Pity that a passion, in itself so lovely, was not hallowed by the approval of conscience, and pity that the poet should have made the feeling Clara the plaything and not the honoured wife of Egmont !

The following soliloquy of Egmont in his prison is much admired in the original; we fear it will suffer much from our literal translation.

"Sleep! my old and ever faithful friend, -dost thou also flee me like the rest of my friends? How readily did'st thou descend on my free head, and cool my temples like a beautiful myrtle garland of love. Amidst the din of war, and on the foaming billows of life, thy arms always welcomed my light heart, and I rested there like a cheerful boy. Like the stem of a noble tree, when the storm whistles through its branches, and its top waves noisy, my heart was unmoved. What moves it now? What shakes my firmness? It is the clang of the murderer's axe hewing at my root. am yet standing upright, and an inward shuddering strikes through me. Yes, traitorous power conquers, it undermines the noble stem, and before the bark drys, it falls cracking and destroyed to the earth.

"Why, when I have so often blown away powerful sorrows like airy bubbles,-why can I not now scare the forebodings which chase each other through me in a thousand forms? How long has death been terrible? -Once I lived in friendship with all its changing shapes, as with the other forms of the inhabited earth. He terrifies me not, the rapid enemy met with eager welcome by the sound and emulous heart; but a prison, the image of the grave, dismays the coward and the brave. Confinement was insufferable to me, even on a wellstuffed chair in the stately council of princes, when things easy to be decided were tire. somely debated, and between the dark walls the ceiling seemed to crush me. I hastened away quick as possible, and hurried on my horse, drawing deep breath, and flew to the free space in which we all belong,where, springing from the ground all the benefits of nature, and all the blessings of the stars surround us; where, like earth-born giants, we grow stronger from the embraces of our mother, and bear ourselves more bravely; where we are entirely men, and feel the wants of human beings in every vein; where the desire of exertion glows in the soul of the young sportsman; where the soldier with eager steps makes good his right over all the earth, and in terrible freedom, like a hail storm, strides with ruin over corn, and fruits, and acknowledges none of the boundaries drawn by human hands.

"Remembered dream of happiness that

I so long possessed, thou art nothing! Where has fate now treacherously led me? Was I denied in face of day that death I never shunned, to prepare me by this chilling corruption with a foretaste of the grave! How ghastly does it break on me from these stones! The pulse already stops, and the foot retreats from the midnight couch as from the tomb.

"Oh sorrow, sorrow, begin not the work of murder before the time,-depart. Am I then alone, entirely alone in the world? Doubt, not fortune, makes me unfeeling. Is the justice of the king that I (I may say almost love) of the vice-queen confided in through life,-is the friendship suddenly vanished, and am I left in solitariness on the dark path of life! Will not, with Orange at their head, my friends, contrive and dare? Will not the people

rise, and with collected might, save their old protector?

"Ye walls that close me in shut not from me the exertions of so many well intentioned spirits, and may the courage which formerly inspired them from my -eyes now return from their hearts to mine. Oh yes, they rise in thousands, they come, they assist me. Their pious wishes rise to heaven and ask a miracle. And is there not an angel descending to my rescue? I see her seize the lance and sword. doors burst, the walls fall by their hands, and the freedom of the rising day comes joyfully to meet Egmont. How many well known faces receive me noisy with de light! Ah, Clara, wert thou a man, I should see thee amongst the first, and thank thee for that freedom for which it is hard to thank a king."

The

We have not space to translate the whole of the last seene in the prison, which is perhaps equal to any part of the play. Alva is triumphant, and Egmont is led to execution. Yet he enjoys a sort of revenge, by knowing that the son of Alva hates this deed of his father. The closing scene seems to have been misunderstood by Madame de Stael, and, therefore, to have been unjustly censured by her. The denouement does not appear to be as she styles it, wonderful and inconsist→ ent with an historical performance. We shall give it, and let the reader judge.

"EGMONT solus.

"My enemy, thou didst not intend me this benefit. Thy son has banished care and anxiety from my heart. Nature softly but in periously demands her tribute, and that which, with its fearful uncertainty, kept me last night awake, now that it is settled, subdues me to sleep.

"Seats himself on the couch. Music.

"Sweet sleep, like pure joy, thou comest most readily, unasked, unprayed for. Thou loosest the knot of troubled thoughts, and from before thee flee all the images of woe or gladness. The circle of inward harmonies rolls on undisturbed, and hidden in pleasing delusion, we lose ourselves, and cease to be."

"He sleeps. Music accompanies his slumber. The wall appears to open behind his couch, and a splendid apparition appears. Liberty, in a heavenly garment, surrounded by a brilliant light, reposes on a cloud. She has the features of Clara, and approaches the sleeping hero. Her countenance expresses sorrow and pity. She soon becomes composed, and then points to a bundle of arrows, to the tree and cap of Liberty. She commands him to rejoice, and signifies to him, that from his death his country will obtain freedom. She salutes him as a conqueror, and reaches him a crown of laurel. As she approaches, he turns as in sleep, and lies with his face upwards. She holds the crown suspended above his head, warlike music is heard at a distance, and the apparition vanishes. The noise grows louder, and Egmont awakes. The prison is illuminated as if day were breaking. His first movement is to put his hand to his head, and keeping it there, he rises and looks about him.

"Egmont. The crown is vanished, beautiful image, daylight has terrified you Yes it was them, the two sweet joys of my heart were united. Godlike Liberty borrowed the form of my beloved, and the enchanting maiden had clothed herself in the garment of my heavenly friend. They appear united in a moment, more serious and dreadful than lovely. Her feet were hathed in blood, and the waving hem of her robes was stained with my blood, and the blood of many noble men; but not shed in vain. Go on brave people. The goddess of Victory leads you forward; and as the sea breaks through your dikes, so break through and destroy the wall of tyranny, and wipe every trace of it from the ground it has polluted.

Drums approach. "Hark, hark! how often did this sound summon me to the field of battle and of victory! How cheerful did my companions press forward on the dangerous paths of fame, and I hasten from this prison to an honourable death. I die for freedom, I lived and fought for freedom, and for it I am now to be sacrificed.

"The back part of the theatre is filled with Spanish soldiers, who carry

halberts.

VOL. VIII.

Eg

Such is the denouement of mont." It is very different from the usual mode of terminating tragedies; but it appears to us to be a proof of great art in the author. The arrest and condemnation did not afford of themselves enough of dramatic interest, and the poet has created this by giv ing us a hurried glance of those future events which sprung from the death of Egmont.

What Madame de Stael calls a wonderful termination, is nothing but a dream of Egmont's, which an imagination even not very poetical might easily suppose to have been really dreamed? By the intervention of stage machinery, this dream is made visible to the audience, instead of its being narrated. It acquires an air of lively reality, the spectator is spared a long account of what has been seen in sleep, such as Racine makes Phædra give, and the termination relieves the sad certainty of the hero's death. It is like giving us a view of that paradise to which we all hope the spirits of the just return, and which supplies our only consolation when they unmeritly suffer. The poet might have left the spectator to the consolation of this universal sentiment, but he pours the balm of a nearer futurity over the minds of his audience, by showing them that the countrymen of Egmont avenged his death, and that from his blood sprung the liberty of his native land. Schiller, like Madame de Stael, though on more reasonable grounds, condemns this termination. Against two such authorities we have nothing to urge but the impression the conclusion made

Tt

on our own feelings. As Madame de Stael's judgment was, however, founded on a mistake, we do not think we have any business to pay it much regard. And we had written our remarks before we were reminded that Schiller had published a criticism on Egmont, or we should hardly have ventured to express an opinion different from his.

With the exception of Clara, who is indeed too lovely, we know nothing in the whole tragedy to offend the most refined taste or the most pure morality. The author has found sorrows and joys enough in the human heart out of which to weave his tale, and he has not had recourse to the wild fictions of superstition, or to the horrors of inflated sentimentality. Egmont pleases, because it is natural. Even its faults are not sins against the consistency of general nature, but against individual and social consistency, They offend conventional and local feeling more than the laws of nature. The love attributed to Egmont and Clara is of itself very natural and beautiful, it is only misplaced and unhallowed. There are no far-fetched and horrible ideas, or incidents, or sentiments, none of those mythological and fanciful beings which the Germans, even more than a party in our country, regard as the very essence of poetry. Its great charm consists in the ease of the dialogne, the force of the characters, the grace of the expression, and in the very vivid picture it sets before us, first of the lively and bounding joy of Egmont in the height of prosperity, and afterwards of his distress; and of the enthusiastic love of Clara, and afterwards of her deep despair. We have read it even with more delight than our stern judgment allows us to express, and now part from it as from the last of those summer days through which we have lived amidst flowers and beauty, and had our spirits revived and our minds enlarged by various innocent and elegant enjoyments.

THE VENETIAN FESTIVALS.

On pourrait dire que plus une nation se civilise, plus ses mœurs et son histoire perdent ces formes saillantes et pittoresques

des anciens tems, qui font le charme des récits.". Litterature Françoise pendant le dix-huitieme siècle.

WE E resume our extracts from the "Venetian Festivals," and if a smile should sometimes escape our readers whilst we introduce them to the fête commemorating "the translation of St Mark's body to Venice," let them bear in mind the glorious achievements and institutions to which the enthusiastic faith and confiding simplicity of ancient days gave birth. The spirit whose influence, working upon ardent and uncultivated natures, produced the vow, the pilgrimage, and the Crusade, was disinterested, and, as such, ennobling; and in this, the soi-disant age of reason, it is refreshing to look back upon the times when great events and momentous changes were brought about by the operation of loftier motives than those of heartless ambition, and calculating policy. The warriors who bore the red-cross banner_over every obstacle to the ramparts of Jerusalem, were assuredly actuated by no selfish consideration; and the enthusiasm which animated the hearts of innumerable multitudes, and found utterance in the electric words, "Dieu le veut! Dieu le veut !" however it may be stigmatized with the name of fanaticism in those days of universal toleration, was productive of actions which will for ever command the reverence of all generous and unsophisticated minds. There are deeper sources of sublimity even in the superstitious feeling which consecrates the relics of a saint or a martyr, than in that short-sighted philosophy,

Too proud to worship, and too wise to feel, which dictates the reasonings and frames the systems of infidelity.

"Il y avoit ceci de particulier chez les Romains," says Montesquieu, "qu'ils méloient quelque sentiment religieux à l'amour qu'ils avoient pour leur patrie. Cette ville, fondée sur les meilleures auspices; ce Romulus leur Roi et leur Dieu; ce Capitole éternel comme la ville, et la ville éternelle comme son fondateur; avoient fait autrefois sur l'esprit des Romains, une impression qu'il eût été à souhaiter qu'ils eussent conservée."

See Number for August 1820.

This observation is in some degree applicable to the enthusiasm of the Venetians for their romantic city and its tutelary saint. It appears that an ancient tradition was in circulation amongst them, which was carefully preserved by the people, upon whose minds it had made a deep impression. An angel, it was said, had appeared to St Mark, and predicted that his bones should one day repose amidst the Venetian lagune: "It was also added," says La Dama Michiel," that, under the protection of this evangelist, our republic should become powerful, illus trious, and eternal. Such a tradition was a strong incentive to the exertions made by our islanders for the acquisition of the sacred relics, which were, however, guarded with the most zeal ous and unremitting vigilance, by the Monks of Alexandria in Egypt. The interest of those Monks, even more than their devotion, rendered the enterprise one of great difficulty, and frustrated all the hopes and attempts of the Venetians for a considerable time. Accidental circumstances were at last favourable to their views, and afford ed them a happy opportunity of obtaining this consecrated Palladium. In the year 828, two merchants, Bono di Malamocco, and Rustico di Torcel lo, having sailed from Venice in their own vessels, arrived at Alexandria. According to the pious custom of our navigators, they immediately visited the church in which the body of St Mark was deposited, where they found the priests, to whose care it was entrusted, overwhelmed with distress and consternation. Upon inquiring into the cause of their affliction, they were told that the Saracens had forci bly entered the sanctuary of St Mark, and having observed the quantity of rare and precious marbles with which it was decorated, had immediately seized upon these treasures, and car ried them away to be employed in the construction of the palace which the Caliph of Alexandria was building in his capital. Our merchants, upon hearing of this sacrilegious robbery, immediately gave utterance to their grief and indignation in the warmest terms, and, at the same time, with much address, expressed their fears of the still greater misfortunes which might possibly be impending. They represented to the Monks, that the Saracens were not people to content

themselves with this outrage, but that they would most probably proceed to still more dreadful excesses. Who could tell that they would not even lay their impious hands upon the body of St Mark himself? The very idea, they ma liciously exclaimed, made them shudder, and excited feelings of alarm which were but too well founded; for these reasons, they concluded that it would be much more desirable to entrust them with the holy remains, which should be conveyed to a suitable asylum, and there secured from every insult. To this fair and judicious proposal the monks had no arguments to oppose; but how could they resolve to deprive themselves of the precious relics, which afforded them an inexhaustible source of affluence? It was in vain that the merchants assured them of the rewards which they might expect from the Republic, and even from the Almighty, for so great a sacrifice. All their persuasions were unavailing, until at last gold was em ployed as an honest compensation, and one which left no grounds for remorse or regret. This difficulty having been surmounted, others presented themselves. It was necessary to conceal the sacred theft from the devotees of Alexandria. For this purpose, stratagem was resorted to; and it was determined that the body of St Mark should be carried away in the night, and that of St Claude (who was by no means held in such high consideration) placed as its substitute. This was not all; it was apprehended that a discovery might be made by the Saracens appointed to examine strictly into all sorts of merchandise, and to collect the rates of export. In order to evade their search, the relies of the saint were placed in a basket, and covered with herbs, on the top of which were laid slices of lard. The horror with which the Mahometans regard this article of provision is so great, that, no sooner had the collectors of the duties cast their eyes upon it, than they turned them away in disgust, without attempting to continue their researches. It was by this means that the Venetian merchants succeeded in conveying the body on board their ship, where they had no sooner arrived than they immediately set sail. The voyage was at first prosperous, and though the vessel was subsequently exposed to extreme danger from a

violent tempest, the pious mariners, secure under the aegis of St Mark's body, gave way to no apprehension of shipwreck, and were inspired, by this confiding faith, with a courage which was the eventual cause of their deliverance. A calm succeeded the storm, and the voyagers arrived safely at Venice, where they announced the sacred deposit of which they had the happiness to be the bearers. The Doge, the clergy, and the people, immediately hastened to the shore, to receive the consecrated relics, which had so long been the object of their warmest desires, and which they now conveyed in procession, and with the most respectful pomp, to the Ducal Chapel, where they were placed in a coffer under the principal altar.

"From this moment St Mark was proclaimed the tutelary saint of the city. His image, and that of his lion, became the decoration of the public monuments, the impress of the coinage, the flag of the Venetian fleets, and the hope of every patriotic heart. Our wise legislators, who knew the utility of encouraging and consecrating a devotion productive of so many advantages, instituted a fete to be celebrated every year, the 31st January, the day on which the long-desired relics had been received at Venice. This festival at first consisted only of a solemn mass, at which the Doge and senators assisted, and which was celebrated at the church of St Mark. Our ancestors, however, considering this as an insufficient commemoration of their joy, resolved upon erecting a temple to the new protector of the Republic, in which his venerable remains might be enshrined. The situation chosen for this purpose was that of the small church of St Theodore, who had till then been the sole tutelary saint of the Republic. The spot could not have been more judiciously selected, since the new temple was thus united to the Ducal Palace, which had been already commenced. The edifice was soon completed, but, in the year 976, a conflagration reduced it almost entirely to ashes. The concurrence of many religious and political reasons occasioned this event to be regarded as an especial favour of Providence, for it was immediately decreed that the church to be erected in the place of the first should surpass every other

in taste, wealth, and grandeur. For this purpose, the best architects of all countries were consulted, though there were many excellent ones at Venice. The most skilful artists were procured from Constantinople, (which was then the centre of elegance and luxury,) and were ordered to form the design of the most magnificent temple in the world, without any regard to the expence of the execution. The order was soon performed, the design approved, and the great work commenced in 977, under the auspices of the Doge Pierre Orseolo. The space, which had previously been too confined, was enlarged to its present extent, which was considered sufficient, being equal to that occupied by the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter at Rome. The first stone was laid by the Bishop of Venice, in presence of the Doge and an immense concourse of people. The work lasted for three centuries, during which time the most costly marbles were brought over from Greece for its embellishment. It would be tedious to describe the numerous and splendid columns of porphyry, granite, and other rich materials, as well as the precious specimens of sculpture and Mosaic with which the church is ornamented, as well within as without. It is, indeed, a gallery of admirable things.-The Façade, though inferior in architecture to the other parts of the edifice, is, nevertheless, worthy of attention, for the profusion and variety of its ornaments. Statues, and basso-relievos of scriptural heroes, are there mingled with those of Paganism, and with mythological and allegorical emblems. Amongst the statues may be found specimens of art from the earliest ages of the Republic, down to the works of the celebrated Sansovino. Mosaic with which this Façade is ornamented ought not to be overlooked. It represents the entire history of the translation of the holy relics to Venice. The countenances of the Venetian merchants are marked with all the finesse and sagacity of their characters; and at the moment in which they point out the detested lard to the Saracens, the archness of their looks indicates, in a striking manner, the gratification their stratagem has afforded them. The Saracens are represented with an expression of rustic bonhommie, and a sort of religious re

The