very case in his thoughts, and I honour him no less for the imitating, than I should have done for striking out a silence so naturally and so delicately preserved. What could Charalois have uttered to give him that interest in the hearts of his spectators, which their own conclusions during his affecting silence have already impressed? No sooner are the judges gone, than the ardent Romont again breaks forth

This obstinate spleen

You think becomes your sorrow, and sorts well
With your black suits.

This is Hamlet himself, his inky cloak, and customary suits of solemn black. The character of Charalois is thus fixed before he speaks; the poet's art has given the prejudice that is to bear him in our affections through all the succeeding events of the fable; and a striking contrast is established between the undiscerning fiery zeal of Romont and Charalois' fine sensibility and high-born dignity of soul.

A more methodical and regular dramatist would have stopped here, satisfied that the impression already made was fully sufficient for all the purposes of his plot; but Massinger, according to the busy spirit of the stage for which he wrote, is not alarmed by a throng of incidents, and proceeds to open the court and discuss the pleadings on the stage: the advocate Charmi in a set harangue moves the judges for dispensing with the rigour of the law in favour of creditors, and for rescuing the Marshal's corpse out of their clutches; he is brow-beaten and silenced by the presiding judge, old Novall: the plea is then taken up by the impetuous Romont, and urged with so much personal insolence, that he is arrested on the spot, put in charge of the officers of the court, and taken to prison. This is a very striking mode of introducing the set oration of Charalois; a son

recounting the military atchievments of a newly deceased father, and imploring mercy from his creditors and the law towards his unburied remains, now claims the attention of the court, who had been hitherto unmoved by the feeble formality of a hired pleader, and the turbulent passion of an enraged soldier. Charalois' argument takes a middle course between both; the pious feelings of a son, tempered by the modest manners of a gentleman: the creditors however are implacable, the judge is hostile, and the law must take its course.

Creditor. 'Tis the city's doctrine:

We stand bound to maintain it.
Charalois. Be constant in it;

And since you are as merciless in your natures,
As base and mercenary in your means

By which you get your wealth, I will not urge
The court to take away one scruple from
The right of their laws, or one good thought
In you to mend your disposition with.
I know there is no music in your ears
So pleasing as the groans of men in prison,
And that the tears of widows, and the cries
Of famish'd orphans, are the feasts that take you :
That to be in your danger with more care
Should be avoided than infectious air,
The loath'd embraces of diseased women,
A flatterer's poison, or the loss of honour.
Yet rather than my father's reverend dust
Shall want a place in that fair monument,
In which our noble ancestors lie entomb'd,
Before the court I offer up myself

A prisoner for it: load me with those irons
That have worn out his life; in my best strength
I'll run to the encounter of cold hunger,

And choose my dwelling where no sun dares enter,
So he may be releas'd.

There was yet another incident, which the poet's passion for business and spectacle induced him to avail himself of, viz. the funeral of the Marshal;

this he displays on the stage, with a train of captains and soldiers following the body of their general: Charalois and Romont, under custody of their jailors, appear as chief mourners, and a party of creditors are concerned in the groupe.

After this solemnity is dispatched, the poet proceeds to develop the amiable generosity of old Rochfort, who, being touched with the gallant spirit of Romont, and still more penetrated with the filial piety of young Charalois, delivers them both from imprisonment and distress, by discharging the debts of the Marshal and dismissing the creditors: this also passes before the eyes of the spectators. Before Charalois has given full expression to his gratitude for this extraordinary benefaction, Rochfort follows it with a further act of bounty, which he introduces in the stile of a request

Call in my daughter-Still I have a suit to you,
Would you requite me-

This is my only child.

Beaumelle, Rochfort's daughter, is presented to Charalois; the scene is hurried on with a precipitation almost without example: Charalois asks the lady,

Fair Beaumelle, can you love me?
Beaumelle. Yes, my lord.

Charalois. You need not question me if I can you;
You are the fairest virgin in Dijon,

And Rochfort is your father.

The match is agreed upon as soon as proposed, and Rochfort hastens away to prepare the celebration.

In this cluster of incidents I must not fail to remark, that the poet introduces young Novall upon the scene, in the very moment when the short dialogue above quoted was passing this Novall had before been exhibited as a suitor to Beaumelle, and his vain frivolous character had been displayed in a

:

very ridiculous and contemptible light; he is now again introduced to be a witness of his own disappointment, and his only observation upon it is What's this change?-Upon the exit of the father however he addresses himself to the lady, and her reply gives the alarming hint, that makes discovery of the fatal turn which the plot is now about to take; for when Novall, turning aside to Beaumelle, by one word-Mistress !-conveys the reproach of inconstancy, she replies,

Oh, Servant! Virtue strengthen me!

Thy presence blows round my affection's vane:
You will undo me if you speak again.

(Exit.)

Young Novall is left on the scene with certain followers and dependents, which hang upon his fortune, one of which (Pontalier by name) a man under deep obligations to him, yet of an honest nature, advises him to an honourable renunciation of all further hopes or attempts to avail himself of the affections of Beaumelle

Tho' you have sav'd my life,

Rescu'd me often from my wants, I must not
Wink at your follies, that will ruin you.
You know my blunt way, and my love to truth:
Forsake the pursuit of this lady's honour,
Now you do see her made another man's.

This honourable advice is rejected with contempt : Novall, in whose mean bosom there does not seem a trace of virtue, avows a determined perseverance; and the poet having in this hasty manner compleated these inauspicious nuptials, closes the second act of his tragedy.

NUMBER LXXVIII.

WE have now expended two entire acts of The Fatal Dowry, in advancing to that period in the fable, at which the tragedy of The Fair Penitent opens. If the author of this tragedy thought it necessary to contract Massinger's plot, and found one upon it of a more regular construction, I know not how he could do this any otherwise, than by taking up the story at the point where we have now left it, and throwing the antecedent matter into narration; and though these two prefatory acts are full of very affecting incidents, yet the pathos which properly appertains to the plot, and conduces to the catastrophe of the tragedy, does not in strictness take place before the event of the marriage. No critic will say that the pleadings before the judges, the interference of the creditors, the distresses of Charalois, or the funeral of the Marshal, are necessary parts of the drama; at the same time no reader will deny (and neither could Rowe himself overlook) the effect of these incidents: he could not fail to foresee that he was to sacrifice very much of the interest of his fable, when he was to throw that upon narration, which his original had given in spectacle; and the loss was more enhanced by falling upon the hero of the drama; for who that compares Charalois, at the end of the second act of Massinger, with Rowe's Altamont at the opening scene of The Fair Penitent, can doubt which character has most interest with the spectators? We have seen the former in all the most amiable offices which filial piety could per