AN ORIGINAL HISTORICAL TRAGEDY.* THE anonymous author of this work

prefixes to it a significant in- terrogatory to the public, which we think we can help the public to answer. It is as follows :

" To THE PUBLIC.

" Time has long made an inquiry for an

Original Drama.—Is THIS one:" Time is, perhaps, less eager than our author for the answer to this not very brisk inquiry. He, with an excusable arriere pewee, appa- rently echoes the despondent interrogatory of Time in the hope of eliciting the satisfactory answer : " Richard Ceur de Lion, an his- torical tragedy, by an author as yet anonymous, but whose name will one day be a household word in English literature, fulfils all the conditions for which Time has so long been on the look-out." For ourselves, we must say that if to be original is to write something very different from what almost any other intellectual being would have written, then this is a very original historical drama ; but scarcely so if it mean to write something very different from what almost any other intellectual being could have written, had he chosen to ignore all that makes a liruma poetic or dramatic. The originality lies in the equanimity and even pride with which the dramatist substitutes for the silver Castalian springs of poetry the copious ditch-water of the most vulgar thought and sentiment, and pours it with the uplifted hand of literary triumph into the marble basins of historic tradition. Bold.toned twaddle in a dialogue form runs on in a full stream through a drama which stretches over Coeur de Lion's whole reign. In France, in England, in Sicily, iu Palestine, in Austria, and again in France, the same vapid cataract flows on, sometimes escaping from one mouth or mask, sometimes from another, sometimes pouring from half a dozen in the same scene, but never giving us one gleam of characteristic individuality, one flash of genuine thought or of fresh feeling. But for the foolish vanity of the prefixed interrogatory, we should have dismissed the play with a line, but now we must justify briefly the truth and moderation of the description we have given. If the play has a purpose—which we doubt—it is perhaps a protest against the civil disabilities of the Jews. The only " invention" in the Pot is the introduction as troubadours of a disguised Jew and Jewess, father and daughter, who are saved by King Richard in person at his coronation from the violence of a London mob, and afterwards dress up as troubadours, and in gratitude accompany the King upon his travels, of course singing the celebrated song beneath the Austrian prison. The young lady discovers herself at the last moment of the King's life, and proclaims her pure and devoted passion for the King; and the general inference may be intended to be that Jews are grateful as well as rich, and ought not to be persecuted. For the rest, there is no plot at all, but a string of scenes, the drift of which might be furnished by any history of Richard's reign, and the form is such as we have de- scribed. We have Richard in France releasing his mother and heap- ing favours on John ; in London, repressing the anti-Jewish mob at his coronation. We have Richard's celebrated retort upon Fuik's exhor- tation to rid himself of his pride, avarice, and lust,—that he intended to give the first to the Templars, the second to the Benedictines, and the last to the Bishops. We have the quarrels with Philip of France and Tancred of Sicily at Messina, the jealousies in Palestine, the murder of Conrad of Montserrat, the feud with the Duke of Austria, the imprisonment in Austria on his return, and the deliberation of the German Diet; the return to France and England, and the death of Richard before the Castle of Chelons. Characters in crowds are huddled in succession on the stage, just to emit a few foolish senti- ments and disappear. The only permanent figures are the king's and the troubadours', and except that Richard is made to talk with a traditional beefy kind of courage, and the troubadours with mystic verbosity, there is no attempt to delineate any character even there. Just let us take a specimen of the troubadour's lyric powers :

"TROUBADOUR'S SONG.

"My young heart leapt and all was bright Beneath the laughing sun, And beauty mingled with the light And all it shone upon. My raptured eyes gazed on the world, And saw a mighty gem, How sparkling radiance round it curld, In loveliness to them.

I asked my soul what wrought the change, And made the earth so fair, It needed not abroad to range, It had the object there.

" My eyes had drank an image in, My soul became its hall, It from that moment did begin To spread a charm o'er all.

And in my bosom still it grew, And all my spirit filled, It gave all things a deeper hue

Of beauty as it.thrilled; Richard Cave de Mom: an Historical Tragedy. Arthur no and Co.

And like an angel's power it reign'd, But nestled like a dove, Such feeling can be never feign'd, It was my Heart's First Love."

This is a very original song. After the eyes have drunk (or " drank," as the author says) the image of a lover in, the soul becomes its hail, and in this hall it spreads a charm on everything and grows con- tinually, until it ends by "nestling" in this hall. The only thing we

can remember at all equal to it is the song which T eray puts into Jeames's mouth, addressed to " Lady Hangeline :"

"I marked thee in the marble 'all,

When England's loveliest shine, But 0, the fairest of them hall Is Lady Hangeline. My soul in desolate eclipse With recollection teems;

But still I ask with weeping lips,

Dost thou remember Jeames:"

But the song, though foolish enough, is by no means remarkably foolish for this play. Here is a noble portraiture of the free coarse element which tradition attributes to Richard's character :

"Queen Beren. My dearest Richard, Your deeds grow admiration naturally As gardens do sweet flowers. Your prowess mounts Like larks all singingly, and cleaves through obstacles As wings through air. "King Rich. (Kissing her.) A buss, my queen. Good girl. Our heart is wondrous merry. We will take You through the streets of Acre, where the infidels Shall gaze upon your beauty wonderingly, And fawn like lap-dogs."

This free dashing style is occasionally given to others than Coeur de Lion ; for instance, to the " 3d Austrian," in the following striking passage :

"lst Aust. Pilgrim, in your journeyings,

Have you heard aught of Richard being wrecked? News was brought here the home-returning English Suffered some wreckage in the Adriatic, Their king among the rest.

" Pil. 'Tis probable, I've heard some rumours on't.

"2nd Aust. Faith, if his army

Have lust his kingship be's in awkward plight.

" 3rd dust i think it is an awkward plight indeed

To be in flying fishes' bellies jumping At mosquitoes."

This is a " bold free" touch, dashing into mysticism. What is it that jump at mosquitoes ? The flying-fish that have eaten Richard, we suppose. The natural history is curious, as mosquitoes keep to shore and flying-fish to sea, in general ; but how the jumping of those fish at mosquitoes makes the matter any worse for a drowned king, it is really hard to see. But perhaps it is the dashing-in grand strokes of this kind, without a meaning, that constitutes the "bold free" style. We can waste no more space on this astonishing production. Let us conclude with an appropriate lyric extract from the lady troubadour's song over Richard's death-bed :

" Honour bends o'er the conch where Richard's lying, And her proud eye is dim with sorrow's tears;

The wind is in her hair, all turn and flying;

And, hark! I heard a sound. 'Twas honour sighing,

Wrung like a grieving god with aching ears.'

This is a noble touch. " Honour," if she were listening to this composition, as she bent over Richard's bed, deeply as she might have grieved over her votary, must, no doubt, have had the ear-ache, and, we should think, would have had an agony of tic-doloureux. "Which fiddlestrings," Mrs. Gamp graphically observes, "is weakness to expredge my nerves this night,"—and that is the sensation with which we put down, after carefully reading, this original tragedy.