isidore is disposed of, and makes way by this abrupt disappearance for the more convenient dispatch of the business that remained. Alhadra, who had watched her husband into the cavern, and had also seen Ordonio enter the same frightful place, and after a while come out of it flinging his torch towards the moon with a sort of wild sportiveness in his manner, soon makes a discovery which decides her conduct. She summons a faithful band of Moorish followers, of whom Isidore had been the chieftain, to whom she describes the murder of her husband by Ordonio, and engages them to revenge their leader. In the mean time Teresa had visited the dungeon where Don Alvar was confined by the inquisitors, and a complete development had taken place, with all the joy and tenderness, tears and caresses, which belong to these tumultuous moments. In the midst of these endearments the ruthless Ordonio, fresh from the murder of Isidore, bursts into the dungeon with a dose of poison which he had prepared for the supposed wizard, whom he was determined to rid himself of, as his communications with Isidore seemed to have made him too well acquainted with Ordonio's crimes. Here Alvar discovers himself to his brother, who is too far gone in the horrors of guilt and remorse to receive comfort from the assurances of forgiveness on the part of Alvar and Teresa. While things are in this state between these parties, in comes the infuriated Alhadra and her Morescan band of followers. After some efforts on the part of Teresa to incline the heart of the injured wife to pity, the voice of Valdez is heard crying rescue! rescue! as he runs towards the prison. At that instant Ordonio is stabbed by Alhadra, who is carried off by the Moors, and in a moment after Valdez enters, who of course is made acquainted with the whole truth, and receives his son Alvar into his embrace in an ecstacy of parental joy: we have only to suppose the nuptials of Don Alvar and his beloved Teresa, to make the happiness of the survivors of the house of Valdez complete. We may add ourselves, also, to the number of the persons made happy by arriving at this consummation; for we cannot help reckoning the task of reading to the end the tragedy of" Remorse," |