Tragedies : to which are added a few sonnets and verses

Preface

TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

19 publishing the following Dramas in a cheap and compact form, I have little to express except my thanks for the indulgence which has been extended towards them. If I had felt at liberty to alter them, I should have been tempted to do more than correct some verbal errors, and curtail a few palpable redundancies of language ; but I feel that when a work has been once fairly presented to the public, and, to the full extent of the author's hopes, accepted, he is no longer at liberty to treat it as exclusively his own ; ard, therefore, I have confined my own corrections within the narrow limit I have suggested. In addition to the few sonnets which accompanied the former editions, I have collected a few more which have appeared in periodical works, and added some verses which have not been before printed.

Here I might close this preface — as the slender matters which have reference to each Drama have been noticed in the Advertisement prefixed to each — if I did not think that I ought not to allow the present occasion to pass without noticing a misconception of the author of " The Hungarian Daughter," which, although not perhaps calling for a separate protest, and certainly not justifying any hostile remark, should not pass unnoticed in a collected edition which includes the passage on which it is founded.

Mr. Stephens^an author endowed with real tragic power, though not perhaps always adapting it to the purposes of theatrical representation — sharing with other Dramatic Poets the strong and natural desire of seeing works designed for the stage presented upon it — seems to have divided the plays of the present day into two classes, " the acted " and the " unacted," as if the distinction implied some essential difference in merit or kind, and not a mere difference of fortune ; and to have sought for the latter a great pre-eminence in critical opinion over the former. To the I*

VI PREFACE.

enunciation of this opinion, or to its maintenance by a comparison of my own dramas with tragedies which have not been acted, however mnch to my disadvantage, I have no right to object ; — but I do object to being elevated into a position of authority to which I have no claim, and then regarded as expressing an opinion on the works of others which it would have been impertinent in me to offer. The passage is as follows : — " Were I to affirm that, in my opinion, the unacted drama of this country at the present day is of a higher order than that which finds its way unto the stage, such a declaration would be very likely ascribed to prejudice, but Mr. Serjeant Talfourd has most handsomely proclaimed the same truth ; and from his competence, in every point of view, to set the question at rest, I should pressume there can be no appeal." * The reference intended is, I presume, to the advertisement prefixed to the second edition of " Glencoe," \ which had been published shortly before the appearance of '' "^be Hungarian Daughter," as I am unconscious of having written anything else which bears on the subject. Having seen the production and the success of " Ion" and " The Athenian Captive" attributed to personal circumstances, I was desirous of stating that *' Glencoe " had been accepted as the work of a stranger by the manager and actors, and had passed the ordeal of its first representation before the disclosure of the author's name ; and in making this statement I expressed the reason for intruding personal matters on the public as follows : —

" As I am conscious that this Play has been produced at a time when Dramatic productions, superior to it in many of the essentials of the species of composition, have recently issued from the press, I think it due to the management of the Haymarket Th'^atre and to Mr. Macready to state the exact truth respecting it." It is true that I intended to express my conviction that this particular wori; — ^while I might depreciate without offence — was inferior in many respects to Plays not then acted, as (among others) to Mr. Home's " Cosmo de Medici " — to Mr. Stephens' own dramas—and to " Athelwold," " Nina Sforza," and " The Blot on the 'Scutcheon," which have since been represented, but I did not presume to apply the same comparison to other authors of acted Plays — as Knowles, Bulwer, Jerrold, or the author of " The Provost of Bruges." It may be permitted to writers who, like Mr. Stephens, are conscious of power which has not obtained the

* Preface to the "Hungarian Daughter," p. 19. t Post, p. 156.

PREFACE. VJl

fair opportunity of trial before living audiences, to console themselves by the expression of their belief that, « with the exception of a few modern tragedies which cannot get represented, tne hundred and eighty years since the adoption of the odious monopoly has not produced a single Play that will live at the present century ;"* but it would ill become one whose dramatic efforts have obtained their full measure of attention, to sit thus in judgment on those of his contemporaries who have not only attained splendid theatrical success, but high and lasting renown. I may be allowed to add that, while I am not only content but happy to attribute much of the success of the two first Dramas to personal regards, I feel that it was an honest success ; for, believing that the liberal issue of orders has conduced greatly to impair the love for the Drama, and to impoverish the managers of theatres, I have always declined to solicit or use them ; and have never obtained, or written, or given one on any representation of either of my Plays.

In the Preface to '• Glencoe," which was no doubt imperfectly recollected by Mr. Stephens, when he invested me with so unmerited an authority, I expressed my concurrence in the demand which he and other Dramatists made for the removal of all legislative restrictions on the performance of Plays, and my hope that it might produce the consequence they expected, in greatly facilitating the representation of new Dramas. While I acquiesced in the justice of this claim, I cherished no sanguine hope that its success would produce the expected results ; because I knew that there was a monopoly, not of the Law's making, and beyond the Law's redress — a monopoly of the power of representing tragic passion and suffering, limited to a very few artists, which no legislation can remedy.

The demands of Dramatists has been granted — the legal monopoly is entirely overthrown ; every theatre within the Bills of Mortality may obtain the right of representing the legitimate drama ; but what is the result ? Alas ! it has only been the annihilating the distinction between the two classes of Dramatists, for the benefit of neither ; for all our Drama is unacted now ? And thus it must continue, until this art of acting shall revive, and the Dramatist shall possess not only a right to a " free stage," but obtain actors to render it vital.

In the meantime I rejoice in the conviction that the genius of

* Preface to " The Hungarian Daughter," page 21.

Vll] PREFACE.

our country has assumed a dramatic form, and has been developed in tragedies of a high order ; some of which have been acted ; others are incapable of being acted ; and others shall be acted, when actors of true passion shall be found, but not with real success till then. Excluding from consideration the noble dramatic poems of Taylor and Darley, which are written in express repudiation of an actual stage, and those of Smith, Troughton, and Marston, which have been embodied upon it, there remain noble tragedies in print which would do honour to the stage, and which yet I should regret to see acted in a small sphere, with poor accompaniments, and by frigid, illiterate, or ungraceful performers. I would not — to cite one of the noblest instances which our Drama presents — desire to see " Cosmo de Medici," with its images of gay and princely life, and of colossal sorrow, disfigured by the vapid imbecility of its youths and the mouthing inanity of its great and mournful father. Whether the impulse given to dramatic poetry will long survive the annihilation of the stage, I fear to conjecture ; and I am not sanguine for the cause of Dramatic Authors, unless a race of actors shall arise to help them. Mr. Home has already turned to the Epic, and consoled us by the noble music and classic imagery, and intense feeling, and starry destiny of his " Orion," for the absence of a presentment of dramatic passion and suffering. If the Stage, in spite of its emancipation, shall fall to decay, I shall deplore it — if it be only for what we shall lose in him, and in the younger genius of Robert Browning — a genius only yet dimly perceived, but deeply felt, and which requires and deserves the noble discipline of dramatic conditions. Happy, indeed, shall I be to find the hopes and the struggles of those who have achieved the emancipation of the Stage not lost in the destruction of that for the freedom of which they have fought and conquered !

T. N. T.

London, Januaby 12, 1844.

Contents

PAGB

Notice of the late Dr. Valpy, prefixed to ** Ion" 13

Preface to " Ion " 17

ION— A Tragedy 29

Dedication of " The Athenian Captive" , .102

Preface TO '' The Athenian Captive" , , . 103

THE ATHENIAN CAPTIVE— a Tragedy ... 107

Dedication OF " Glencoe " 164

Advertisement to *' Glencoe " . . , , . 165

Preface to " Glencoe " 169

GLENCOE— A Tragedy 175

1. Evening Service at Reading School , . . 235

2. The Forbury at Reading 236

3. On hearing the Shouts of the People at the Reading Election, 1826, at a Distance . . 237

4. View of the Valley of Reading, from Tilehurst, AT THE CLOSE OF THE ELECTION, 1826 . . 238

5. To THE Thames at Westminster . . . 239

6. To THE SAME RiVER . 240

7. To Mr Macready, on his performance of

*' Werner " 241

8. Fame — the Symbol and Type of Immortality . 242

9. To Mr. Macready, on the Birth of his First Child 243

10. To Charles Dickens, on '* Oliver Twist " , 244

X CONTENTS.

PAGE

11. To Miss Adelaide Kemble, when about to retire FROM the Stage . . . . ... 245

12. On the Reception of Wordsworth at Oxford . 246

13. The Memory of the Poets 247

14. Eton College surveyed after leaving a Son

AT School for the first time ... . 248

Alum Bay, Isle of Wight — Lines written at the

Needles Hotel 249

Verses in Memory of a Child named after Charles

Note to the '* Athenian Captive "... 259 Notes TO " Glencoe " 263

ION:

A TRAGEDY, IN FIVE ACTS.

XI

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

Adrastxts, King of Argos.

Medon, High Priest of the Temple of Apollo.

Crythes, Captain of the Royal Guard.

Phocion, son of Medow.

Ctesiphoiv, ) ^^^1^ ^j.g.^^ y^^^j^g Oassander, y

Ion

Agenor, )

Cleon, \ sages of Argos.

TlMOCIiES, \

Irits, a boy, slave to Agenor.

Clemanthe, daughter of Medon-.

Habra, attendant on Clemanthe.

Scene — Argos.

The Time of the Action is comprised in one day and night, and the following morning.

NOTICE OF THE LATE DR. VALPY,

PREFIXED INSTEAD OF DEDICATION TO THE FIHST PUBIilSHED EDITION OF ION.

In offering this attempt at dramatic composition to the public at large, I am mournfully reminded of an irreparable loss by the necessity of omitting a Dedication to one whose name should have graced its opening page. The two Editions which have been privately circulated were inscribed to my venerable and indulgent friend, Dr. Valpy, upon whose long life of kindness Death has since set the final seal. When I ventured to claim for it his protection, I well knew that I might rely upon that charity which lavished its bounties upon every effort of his pupils, for tenderness to its faults, and for generous praise of any merits which the eye of friendship might detect or create. There was also a propriety in seeking this association for a work which was prompted by love of those remains of antique beauty which he had taught me to know and to revere ; which assumed that form of poetry in which he had chiefly delighted ; and which, although meditated in broken hours, and at long intervals, had always mingled with the recollections of those happy days, when he first awakened within me the sense of classical grace, and of those after-seasons, when the exquisite representations of Greek Tragedy, which he superintended, made its images vital. He is gone to his rest full of years and honours ; and I cannot receive from him that sanction which he cordially gave me when I presented this drama to my friends, now that I submit it to the judgment of a wider and an impartial circle. Death, which harmonizes the pictures of human character, found little in his to spiritualize or to soften ; but if it has not enhanced the feeling of his excellencies in the minds of those who felt their influence, it has enabled them to express that feeling without the semblance of flattery. 2

14 NOTICE PREFIXED TO ION.

It has left them free not only to expatiate on those well-directed labours which have facilitated the access of the young to the elements of sound learning ; on the solemn and persuasive tone of his pulpit eloquence ; on the steadiness of his attachment to principles adopted with ciution, expressed with moderation, yet maintained without a sigh at the cost of the emoluments and honours to which they were obstacles ; but also to revert to that remarkable kindness of disposition which was the secret but active law of his moral being. His nature was not ameliorated nor even characterized, but wholly moulded of Christian love to an entireness of which there are few examples. He had no sense of injury, but as something to be forgiven. The liberal allowance which he extended to all human frailties grew more active when they affected his own interests, and interfered with his own hopes ; so that, however he might reprobate evil at a distance, as soon as it came within his sphere he desired only to overcome it by good. Envy, Hatred, and Malice, were to him mere names, like the figures of a speech in a schoolboy's theme, or the giants in a fairy tale — phantoms which scarcely touched him with a transient sense of reality. His guileless simplicity of heart was not preserved in learned seclusion, or by a constant watchfulness over the development of youthful powers, (for he found time to mingle frequently in the blameless gaieties and the stirring business of life,) but by the happy constitution of his own nature, which passion could rarely disturb, and evil had no power to stain. His system of education was animated by a portion of his own spirit : it was framed to enkindle and to quicken the best affections, and to render emulation itself subservient to the generous friendships which it promoted. His charity in its comprehensiveness, resembled nothing less than the imagination of the greatest of our poets, embracing everything human ; shedding its light upon the just and the unjust; detecting " the soul of goodness in things evil ;" stealing rigidity from virtue ; bringing into gentle relief those truths which are of aspect the most benign, and those suggestions and hopes which are most full of consolation ; and attaching itself, in all the various departments of life, to individuals whose childhood it had fostered; in whose merits its own images were multiplied, or whose errors and sorrows supplied the materials of its most quick and genial action. The hold which the Reading school-boy had upon this charity could not be forfeited, even " by slights, the worst of injuries;" and when broken in fortune,

NOTICE PREFIXED TO ION. 15

deserted by relatives, and frowned on by the world, he had only to seek the hospitable roof of his old master — " claim kindred there, and have his claims allow'd." By the spirit of cordiality which breathed there, all party differences were melted away, or, if perceived at all, served only to render tolerance more vivid ; and when he who had presided there for fifty years left the scene of his generous labours as a permanent abode, it was to diffuse the serenity of a good conscience and the warmth of unchilled affections through the homes of children who were made proud as well as happy by his presence. Such was he to the last, amidst the infirmities which accidents rather than age had accumulated around him ; — the gentlest of monitors, and the most considerate of sul^^erers — until he was withdrawn from those whose minds he had nurtured ; one of whom, who has most cause for gratitude, pays this humble tribute to his memory.

London, 26tA May, 1836.

PREFACE

TO THE FOURTH PUBLISHED EDITION OF ION.

The following Drama, as the readers of two Editions which were printed for private circulation are already aware, was composed and printed without any hope of its being found capable of representation on the stage. Its publication in its present form was contemporary with its production on the night of Mr. Macready's benefit, 26th of May, 1836 ; and as, at that time, its repetition was not anticipated, it was thought imnecessary to accompany it with any Preface. But as its performance has since been attended with unexpected success both in this country and in America, I may, without impropriety, state the views with which it was written, and indulge myself in the expression of my gratitude to those by whose assistance it has thus far been rendered vital. The first of those purposes will be best accomplished by extracting a portion of the Preface to the earliest of the unpublished Editions, which bears date in April, 1835 : —

" The title of this Drama is borrowed from the Tragedy of Euripides, which gave the first hint of the situation in which its hero is introduced — that of a foundling youth educated in a temple, and assisting in its services ; but otherwise there is no resemblance between this imperfect sketch and that exquisite picture. It has been written, not indeed without a view to an ideal stage, which should never be absent from the mind of the humblest aspirant to dramatic composition, but without any hope of rendering it worthy to be acted. If it were regarded as a drama composed for actual representation, I am well aware that not in ' matter of form,' only, but in ' matter of substance,' it would be found wanting. The idea of the principal character, — that of a nature essentially pure and disinterested, deriving its strength entirely from goodness and thought, not overcoming evil by the force of will, but escaping it by an insensibility to its approach, — vividly conscious of existence and its pleasures, yet willing to lay them down at the call of duty, — is scarcely capable of being rendered sufficiently striking in itself, or of being subjected to such agitations, as tragedy rev^uires in the fortunes of its heroes. It was further necessary, in order to involve such a character in circumstances which might excite terror or grief or joy, to introduce other machinery than that of passions working naturally within, or events arising from ordinary and probable motives without ; as its own elements would not supply the contests of tragic emotion, nor would its sufFerings> however accumulated, present a varied or impressive picture.

Recourse has therefore been had, not only to the old Grecian notion of Destiny, apart from all moral agencies, and to a prophecy indicating its purport in reference to the individuals involved in its chain, but to the idea o^ fascination, as an engine by which Fate may work its purposes on the innocent mind, and force it into terrible action most uncongenial to itself, but necessary to the issue. Either perhaps of these aids might have been permitted, if used in accordance with the entire spirit of the piece ; but the employment of both could not be justified in a drama intended for visual presentation, in which a certain verisimilitude is essential to the faith of the spectator. Whether any groups, surrounded with the associations of the Greek Mythology, and subjected to the capricious laws of Greek Superstition, could be endowed by genius itself with such present life as to awaken the sympathies of an English audience, may well be doubted ; but it cannot be questioned, that except by sustaining a stern unity of purpose, and breathing an atmosphere of Grecian sentiment over the whole, so as to render the picture national and coherent in all its traits, the effect must be unsatisfactory and unreal. Conscious of my inability to produce a work thus justified to the imagination by its own completeness and power, I have not attempted it ; but have sought, out of mere weakness, for ' Fate and metaphysical aid,' to ' crown withal ' the ordinary persons of a romantic play. I have, therefore, asked far too much for a spectator to grant : but the case is different with the reader who does not seek the powerful excitements of the theatre, nor is bound to a continuous attention ; and who, for the sake of scattered sentiments or expressions which may please him, may, at least by a latitude of friendly allowance, forgive the incongruities of the machinery by which the story is conducted. This Drama may be described as -he Phantasm of a tragedy, — not a thing of substance mortised

Preface To Ion. 19

into the living rock of humanity, — and therefore incapable of exciting that interest which grows out of human feeling, or of hold« ing that permanent place in the memory, which truth only can retain.

" There are few perhaps among those who have written for the press, predominant as that majority now is over the minority of mere readers, who have not, at some season of their lives, contempled the achievement of a tragedy. The narrow and well-defined limits by which the action of tragedy is circumscribed — the various affections which may live and wrestle, and suffer within those palpable boundaries — its appeal to the sources of grief common to humanity on the one hand, and to the most majestic shapiit^s of the imagination on the other, softening and subduing the heart to raise and to ennoble it, — and perhaps, more than all, the vivid presentment of the forms in which the strengths and weaknesses of our nature are embodied, its calamities dignified, and its high destiny vindicated, even in the mortal struggle by which for a season it is vanquished — may well impress every mind, reaching, however feebly, towards the creative, with a fond desire to imitate the great masters of its ' so potent art.' This desire has a powerful ally in the exuberant spirits of youth, when the mind, uachilled by the sad realities of life, searches out for novelty in those forms of sorrow, from which it afterwards may turn for relief to the flickerings of mirth, and to brief snatches of social pleasure. Perhaps ' Gorgeous Tragedy ' left a deeper impression when she passed ' sweeping by ' my intellectual vision, then would have been otherwise received by a mind unapt for so high a correspondence, by reason of the accident that the glimpse was stolen.

Denied by the conscientious scruples of friends an early acquaintaace with plays, I had derived from Mrs. More's » Sacred Dramas' my first sense of that peculiar enjoyment w-hich the idea of dramatic action, however imperfectly conveyed, gives ; and stiff and cumbrous as they now seem, I owe to their author that debt of gratitude, which others may perhaps share with me, who have first looked on the world of literature through the net-work of most sincere but exclusive opinions. These gave, however, but dim limits of the greatness which was behind ; — I looked into the domain of tragedy as into a mountain region covered with mist and cloud ; — and incapable of appreciating the deep humanities of Shakspere, * rested and expatiated ' in the brocaded grandeurs of Dryden, Rowe, and Addison. To describe the delight with which, for the first time, I saw the curtain of Covent Garden Theatre raised for the representation of Cato, would be idle, — or how it was sustained during the noble performance which followed, when the visions of Roman constancy and classic grace, which had haunted the mind through all its schoolboy years (then drawing to a close,) seemed bodied forth in palpable form, when the poor commonplaces of an artificial diction flowed ' mended from the tongue ' of the actor, and the thoughtful words trembling on his lips suggested at once the feeling of earthly weakness and of immortal hope, — and w^hen the old Stoic, in his rigid grandeur, was reconciled to the human heart by the struggle of paternal love, and became ' passioned as ourselves,' without losing any portion of that statue-like dignity which made him the representative of a world of heroic dreamings.

" After this glimpse of the acted drama, I was long haunted by the idle wish to write a tragedy ; and many hours did I happily, but "vainly, spend in sober contemplations of its theme. I tried to wreathe several romantic and impossible stories, which I fashioned in my evening walks into acts, and began to write a scene ; but however pleased I might be with the outline of these fantasies, I was too much disgusted with the alternate baldness and fustian of the blank verse, which I produced in the attempt to execute them, to proceed. At this time also, just as the laborious avocations of my life were commencing, my taste and feeling, as applied to poetry, underwent an entire change, consequent on my becoming acquainted with the poetry of Wordsworth. That power which, slighted and scoffed at as it was then, has since exerted a purifying influence on the literature of this country, such as no other individual power has ever wrought ; which has not only given to the material universe ' a speech and a language' before unheard, but has opened new sources of enjoyment even in the works of the greatest poets of past days, and imparted a new sense by which we may relish them ; — which, while on the one hand it has dissipated the sickly fascinations of gaudy phraseology, has, on the other, cast around the loveliest conditions a new and exquisite light, and traced out the links of good by which all human things are bound together, and clothed our earthly life in the solemnities which belong to its origin and its destiny — humbled the pride of my swelling conceits, and taught me to look on the mighty works of genius, not with the presumption of an imitator,

Preface To Ion. 21

b\it with the veneration of a child. For the early enjoyment of this great blessing, which the sneers of popular critics might otherwise have withheld from me for years, I am indebted to my friend Mr. Baron Field, a worthy and beloved associate of the most original poets and thinkers of our time, who overcame my reluctance to peruse what the ' Edinburgh Review ' had so triumphantly derided. The love of contemplative poetry, thus inspired, led me, in such leisure as I could attain, rather to ponder over the resources of the profoundest emotions, or to regard them as associated with the majestic forms of the universe, than to follow them into their violent conflicts and mournful catastrophes ; and although I never ceased to regard the acted drama as the most delightful of recreations, I sought no longer to work out a frigid imitation of writers, whom alone I could hope to copy, and whose enchantments were dissipated by more genial magic.

" But the tragic drama was about to revive amongst us, and I was not insensible to its progress. Although the tragedies of the last twelve years are not worthy to be compared with the noblest productions of the great age of our drama, they are, with two or three exceptions, far superior to any which had been written in the interval. Since the last skirts of the glory of Shakspere's age disappeared, we shall search in vain for serious plays of equal power and beauty with Virginius, William Tell, Mirandola, Hienzi, or the Merchant of London ; at least, if we except Venice Preserved for the admirable conduct of its story, and Douglas for that romantic tenderness and pathos which have been too little appreciated of late years. It happened to me to be intimately acquainted with all those who contributed to this impulse, and to take an immediate interest in their successes. I also enjoyed the friendship of the delightful artist to whom all have by turns been indebted for the realization of their noblest conceptions, and was enabled to enjoy with more exquisite relish the home-born affection with which those were endued, and the poetical grain breathed around them, by finding the same influences shed by Mr. Macready over the sphere of his social and domestic life. It will not be surprising, that, to one thus associated, the old wish to accomplish something in dramatic shape should recur, not accompanied by the hopes of sharing in the scenic triumphs of his friends, but bounded by the possibility of conducting a tale through dialogue to a close, and of making it subserve to the expression of some cherished thoughts.