peal to the people, are in a style of antique simplicity worthy of the subject, and highly impressive. Teraminta is included in the proscription, and the ascendancy of his father's genius awes Titus into a solemn vow to relinquish his bride. After her banishment she is sent back privately, with the Fecialian priests, sworn, at the peril of her life, to persuade Titus to join the conspiracy, in which his brother Tiberius was already spontaneously and deeply involved, for the restoration of the exiled family. The commission is fulfilled with the success which her own honourable mind deprecated. She is shewn the solitude in which Titus was deploring her loss, and left with an emphatic intimation that her own immediate assassination would be the consequence of failing to gain him over to the royal cause. He welcomes her with a burst of rapture, which she interrupts to enter upon her compelled task:

"Ter. Oh, Titus, you must hear me first.
I bring a message from the furious queen;
I promis'd, nay she swore me, not to touch you,
"Till I had charm'd you to the part of Tarquin.

Tit. Ha, Teraminta, not to touch thy husband
Unless he prove a villain?

Ter. Titus, no;

I'm sworn to tell you, that you are a traitor
If you refuse to fight the royal cause.

Tit. Hold, Teraminta.

Ter. No, my lord; 'tis plain,

And I am sworn to lay my reasons home.

Rouse then, awake, recal your sleeping virtue;
Side with the king, and arm against your father.
Take part with those that loyally have sworn
To let him in by night.—

Tit. Never, I swear.

O Teraminta, thou hast broke my heart:
By all the gods, from thee, this was too much.
Farewell, and take this with thee; for thy sake,
I will not fight against the king, nor for him.
I'll fly my father, brother, friends, for ever:
Forsake the haunts of men; converse, no more,

With aught that's human; dwell with endless darkness;
For, since the sight of thee is now unwelcome,

What has the world besides, that I can bear?

Ter. Come back, my lord; by those immortal powers,

You now invok'd, I'll fix you in this virtue.

Your Teraminta did but try how strong
Your honour stood; and, now she finds it lasting,
Will die to root you in this solid glory.

Yes, Titus, tho' the queen has sworn to end me;
Tho' both the Fecialians have commissions
To stab me, in your presence, if not wrought
To serve the king: yet, by the gods, I charge you
Keep to the point your constancy has gain'd.
Tarquin, altho' my father, is a tyrant—
A bloody, black usurper: so, I beg you,
Even in my death, to view him.

Tit. O you gods!

Ter. Yet, guilty as he is, if you behold him,
Hereafter, with his wounds, upon the earth,-
Titus, for my sake-for poor Teraminta,

Who rather died, than you should lose your honour,
Do not you strike him-do not dip your sword
In Tarquin's blood, because he was my father.
Tit. No, Teraminta, no! by all the gods,
I will defend him, even against my father.
See-see, my love; behold the flight I take :
What all the charms of thy expected bed
Could not once move my soul to think of acting,
Thy tears and menac'd death, by which thou strivest
To fix me to the principles of glory,

Have wrought me off. Yes-yes, you cruel gods,
Let the eternal bolts, that bind this frame,
Start from their order: since you push me thus,
Ev'n to the margin of this wide despair,
Behold, I plunge, at once, in this dishonour,
Where there is neither shore, nor hope of haven,—
No floating mark, through all the dismal vast;
'Tis rockless too, no cliff to clamber up,

To gaze about, and pause upon the ruin.

Ter. Is then your purpos'd honour come to this? What now, my lord?

Tit. Thy death-thy death, my love :
I'll think on that, and laugh at all the gods.
Glory, blood, nature, ties of reverence,
The dues of birth, respect of parents, all,
All are as this, the air I drive before me.
What, ho! Vitellius and Aquilius, come,
And you, the Fecialian heralds, haste:
I'm ready for the leap,—I'll take it with you,
As deep as to the fiends.

Ter. Thus, hear me, Titus.

Tit. Off, from my knees! away!

What, on this theme, thy death? nay, stabb'd before me?
Speak not; I will not know thee on this subject;

But push thee from my heart.

He is soon agonized with remorse; and, hastening back to the conspirators, to retract his pledge, is seized with them. The distress of Brutus is extreme, but his judgment is clear, and he resigns himself as to an inevitable doom:

O behold me

Behold the game that laughing fortune plays;
Fate, or the will of heaven, call't what you please,
That mars the best designs that prudence lays,
That brings events about, perhaps, to mock
At human reach, and sport with expectation.
Consider this, and wonder not at Brutus,
If thou behold'st him shed unmanly tears.-

Since then, for man's instruction, and the glory
Of the immortal gods, it is decreed

There must be patterns drawn of fiercest virtue,
Brutus submits to the eternal doom.

The scene in which he reconciles Titus to his fate, and takes a final farewell of him, is powerfully written. We select one speech.

"O Titus- thou absolute young man!
Thou flattering mirror of thy father's image,
Where I behold myself at such advantage,
Thou perfect glory of the Junian race!
Let me indear thee once more to my bosom,
Groan an eternal farewell to thy soul;
Instead of tears, weep blood, if possible,
Blood-the heart-blood of Brutus on his child:
For thou must die, my Titus-die, my son;

I swear the gods have doom'd thee to the grave:
The violated genius of thy country

Rears his sad head, and passes sentence on thee.

Our limits will not allow us to go on extracting at this rate. We must give over, although in Theodosius there is a rich mine, yet untouched. One specimen, from it, of the manner in which a Persian Prince woos the daughter of his tutor.

"I disdain

All pomp, when thou art by: far be the noise
Of kings and courts from us, whose gentle souls
Our kinder stars have steer'd another way.
Free, as the forest-birds, we'll pair together,
Without remembering who our fathers were:
Fly to the arbours, grots, and flowery meads,
And, in soft murmurs, interchange our souls:
Together drink the chrystal of the stream,
Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields;
And, when the golden evening calls us home,
Wing to our downy nest, and sleep till morn."

And a beautiful little extract from the Duke of Guise, and we will, positively, have done.

"Speech is morning to the mind;

It spreads the beauteous images abroad,
Which else lie furl'd and clouded in the soul."

Theodosius was long regarded as the ablest production of our author: we demur to this estimate, although there are, perhaps, not more than two which have our decided preference to it, the Brutus and Mithridates.-Constantine the Great, the only play to which we have not adverted (with the exception, before noticed,) is the most utterly worthless of all his compositions.

It is creditable to the taste and judgment of Lee, that he was not seduced by the example of Dryden, or by the applause lavished upon other compositions of that species, into the artificial walks of tragi-comedy. The heroes of his comedies are sometimes dignified, and those of his tragedies can be occasionally jocular: he drew from man as he is; but he never aimed at displaying ingenuity, by blending together grave and farcical plots in the same drama; he delights not in the strange alternation of scenes of buffoonery and slaughter; he has not sent Democritus and Heraclitus, tied together, through the streets, each destroying sympathy with the other, and preventing our either laughing or crying, by trying to make us do both at once. His plots are always extremely simple, nor does he ever so entangle himself in labyrinths of his own construction as to be reduced to the necessity of extricating himself by some highly improbable event, or still more improbable change of disposition or character, in the personages of his drama. They are themselves, to the last. He never cuts his knots. We do not feel, as often happens in reading Massinger, for instance, as if some strange metamorphosis had taken place, to qualify the agents for un

doing their own work; or as if such a trick were put upon us, as in a pantomime or melo-drame, when somebody being to be blown into the air, or hurled down from the clouds, a stuffed figure is substituted for the actor, and the identity of the coat, or of its. colour, is to be taken for that of the We make our voyperson. age, with him, under favour of the usual winds and tides, and they bring us into port. His poetic omnipotence does not obtrude itself, by working miracles; but operates, according to the. laws of nature, in such a manner as to produce all the required results. His characters are deficient in those discriminative touches which give a lively impression of their individuality, and make us feel that they are something more than the representations of a class; yet they are often developed with considerable skill. He excels in making them not too conscious. They do not analyze their own motives, but act from the impulse, given to them. We know more of their hearts, than they do themselves; and can better judge of their strength and weakness. The manner in which persons engaged in affairs of the deepest interest are made to philosophize upon their feelings, and read lectures upon the anatomy of their own minds, is one of the capital defects in works of fiction. This is a blunder which Lee rarely commits. When he does, it is with his villains. They are his greatest failures. He makes them all villain; and they know it. Towards them he has been too niggardly of those soothing opiates of conscience, those self-reconciling statements, of which human nature stands in need, when the soul is to be bowed to debasing actions, and which his less guilty personages lay hold of so readily, and apply so dexterously.

He has given us several excellent specimens, slightly varied, of the old soldier, a character which was also a great favorite of Beaumont and Fletcher. Grillon, Archilaus, Marcian, Clytus, are all of this class. Bluntness, often more than verging upon rudeness, and with a little disposition to boast; a staunch fidelity, rather diminished in its worth by frequent obstinacy; a morality which sits somewhat loosely about them, but a soldier's honour close buckled to their hearts; are the characteristics of this species, and they are dramatic ones. Who does not honour honest old Clytus, who would

"Rot in Macedonian rags,

Rather than shine in fashions of the east!"

and who admires not Grillon's conscience, who will not stain his sword with murder, though his king commands; yet loyally undertakes to protect his master after its commission, because that is "the honest part o' the job"?

Commend us to Lee for lovers too, in whatever form the