Or. And let me cow'ring stand, and be my touch The valley's ice: there is a pleasure in it.

Al. Say'st thou indeed there is a pleasure in it?

Or. Yea, when the cold blood shoots through every vein: When every hair's-pit on my shrunken skin

A knotted knoll becomes, and to mine ears

Strange inward sounds awake, and to mine eyes

Rush stranger tears, there is a joy in fear. (Catching hold of Cathrina.) Tell it, Cathrina, for the life within me

Beats thick, and stirs to hear it.

He slew the hunter-knight?

Cath. Since I must tell it, then, the story goes
That grim Count Wallenberg, the ancestor
Of Hughobert and also of yourself,
From hatred or from envy, did decoy

A noble knight, who hunted in the forest,
Well the Black Forest named, into his castle,
And there, within his chamber, murder'd him—

Or. Merciful Heaven! and in my veins there runs
A murderer's blood. Said'st thou not, murder'd him?
Cath. Aye; as he lay asleep, at dead of night.
Or. A deed most horrible!

Cath. It was on Michael's eve; and since that time,
The neighb'ring hinds oft hear the midnight yell
Of spectre-hounds, and see the spectre shapes
Of huntsmen on their sable steeds, with still
A nobler hunter riding in their van

To cheer the desp'rate chace, by moonlight shewn,
When wanes its horn, in long October nights.
Or. This hath been often seen?

Cath.
Aye, so they say.
But, as the story goes, on Michael's eve,
And on that night alone of all the year,
The hunter-knight himself, having a horn
Thrice sounded at the gates, the castle enters;
And, in the very chamber where he died,
Calls on his murd'rer, or in his default
Some true descendant of his house, to loose
His spirit from its torment; for his body

Is laid i'the earth unblessed, and none can tell

The spot of its interment."

In another place, the same contrivance is carried on by the mischief-working Cathrina.

"(They sit, Orra drawing her chair close to Cathrina.)

What story shall I tell thee?

Or. Something, my friend, which thou thyself hast known Touching the awful intercourse which spirits

With mortal men have held at this dread hour.

Did'st thou thyself e'er meet with one whose eyes

Had look'd upon the spectred dead-had seen

Forms from another world?

Cath.

Never but once.

Or. (eagerly) Once then thou didst! O tell it! Tell it me!
Cath. Well; since I needs must tell it, once I knew

A melancholy man, who did aver,

That journ'ying on a time, o'er a wild waste,
By a fell storm o'erta'en, he was compell'd
To pass the night in a deserted tower,
Where a poor hind, the sole inhabitant
Of the sad place, prepar'd for him a bed.
And, as he told his tale, at dead of night,
By the pale lamp that in his chamber burn'd,
As it might be an arm's length from his bed.-
Or. So close upon him?

Cath.

Or.

Yes.

Go on; what saw he?
Cath. An upright form, wound in a clotted shroud--
Clotted and stiff, like one swaith'd up in haste

After a bloody death.

Cath. He started from his bed and gaz'd upon it.
Or. And did he speak to it?

Cath.

He could not speak.

It's visage was uncover'd, and at first

Seem'd fix'd and shrunk, like one in coffin'd sleep:

But, as he gaz'd, there came, he wist not how,

Into its beamless eyes a horrid glare,

And turning towards him, for it did move,

Why dost thou grasp me thus?

Or. Go on, go on!

Cath. Nay, heaven forfend! Thy shrunk and sharpen'd features Are of the corse's colour, and thine eyes

Are full of tears. How's this?

The horrid impressions that have bewildered Orra's imagination, and bereaved her of her senses, are represented with inimitable force; it is thus the meeting with her friends, after the night of horror is over, as she approaches from the cavern, in a wild distracted state, is described.

"Or. Come back, come back! The fierce and fiery light! Theo. Shrink not, dear love! it is the light of day.

Or. Have cocks crow'd yet?

Theo.

Yes; twice I've heard already

Their matin sound. Look up to the blue sky;

Is it not day-light there? And these green boughs
Are fresh and fragrant round thee: every sense
Tells thee it is the cheerful early day.

Or. Aye so it is; day takes his daily turn,
Rising between the gulphy dells of night
Like whiten'd billows on a gloomy sea.

Till glow-worms gleam, and stars peep thro' the dark,
And will-o'-the-wisp his dancing taper light,

They will not come again.

(Bending her ear to the ground.)

Hark, hark! Aye, hark:

They are all there: I hear their hollow sound

Full many a fathom down.

Theo. Be still, poor troubled soul! they'll ne'er return :
They are for ever gone. Be well assured

Thou shalt from henceforth have a cheerful home
With crackling faggots on thy midnight fire,
Blazing like day around thee; and thy friends-
Thy living, loving friends still by thy side,
To speak to thee and cheer thee-See my
They are beside thee now; dost thou not know them?

Orra!

(Pointing to Eleonora and Alice.)

Or. (gazing at them with her hand held up to shade her eyes.)

No, no! athwart the wav'ring garish light,

Things move and seem to be, and yet are nothing.

El. (going near her) My gentle Orra! hast thou then forgot me ? Dost thou not know my voice?

Or. 'Tis like an old tune to my ear return'd,

For there be those, who sit in cheerful halls

And breathe sweet air, and speak with pleasant sounds;
And once I liv'd with such; some years gone by;

I wot not now how long."

If our space would allow us, we could devote many more pages, with great pleasure, to the consideration of these fine specimens of original genius. We are obliged, however, by the press of matter, to bring this article to a conclusion. Our readers will perceive that we have taken no notice of the comedies. But we cannot let it be supposed that it is only want of room which has occasioned us to omit them. After the delight we have received from the poetical beauties of Miss Baillie's tragedies, we feel it a sort of ingratitude to dwell at any length upon her failures. But critical justice imposes upon us the obligation of saying, that we have received but little pleasure from her comic muse. We are, indeed, of opinion that comedy was not a proper vehicle for her purpose. The passions, in their intensities, produce too dangerous a commotion, to correspond with the gaiety of the comic plan and purpose. They may be vulgar, brutal,

but

loathsome, and distorted; but their effects are too injurious to be the sport of mirth, or the source of pleasurable emotions. In a mixed and qualified state, these disturbers of the soul's rest may be exhibited with good effect in the comic scene; such comedies would be no proper parallels to Miss Baillie's tragedies, or consistent with her avowed purpose; viz. to pursue the career of the passion, from its simple elementary beginnings, through the several stages of its increase; from the spark that first sets the bosom on fire, to the conflagration that desolates the scene of its fury.

Transient bursts of passion, when their effects are restrained and prevented, are not inconsistent with the spirit of comedy: they stimulate the action, and afford opportunities for instructive displays of sentiment and character, without detaining the mind too long under the impression of painful emotions: but where a single passion is to be kept always in the view, and to be carried through its naturally tumultuous career, it must destroy, or be destroyed by, that varied exhibition of character and manners, and that vivacity of dialogue, which are the proper constituents of comedy. We can with great propriety, however, recommend the reader to peruse the admirable remarks of Miss Baillie, in her introduction, on the general nature, and the present state, of the comic drama. One of these remarks is really so just and important, at a time when it is so much the practice of our schools to make boys personate the low, tricking, and debauched characters of the ancient comedy, that we cannot pass it by.

of

"In busy or circumstantial comedy, all those ingenious contrivances of lovers, guardians, governantes, and chamber-maids; that bush-fighting amongst closets, screens, chests, easy-chairs, and toilet-tables, form a gay varied game dexterity and invention: which, to those who have played at hide and seek, who have crouched down, with beating heart, in a dark corner, whilst the enemy groped near the spot; who have joined their busy schoolmates in many a deep-laid plan to deceive, perplex, and torment the unhappy mortals deputed to have the charge of them, cannot be seen with indifference. Like an old hunter, who pricks up his ears at the sound of the chase, and starts away from the path of his journey, so, leaving all wisdom and criticism behind us, we follow the varied changes of the plot, and stop not for reflection. The studious man who wants a cessation from thought, the indolent man who dislikes it, and all those who, from habit or circumstances, live in a state of divorce from their own minds, are pleased with an amusement in which they have nothing to do but to open their eyes and behold. The moral tendency of it, however, is very faulty. That mockery of age and domestic authority, so constantly held

forth, has a very bad effect upon the younger part of an audience; and that continual lying and deceit in the first characters of the piece, which is necessary for conducting the plot, has a most pernicious one."

We cannot shut up these volumes, from which we have received so much instruction and delight, without lamenting that their pages should so frequently be stained with oaths and exclamations very useless as adjuncts of the glowing passages to which they are annexed, and very shocking to minds in which a just reverence for the awful name of the Creator prevails.

We can assure Miss Baillie that this remark is not dictated by puritanism or affectation. If we did not highly value her works, and respect her character, nay, if she had not made a solemn and interesting declaration of her religious impressions, we should not have stopped to make this remonstrance. We have no doubt that the instances have arisen from the impetuosity of her feelings in the ardour of composition. We refer her to Vol. i. pp.391, 407. Vol. ii. p. 86. But many other instances occur.

There are a great many passages in the comedies, on the vulgarity of which we should have strongly commented, if we had more time and room. We must be content with making a general appeal from Miss Baillie to Miss Baillie ;-from her partial and occasional improprieties, to the clear and correct standard of her general taste.

ART. ΧΙ. ΕΥΡΙΠΙΔΟΥ ΙΠΠΟΛΥΤΟΣ ΣΤΕΦΑΝΗΦΟΡΟΣ. Euripidis Hippolytus Coronifer. Ad Fidem Manuscriptorum ac veterum Editionum emendavit et annotationibus instruxit Jacobus Henricus Monk, A. M. SS. Trinitatis Collegii Socius, et Græcarum Literarum apud Cantabrigienses Professor Regius. Cantabrigiæ: Typis ac sumptibus Academicis excudit J. Smith; Veneunt Londini, apud T. Payne, &c. 1811. 8vo. pp. 176.

FROM the opening of the last century, till within a very few years past, the Cambridge University press had appeared sunk in a kind of listless inactivity. Not a single work of importance had issued from it during the whole of that period. Its funds had been employed in committing to print little else but pamphlets and school-books; in a manner totally inconsistent with its former typographical celebrity. There was a time, when