Various

“ It sounds well, no doubt, to say, as Macaulay does, that the Romantic drama exhibits all the plans of a man's life, from the ardour of generous youth to the coolness of experienced age. This may be done in history or romance; but it is impossible within the limits of a single representation. It is quite enough if, in so short a space, the stage can represent one momentous crisis with adequate power, and really paint the heart as laid bare by its occurrence. ”

“ How little we know the heart of others, and how readily we prate about "seeing through" a man, when in truth what we see is but a surface, and the image conveyed to our mind from it but the reflection of ourselves!
My intimacy with Russell, so strangely commenced, had thus rapidly and unexpectedly taken the character of that close connexion which exists between those who have one secret and engrossing interest confined to themselves alone. We were now more constantly together, perhaps, than any two men in college: and many were the jokes I had to endure in consequence. ”

“ We appeal to all intelligent observers, and especially to military men, whom travel or residence upon the Continent have qualified to judge, whether in any of the great European states the soldier has hitherto obtained so little of the public attention and solicitude as in England? Whether in any country he is so completely detached from the population, enjoying so little sympathy, in all respects so uncared for and unheeded by the masses, and, we are sorry to say it, often so despised and looked down upon, even by those classes whence he is taken? ”

“ The young Queen seemed to gaze upon him for a moment with satisfaction; and then, waving her hand to her female attendant to retire, she again addressed him.
"What can I do to serve you, sir?" she said—"you, who have thus twice served me at the peril of your life. I am but a poor and a powerless Queen," she continued, with a faint smile: "but a grateful heart may still find means to recompense"——
"To live and die in your majesty's defence, is all your poor servant, who has but done his duty to his Queen, although unknowingly, has to desire," was the young noble's reply. ”

“ Let me know, at least, the name of him who has done me such essential service."
"It were unworthy of your ears, fair lady," stammered Otmar timidly
"Again, I reclaim the favour of your name, sir," said the young female. "You are noble; your mien proclaims it, did not the sabre by your side attest it." And her eyes seemed to rest with satisfaction upon the figure of the handsome youth. "You have more—you have the true nobility of heart. You will not refuse your name to a lady who demands it." ”

“ Attest it, thou goodly array of the tomes of Maga, laden and sparkling, now as ever, with wisdom and wit, science and fancy!—attest the unwavering fidelity of our career! All this is very true; but the secret annals of the good can never be free from temptations, and never are in reality unblotted by peccadilloes. The fury of the demagogue has been our laughing-stock—the versatility of trimming politicians, our scorn. We have crouched before none of the powers which have been, or be; neither have we been carried off our feet by the whirlwinds of popular passion. ”

“ Before the Hungarian nobles was a woman—a beautiful female in distress—and she their Queen! The burst of loyal fervour was spontaneous, uncontrollable.
The bosom of Maria Theresa heaved with emotion at the sound of this wild cry. For a moment she struggled with her feelings, strove to be a queen: but her woman's nature gave way; and, sinking back on her throne, she burst into tears. ”

“ But the moment that he feels himself at liberty to change the scene or time at pleasure, there is no end to the assistance which he will seek to derive from such adventitious support, how foreign soever to the real interest and true principles of his art. Frequent changes of scene, gorgeous pictures of buildings or scenery, brilliant exhibitions of stage effect, processions, battles, storming of castles, the clang of trumpets, the clashing of swords, the discharge of fire-arms, are all resorted to in order to save the trouble of thought, or conceal mediocrity of conception. ”

“ It may be that such exhibitions are very attractive, that they draw full houses of children, or of men and women with the minds of children—no small portion of the human race. But no one will assert that they are the drama, any more than that name belonged to the exhibitions of lions or cameleopards in the Roman amphitheatre. But the Romantic drama, by the unbounded latitude in point of time, place, and incident, which it permits, opens the door to all these substitutes for genius which the great drama, by excluding them, kept carefully closed. ”

“ Romance numbers its readers by hundreds, Poetry by fifties, where History can with difficulty muster one. This amazing difference is not owing to any deficiency of ability turned to the subject, or interest in the materials of which it is formed. It can never be supposed that men will be indifferent to the annals of their own fame, or that the groundwork of all human invention—real event—can be wanting in the means of moving the heart. It is the extraordinary difficulty of this branch of composition, owing to its magnitude and complication, which is the sole cause of the difference. ”

“ I should be happy that I can place between myself and the dark realities of life a bright barrier of fancy, of poetry, of love—like unto those glorious painted windows in the old cathedral, which spread out, between the inclemencies of the atmosphere without, and the mysteries of the calm sanctuary within, the thousand glories of a thousand colours, a radiant curtain of purple, and crimson, and gold, in such wise that the passing cloud, with all its variations of shade, only develops fresh treasures of harmony and beauty ”

“ Yet even in these arts, the productions of which require only to be seen to be admired, it is well known that the impression, strong as it is at first, is, with all persons of a cultivated mind, greatly increased by repeated inspections. The common observation, that a fine painting or statue grows upon you the oftener you see it, and that "Time but the impression deeper wears," sufficiently proves that it is not at once, even in those arts which speak at once to the eye, that the soul of the artist is transferred to that of the spectator. ”

“ He does not give the voyage from its commencement to its termination, with its long periods of monotonous weariness; he confines himself to the brief and terrible scene of the ship-wreck. As the crisis and catastrophe of life is thus alone represented, and every thing depends on the interest excited by its development, so nothing is admitted which can disturb the unity of the emotion, or interrupt the flow of the sympathy which it is the great object of the piece from first to last to awaken. ”

“ The former is necessary to render the drama a just representation of the world, in which the laughers and the weepers are perpetually jostling each other, in which every event has its serious and ludicrous side. The latter enables us to form an intimate acquaintance with characters, with which we could not possibly become familiar during the few hours to which the unities restrict the poet. In this respect the works of Shakspeare in particular are miracles of art. In a piece which may be read aloud in three hours, we see a character gradually unfold all its recesses to us. ”

“ It is well known in history, that the rising of the Hungarian saved the falling fortunes of Maria Theresa. The enthusiasm of this sensitive and energetic people, once awakened, knew no bounds. All the country nobles, with their followers, took up arms. Croatia alone supplied twelve [Pg 222] thousand men. Immense sums of money, to support the army, were offered by the clergy; and, out of the most distant provinces, sprang up, as the soldiers sown by the teeth of Cadmus from the earth, those countless savage hordes, who under the name of Pandours carried terror into every part of Europe. ”

“ Probably Russell understood what was passing in my mind; for presently, without looking at me, he went on: "Yes, you may well think it a pitiful economy to grudge five guineas for a book like that, and indulge one's-self in such pompous mummery as we have here;" and he pushed down with his foot a massive and beautiful silver coffee-pot, engraved with half-a-dozen quarterings of arms, which, in spite of a remonstrance from me, had been blackening before the fire to keep its contents warm. ”

“ The impression produced by the finest objects in Europe,—the sun setting on the Jungfrawhorn, the interior of St Peter's, the fall of Schaffhausen, the view on the Acropolis of Athens, Constantinople from the Seraglio point, the Bay of Naples, for example,—is such, that though seen only for a few minutes, it may almost be said seconds, an impression is made, a picture is painted, on the mind's retina, which can never be effaced. Painting, as it imitates external nature, so it shares in the rapidity and, in the hands of great masters, durability of its impressions. ”

“ Influenced by a boyish caprice, or driven by necessity, an inexperienced lad takes the shilling and mounts the cockade. After a while he gets weary of the service; perhaps he sees opportunities, if once more a civilian, of making his way in the world. But weary though he be, or eagerly as he may desire to strip off the uniform assumed hastily, or by compulsion of circumstances, no perspective of release encourages him to patient endurance. No hope of emancipation, so long as his health holds good, or his services are found useful, smiles to him in the distance. ”

“ They are fain to borrow the adventitious aid to be derived, as they think, from frequent changes of time and place. They rail at the drama of Athens, as many modern artists do at the paintings of Claude Lorraine, because they feel themselves unable to imitate them. They crowd their canvass with objects, from a secret sense of inability to finish any one with perfect force and fidelity. ”

“ The brave and loyal subject passes step by step to the excesses of human depravity. We trace his progress step by step, from the first dawnings of unlawful ambition, to the cynical melancholy of his impenitent remorse. Yet in these pieces there are no unnatural transitions. Nothing is omitted; nothing is crowded. Great as are the changes, narrow as is the compass within which they are exhibited, they shock us as little as the gradual alterations of those familiar faces which we see every evening and morning. ”

“ Not a bar of silver, or a healing drug, or an Alpaca fleece, shipped from Peruvian ports to supply another hemisphere with luxuries and comforts, but is the price of an incalculable amount of misery, and even of blood—the blood of a race once noble and powerful, now wretched and depraved by the agency of those whose duty and in whose power it was to civilize and improve them. ”

“ It has become customary to compare our navy with that of France, and when we are found to have a carronade or a cock-boat less than our friends across the water, a shout of indignation is forthwith set up by vigilant journalists and nervous naval officers. We heartily wish that it were equally usual to contrast our army with that of the French—not in respect of numbers, but of the attention paid to the education and moral discipline of the men. Every French regiment has two schools, a higher and a lower one. ”

“ We have made a progress, but it has not been from originality to taste, but from genius to folly. The age of Æschylus has not with us been succeeded by that of Sophocles and Euripides, but by that of melodrama and spectacle. We have not advanced from the wildness of conception to the graces of criticism, but from the rudeness of some barbaric imagination, to the cravings of corrupted fancy. ”

“ Not for worlds would we have left the Grange house, which was then our summer residence, after nightfall, and, skirting the hill by the old deserted burial-ground, venture down the little glen, gloomy with the shade of hazels—cross the burn by the bridge above the Caldron pool—and finally gaze upon the loch all tranquil in the glory of the stars! Not all the fish that ever struggled on a night-line-and there were prime two-pounders, and no end of eels, in the loch—would have tempted us to so terrible a journey. ”

“ The lives of eminent men owe their chief charm to the unity of the subject, and the possibility of strongly exciting the feelings, by strictly adhering to the delineation of individual achievement. So great is the weight of the load—crushing to the historian—which is thus taken from the biographer or writer of historical romance, that second-rate genius can effect triumphs in that department, to which the very highest mind alone is equal in general historical composition. ”