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    at indication of the standard . Let us try to do so with the three novels named at the head of this article . The Diary of Martha Bethune Baliol is a book of considerable merit , and dune lecture agrSable , but we do not consider it a good novel , nor would the idler think it very exciting . The diary form is " used up , " and was never a very artistic form . We were pleased therefore to find this diarist speedily forgetful of the minute details with which she Opened , and setting herself deliberately to the narration of her story . The characters do not stand out with any traces of creative power , but they are cleverly drawn nevertheless . The story is not new , but it is readable : and the

    writing is throughout that of a cultivated , elegant mind . What we miss is the originality both , of observation and reproduction which would make us feel that the book was dealing with realities . The Events of a Year belongs to a very different class . We are no admirers of Emilie Carlen at the best ; but the later novels signed by that writer are twaddelius , twaddelissimus . So much talk , and such miserable domestic talk ! So much sentiment , and such thin , watery stuff after all ! Nevertheless , we find these novels have their readers and

    admirers ; to such we can commend The Events of a Year as possessing about the average interest—if we may speak from the very imperfect reading we have been enabled to give it , aided by large-minded liberality of skipping . A class of readers not yet glutted on the sweets of a circulating library may find interest and excitement in Frank I £ erryweather , " as we happen to know" in one case at least ; but for ourselves not even a stern sense of duty has had the power to make us continue this ver y " twice-told tale ;" therefore we leave it with no more precise indication than is furnished in that fact .

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    We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourage * itself . —Goethe .

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    THE MOUSETRAP . The Reverend James White , after success as a serious dramatist in The King of the Commons , and John Saville of Haysted , seems determined to prove Plato's thesis , that the Tragic Poet necessarily contains the Comic Poet also ( a thesis which , parenthetically , I beg distinctly to gainsay , and need only mention that Plato himself , in his wiser maturity , saw the error thereof and retracted ) . Mr . White has not proved his thesis . Yet he has shown himself a man of wit , a writer of really comic dialogue , odd , amusing and unforced ; but not a comic dramatist . Plato—to return to that venerable , but not always trustworthy critic—has an excellent passage on the

    primary necessity of a good plot , but I haven't a translation by me , and am afraid of the Greek , the more so as it occurs to me you do not require so august an authority for so obvious a truth ! Would that the truth were obvious to dramatists ! Mr . White gives no notion of a plot in the Mousetrap , and his comedy becomes wearisome from the eternal recurrence of the same position . I got so weary of Captain Smith and his natural child , that not even the odd dialogue and the odd character of a fighting quaker , whose nautical oathB came out so queerly from under the broad brim , giving to drab an unaccustomed scent of tar , could make the three acts pass gaily .

    When a comedy has neither the interest of a well constructed story progressive through culminating situations , doi * the mirth of farcical exaggeration to laugh down criticism , we demand that the characters be well drawn , and interesting in their originality . But of c haracter the Mousetrap has no glimpse ; there are some extravagancies combined together in an evidenjj intention of originality , but no life issues from the combination . The scientific nobleman spending his energies on the construction of a mousetrap is meant to be satirical—but is not ,- the conception of a hale old soldier feigning rheumatism and old wounds as passkeys to a lady ' s affection , has an original intention underlying it , but the intention is not worked out into a truth ; the effect is simply improbable , and not in the least comic . In fact , the comedy is paved with good intentions . The whole thing wants life , movement , mirth . Laughter follows Buckstone through his various speeches , but when ho is off the stage a patient pit listens with mild indifference .

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    THE LAWYERS . Slingsby Laurence—lucky dog !—haa , I am told , made another " hit " at the Lyceum in the three act comic -drama , The Lawyers . You muBt not expect to have my opinion thereon ! When at Easter he afflicted us with nine acts of elaborate failure , I " cut him up" with the impartiality one owes to one ' s friends . " Ho did not see the " friencUinesn" of my candour , and there has been " a coolness" between us ever since . If I were to praise him now I should be accused of " interested motives "—a desire to reinstate my fallen position . My best plan is , therefore , to stay away altogether , and as my critique Monk , the gay , witty , enthusiastic Ghat Huant is at this moment " restoring his forces" at that grand restaurateur a Country House , I shall quietly extract from tho'Times the notice which that most indulgent of critics 1 ms written .

    " A comic drama in three acts , entitled The Lawyers , wns produced inBt night With such decided huccosh that it promises to eqnnl in popularity the famous Game of Speculation . Wo need not say hero that wo do not attach much importance to the formaliticH of applause bestowed on a first night , for wo have more than once raised a . warning voice against confidence in too friendly audiences . But when wo see that a piece of somo length in thoroughly enjoyed throughout , wo can record a siiccc'HK beyond the ordinary lovol , and this was eminently the case with Th * XjMotfWs . " So slight w tho plot of this Inst dramatic novelty , that , if wo said it had no plot nt all wo nhould not deviate widely from tho truth . Mr . and Mrs . Bickering Brown a ' young married couple , arc in tho habit of squabbling al > out trilles , aud their disputatious propensity arc constantly kept alivo hy tho interference of Mrs . Alimoriia Naggins , Mrs . Brown ' s mother . An act of violence committed by Brown , who throws bin niother-in-law * B Cut out of window , leads to a lawsuit , and thmtotoi

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    OMITTED PASSAGES FROM A BOY'S EPIC . I . Love and the Faun . See ! where yon sunbeam lingers down the glade , A winged shape of perfect loveliness ; A boy in look and limb , yet self sustained By godlike power ; dark his orbed eyes , His cheek sun-coloured : golden his long hair . A quiver charged with silver shafts is bung Athwart his shoulders , and an ivory bow Fills one small hand . But see ! he passes on , Till by a fountain in whose hollow depth Of liquid splendour , dreams eternally The steadfast Heaven , where rose and myrtle mix Delicious scent and shade , he drops diffused . But Care lies with him in the embedding grass . The fountain with its picture of blue air , Of clouds that journey over branching trees ; Of quivering boughs , and boles all strangely patcht With mosses red and grey ; of flitting birds , And wavering flowers and insect swarms like flowers , Charm not his soul , nor win for all their grace The dreamer ' s eye . At length a joyous laugh Broke thro' the silence , and the God arose , While fiery anger shook his curving lip ; " And who , " cried , " profanes my solitude ? Come forth , come forth , intruder ! when I call , From thy green lair of woven boughs , come forth !" Among the woven boughs a rustle crept , And mischievously mirthful thro * the leaves Peered a broad face that vainly checkt its fun , For still the overflowing laughter ran From the loose corners of the puckered mouth ; Until for words like these it found a way : — " Fair cause for mirth , dread Eros , hath thy Faun , For see I not the child of Frolic lie Forlorn and pensive , as Love ' s self were pierced By Love ' s own shaft . " So spake the wicked Faun , Laughing at Eros , yet half fearing him , By reason of his being more divine , For Love is of the Heaven . Uplifting then The ivory bow , and leaning on its arc , The child of Aphrodite answered him : " Friend of Silenus ! even to the Gods , Feasting on nectar in ambrosial halls , Comes Care that casts a shadow as she comes . And Love , whose home is where the Gods abide . Yet dwells with men and saddens at their grief . And thus it chanced that on my boding heart Thy laughter fell unwelcome , as in spring Falls on young grass and budding leaves , the snow . But hear my tale , and hearing , counsel me , For the high Gods may learn of lowly Fauns , Tho' Fauns must die . Here , therefore , will we sit , Under the shadow of this antique trc « . " ***

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    RiaOLETTO . Verdi's newest opera , JRigoletto , although , mounted with the care and splendour to which Covent Garden has accustomed its public , is not likely to retain even so firm a hold of the stage as Ernani . The libretto is almost a literal translation of Victor Hugo ' s once celebrated play , Le Roi s ' amuse , and is certainly a subject admitting- both of fine music and fine acting . The tragedian we have—in Ronconi ; the composer we have not . There are some charming phrases scattered over the score , one good quartet , and an earcatehing cantabile , sung with incomparable grace by Mario— " La donna e mobile ; " but for the rest the music is patchy—reminiscent of various operas in various styles ( now quietly reproducing the minuet in . Don Giovanni , then the druid chorus in N ~ orma , afterwards the duet from the Huguenots , with fragments from the JBarbiere , and the commonplaces of Rossini and Donizetti ) , and only redeemed by a certain animation—a brio , which carries you along with , it , pleased , if not transported . Ronconi has the whole upon Jiis shoulders , and makes the most of it . His buffoonery , however , in the first scene , was , I conceive , a mistake . Sigoletto , the court jester , has every license of tongue , but no such license of hand as that of striking the nobleman whose prominent abdomen he ridicules . Moreover , his buffoonery is too much of " gaggery" —it is not the savage sarcasm of Hugo ' s Triboulet , and Ronconi seems to forget that this buffoon is a tragic personage , sombre even in his mirth . Mario has little to sing , and sings it charmingly . Mdlle . Bosio , insipid and inanimate as an actress , has a brilliant metallic voice , which she manages with effect , though with somewhat less of singing , and more of screarning , than I altogether desire . Migoletto was worth producing . It may serve to vary the repertoire—' it wifl never be a " success . "

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    May 21 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 501 _ ¦—> ' i I i - . i— ... i . ' . .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 21, 1853, page 501, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1987/page/21/