**, M.D. Do wreak their wrath upon the stedfast hills." After some further conversation of this kind, the archbishop says-"But why, my good Lord Count, are you thus shaken? A Coronation Tragedy-By LAELIUS We have great pleasure in doing our utmost to bring this singularly beautiful production into notice. It has redeemed, in our opinion, the literary character of the age from the impu tation of the players, to whom we may now confidently assert a true dramatic genius does exist in English literature. Not only is the subject of this tragedy chosen in an original spirit, and the fable constructed with the greatest skill, but the versification and dialogue are equally entitled to unqualified praise. The plot is founded on the unhappy coronation of Carlo Aurenzebe, King of Sicily, a prince of the Austrian dynasty, who was put to death during the solemn ceremony of the anointment, by the conspirators substituting a corrosive oil, of the most direful nature, instead of the consecrated ointment; and the medical author, with a rare felicity, has accordingly called his tragedy "The Fatal Unction." As the story is well known, we think it unnecessary to say more respecting it, than that the Doctor, with a judicious fidelity to historical truth, has stuck close to all the leading incidents, as they are narrated in Ugo Foscolo's classic his tory, in three volumes quarto, a translation of which, with ingenious annotations, may speedily, we understand, be expected from the animated pen of Sir Robert Wilson, the enterprizing member for Southwark. The play opens with a grand scene in a hilly country, in which Mount Ætna is discovered in the back ground. Butero, who had a chief hand in the plot, enters at midnight, followed by the Archbishop of Palermo, whom he addresses in the following spirited lines, his right hand stretched towards the burning mountain. "There, spitting fires in heaven's enduring face, Behold where Etna stands sublime, nor dreads The vengeance of the foe he so insults The wonted arms with which the warring The spark of life in Carlo Aurenzebe "Archb. I am no fool, you misapply I ne'er was such, nor such will ever be. I would a scheme unfold to take him off, Count Butero. Thy hand and pardon. you, 'Tis my nature's weakness Archb. To-morrow, Count Count Butero. There's no one near. Pray thee proceed, and let the choleric hill Archb. To-morrow, my dear Count, ཐཱཝཱན Count Butero. I know that. Archb. And 'tis your part, an old timehonour'd right, 1 To place the diadem upon his brow might not you and I The traitor archbishop then proceeds to develope the treason which he had 54 hatched, and proposes, instead of the “The stuff in this [shewing the bottle] a gypsey did prepare From a decoction made of adders' hearts, And the fell hemlock, whose mysterious juice Doth into mortal curd knead the brisk blood, some political reflections, rather of a Wherein the circling life doth hold its tion, appear judicious and beautiful. course A friar saw her sitting by a well, 66 The count and archbishop having agreed to infect with death" their lawful and legitimate monarch, while he is undergoing the fatigues of his inauguration, then go to the palace on purpose to confer with certain others of the rebellious nobles; and the scene changes to a narrow valley, and peasants are seen descending from the hills, singing "God save the King," being then on their way towards Palermo to see the coronation. Having descended on the stage, and What's making you hing your grun- Gyp. Do ye see that bell in the dub there? The carlin having thus explained the When the peasants, with the gypsey, have quitted the stage, the scene is again shifted, and we are introduced to Carlo Aurenzebe, the King and the beautiful Splendora, his royal consort, in their bed-chamber. His majesty has been up some time, walking about the room, anxious for the coming of his Lord Chamberlain, whose duty it was, according to ancient custom, in such a morning, to dress him; but the Queen still presses her pillow asleep; in this situation, the King happens to cast his eye towards the bed, and forgetting his own anxious cares about the impending ceremony of the day, address→ es her in the following tender and touching verses: "How like a rose her blooming beauty presses The smooth plump pillow, and the dent it makes cence Is as a dimple in the guileless cheek His majesty then, in the most affectionate manner, steps towards the bed, and stoops "to taste her cheek, That, like a full-ripe peach, lures the fond lip." In the attempt he awakens her, and she leaps out of bed, startled and alarmed, exclaiming→→ "Arrest that traitor's arm, dash down the bowl 'Tis fraught with death." And in this striking manner we are dream, And suddenly that old and stately hall, Whose gnarled joists and rafters, richly carved, Were drap'd and tasselled by the weaving spider, Melted away, and I beheld myself In a lone churchyard, sitting on a tree, King. What did they there? Queen. With eager hands they dug, To bring fit subjects for her college class, King. Heavens! And on the churchyard grass I saw it lie, Queen. I tremble to disclose King. I pray you, tell-dearest Splendora, tell. Queen. It is a tale will harrow up your soul. They tore the cerements, and laid out to view ous gowle Smelt the wide nostril, and on looking up, head, smiled. King. O who will beauty ever love again? Queen. Soon without knives the canni the midst of traitors, one of whom tried to force her to drink a bowl of poison, when happily she was roused by the king kissing her cheek. A few natural enough reflections are made by both their Majesties on the omen, and the first act is terminated by the lord chamberlain knocking for admission to assist his majesty to dress, while six mute ladies come in with a robe de chambre, which they throw round the Queen, and lead her off into her dressing-room. The second act opens in the street, with a conversation between the friar who had bought the poison from the gypsey woman, and the King's principal secretary of state for the home department: Sec. My Lord Archbishop is an ho danined villain, Say, wherefore kept you poison in that bottle; For whom, assassin, didst thou buy the Friar. Will you not listen? Nor secrete steel to do their guilty deeds." This scene is conceived with great art; for the friar, as the reader sees, is just on the point of telling the secretary of state that he had given the poison to the Archbishop, and if the bals began secretary would only have listened to To relish their foul meal-I saw a mother him, the plot, in all human probabiliGive to her child, that fondled at her side, ty, would have been discovered. But An ear to mumble with its boneless gums.' "the secretary, by his rashness, preHer majesty then continues to relate, that another change came over the spirit of her dream, and the gowles having vanished, she found herself in vents himself from hearing the suspicious circumstance of the Archbishop having secretly provided a bottle of poison, and quits the scene, vehement ly expressing his abhorrence of all murderers "Whether their hests they do with pill or poniard, The ambush'd pistol, or the bludgeon rude, That strews the road with brains " pretty plainly insinuating that he considers the friar as one of those bad characters, Who make no pause in their fell purposes." The friar, who is a very honest man, though longing a little for promotion in the church,-which, by the way, is a natural enough feeling in a clergyman,-justly indignant at the imputation of the secretary of state, breaks ́out, after that minister has made his exit, into this noble soliloquy: "Oh that the gods, when they did fashion me Into this poor degraded thing of man, I would have torn the saucy dotard's throat. And the warm milk of human kindness in me, Tax'd with the thickness of a felon's blood!" While the friar is in this resentful mood, Count Butero enters, and a long and highly poetical dialogue takes place, in the course of which the friar is led to suspect that his lordship has some secret understanding with the archbishop, and that between them something of a very dreadful nature has been concerted. Count. I'll hear no more thou speak'st And the archbishop has a better knowledge Friar. If that his grace-my Lord Butero, hear Of something dreadful in the womb of time, Hatching between you and that wicked prelate. [Exit the Friar; the Count follows him a few paces with his sword drawn, bút suddenly checks himself, and returning sheathes it.] Count. Back to thy home, my bright and trusty blade; "Count. But tell me, monk, where lies Our schemed intent to make the coronation the guilt of it. To die is to be not-and what is slain Can that which nothing is, be guilt, that is heaven? Friar. There's atheism in such subtlety. I pray thee, son, to change these desperate thoughts; They smack of sin, and may draw down forever That winged thing that is more truly thee, Than is the clothes of flesh and bone thou wear'st, Loading its pinions, that would else expand, And eagle like, soar onward to the skies. The Count then retires, and the scene changes to a hall in the palace, where the Queen, in her robes of state, is addressed by the old gypsey. "Gyp. Stop, lady fair, with jewell'd And something gic, to hear frae me, Queen. Alas, poor soul! take that small I have no time to list my fortune's spacing. Gyp. Pause and ponder, noble dame, DE Bottles cork'd we may dery, But doctors' drugs are jeopardy. she mean? Gyp. I heard a tale, I may not tell, 'I saw a sight, I saw it well; In priestly garb the vision sped, And then a body without head; A traitor died, a hangman stood, He held it up-red stream'd the blood; The people shouted one and all, As people should when traitors fall; But O, thou Queen of high degree, What 'vails the gladsome shout to thee. Queen. This is mere rave I understand it not Away, poor wretch, I'll send for thee again!" The gypsey is accordingly dismissed with "the small change which her majesty had bestowed; for "it is a law of our nature," in such circumstances, to deride admonition, and the author evinces his profound knowledge of man, in thus representing the Queen, reckless alike of her prophetic dream, and the gypsey's prediction, still going undismayed to the coronation. The next scene represents an apart ment where the regalia of Sicily is kept. The crown and the other ensigns of royalty are seen on a table, and among them an ivory pigeon, with a golden collar round its neck. The archbishop enters with an officer, the keep er of the regalia, and the following brief, but striking conversation, ensues, "Archb. Are all things now prepared? Off. They are, my lord. Arch. Clean'd and made ready for their solemn use? Off. They have been all done newly up, sence. [Exit the Archbishop; and the Officer is seen wiping up the holy oil as the drop scene falls.]" The whole of this act is perfect, the action never flags for a moment, but dialogue rich and appropriate, and the proceeds with an awful and appalling rapidity. The drama is very properly divided into only three acts or parts, the begin ning, the middle, and the end, which the author tastefully denominates "the preparation," the operation," and and last opens with the peasants and "the consummation;" and the third Palermitans assembled to see the coro nation procession, and all talking Scoteh in the most natural manner. 66 Gaffer Curioso. Hoots, ye stupit muc kle stot; what gart you tread on my taes, ye sumph that ye are? Cit. Taes! ha'e ye taes? I'm sure a brute like you should ha'e been born baith wi' horns and clutes. Gaffer Curioso. I'll tell you what it is, gin ye speak in that gait to me, deevil do me gude o' you, but I'll split your harnpan. 1 Fem. Cit. Black and sour, honest folk, for gudesake dinna fight. 2 Fem. Cit. Wheesht, wheesht, it's coming noo! ; [The Procession enters with solemn music, the crowd increases, and the Friar comes in at one side, and the old Gypsey woman at the other.] Gyp. Wo. That's the friar who bought the venom frae me at the well-I'll watch him-For what, I wonder, did he buy the venom ? Friar. As the Archbishop passes to the church I'll mark him well-for, in my heart, I fear He meant no virtue, when he me entreated To give the deadly ointment to his care.' Gyp. Wo. The friar's surely no right in the head-He's speaking to hitnsel-I'll hearken to what he's saying. H |