better serve the purposes of religion and morality, than one supernaturally virtuous; which, however it may excite our compassion by its unmerited. sufferings, would be exempt from the most terrible of all, the consciousness of guilt, and the agony of remorse. Indeed her's appears to be exactly the character which Aristotle chooses as the best possible for dramatic representation: 'Es de Tolos, ὁ μήτε ἀρξη διαφέρων, καὶ δικαιοσύνη, μήθε διὰ κακίαν καὶ μοχθηρίαν μεταβάλλων εις την δυςυχίαν, ἀλλὰ δι' αμαρFav Twa. i. e." It is he, who neither excels in virtue and justice, nor through vice and depravity, falls into calamity; but through some fault incident to human nature." For such the word aga seems to be; a fault committed, contrary to the natural disposition of the agent, when transported by some violent passion; and as such it is surely used by the Evangelist.-As to the accusation upon which her sentence was founded, the Poet supposes her innocent. It is a controverted point in history, and he is entitled to his choice. The persecutions she has suffered, for a crime she has not committed, rouse our commiseration; our

pity is increased by her consciousness, and sincere repentance, of her former guilt; and our minds receive the most religious impression from the indirect, though inevitable, punishment which follows her misdeed. She is at the beginning presented to our contemplation, in her blackest colours to use her own words,

"She may say

"That she is better than her reputation."

With every new indignity which is offered her, she gains upon our affections; at every step she takes towards the grave, she collects new rays to increase the splendour of her final apotheosis.

The character of Elizabeth is incomparably delineated. Every impartial judge, however nationally bigotted to our illustrious Monarch, must acknowledge in it, the accomplished picture of the ambitious, politic, mistrustful, vain, and jealous woman. The grand outlines have been drawn by the historian; but the picture has been finished, by the masterly pencil of the Poet.

The intriguing, deceitful, weak, interested,

ambitious Leicester; a man without honour, without generosity, without humanity; and to crown his character, a coward, is likewise a study from the hints of the historian. Wherever the situations are not strictly authorised by history, they are at least probable, and clash in no instance with the acknowledged principles of the practised courtier.

Shrewsbury is endowed with sterling British honesty; is undismayed by the cabals of his antagonists, and indefatigable in his endeavours to sustain at once the cause of justice and the renown of his Sovereign, a character worthy of the Talbots; and although it does not appear from history, that he interested himself so much for Mary's preservation; yet he was known to have treated her very mildly, and with much friendship, when in his custody.

Paulet is upright and inflexible in what he thinks his duty; though zealously attached to the reformed church, he disdains with generous indignation, to serve it by an action incompatible with honour, and hides under a rough outside, a

compassionate and forgiving heart. He is the representative of the sturdy Presbyterian of those days.

Burleigh, the deep, the subtle, unfeeling statesman, is yet a man of probity; because acting from principle and conviction. The welfare of the State committed to his direction is the only object of his attention, the rule of all his actions.

The episode of Mortimer, is a masterly effort of creative genius: a character, though not directly authorised by history, yet strictly analogous to it. An attempt to save the Queen of Scots, of which there had been so many examples, is here wisely attributed to a youth, made highly inte resting by the enthusiastic zeal which marks his character, and by his becoming unavoidably the destroyer of his mistress and himself. The Author drew this fictitious character as the symbol of the youth of that age. His manners are meant to be the type of the manners then prevailing.

The tournament described in the second act is in the true spirit of the times, when pedantry and the romance of chivalry were strangely mixed. A

tilt of very nearly this description, is mentioned by Pennant, in his London, and dated in that age. The entertainments given by Catherine of Medici, previous to the massacre of St. Bartholomew, were also similar to it.

The lyric passages in the beginning of the third act, are I fear, unattainable by any translator. All that I have been able to do, is, to preserve the ori ginal metre, and, at least, the thought. To render the expression word for word, I found impossible without altering the structure of the measure. They were intended to express the exultation of a prisoner, on being at length admitted into the open air, and to enjoy at least a temporal liberty. They appear too, to have another very pleasing aim, that of bringing the mind insensibly back to the origin of Tragedy; and perhaps a variation in the measure, was in no instance so happily introduced as in the present.

The meeting of the rival Queens is, indeed, contrary to historical fact; it is, however, by no means contrary to probability. This liberty is allowed the poet even by Aristotle; who, speaking