Of such a goddess once; dream'd that yon slaves Rie. Come on. Why pause ye, cowards? I am unarmed. My breast is bare. Why pause ye? If Enter CLAUDIA-Rushes forward to Rienzi. Cla. Father! Sav. Oh, save her! Rie. Drag her from my neck, ye be men! Save her! She never harmed A worm. My Claudia, bless thee-bless thee! Now-now! [Rienzi falls, pierced by many spears, and the people divide, Sav. Ay, that thrust pierced to the heart; he dies Cla. Father! Lady C. Alas! poor child! Sav. She bleeds, I fear, to death. Go bear her in, And treat the corse with reverence; for surely, Though stained with much ambition, he was one Of the earth's great spirits. It will be obvious that the effect of a catastrophe like this depends upon the manner in which the swords and spears are managed. To-night it was done indifferently-and, indeed, at all events, we think Claudia's re-entrance had better have been omitted. The young lady, who has made her debût in that character, has certainly considerable talents; but her voice is, to our ear, untuneful; and we think she will ultimately find her place in the gentler and more tender heroines, rather than in those who have to delineate a stronger order of passion. The length at which we have considered this production, shews that we consider it one not common in these days in England—that is, we regard it as a very able tragedy. It has greatly raised our opinion of Miss Mitford's powers, and, we doubt not, it will tend materially to increase her fame. 22nd. In the number of the "Edinburgh Review," which has just appeared, there is an article, concerning which we desire to say a few words. We allude to the review of Mr. Hallam's Constitutional History of England; and we are induced thus to single it out for notice, not so much on account of its extreme brilliancy and power, as from its continuing a series of essays on history which have been published lately in that journal, which appear to have been deeply matured, and which are altogether of a character well deserving peculiar and strong attention. In the last number, besides an article entitled "History,' but which ought rather to have been called " Historians," of whom, after all, only the ancient are treated of at length,--besides this, there is a review of Mr. Phillips's Edition of the State Trials, which enters vividly and minutely into some of the most controverted and interesting questions in our history; and gives portraits of several of the most prominent characters who figure in its page. The present article fol lows the same plan; but, from the book on which it is founded, has greater and more general scope. In these two papers are contained some, certainly, of the most striking and admirable portraits of historical personages that we have ever seen; and the general historical theories of systems are, with one or two exceptions, in which they are, perhaps, a little over-spun, of singular novelty and soundness conjoined. There is, indeed, in these two papers, a singular coincidence, for it is not repetition. There are, it is true, the same sentiments, though expressed in different, yet equally admirable, language. For instance, there is a character of Strafford in both, almost every word of which might stand if the two were to be dovetailed together. On the general composition of history, the following passage is extracted partly from the one number, and partly from the other: in this instance, indeed, from the third article, that entitled "History": "History, at least in its state of imaginary perfection, is a compound of poetry and philosophy. It impresses general truths on the mind by a vivid representation of particular characters and incidents. But, in fact, the two hostile elements of which it consists have never been known to form a perfect amalgamation; and at length, in our own time, they have been completely and professedly separated. Good histories, in the proper sense of the word, we have not. But we have good historical romances, and good historical essays. The imagination and the reason, if we may use a legal metaphor, have made partition of a province of literature of which they were formerly seised per my et per tout; and now they hold their respective portions in severalty, instead of holding the whole in common. "To make the past present, to bring the distant near,-to place us in the society of a great man, or on the eminence which overlooks the field of a mighty battle, to invest with the reality of human flesh and blood beings whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities in an allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of language, manners, and garb, to shew us over their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture,-these parts of the duty which properly belongs to the historian, have been appropriated by the historical novelist. On the other hand, to extract the philosophy of history,-to direct our judgment of events and men, --to trace the connexion of causes and effects, and to draw from the occurrences of former times general lessons of moral and political wisdom, has become the business of a distinct class of writers." "The writers of history seem to entertain an aristocratical contempt for the writers of memoirs. They think it beneath the dignity of men who describe the revolutions of nations, to dwell on the details which constitute the charm of biography. They have imposed on themselves a code of conventional decencies, as absurd as that which has been the bane of the French drama. The most characteristic and interesting circumstances are omitted or softened down, because, as we are told, they are too trivial for the majesty of history. The majesty of history seems to resemble the majesty of the poor King of Spain, who died a martyr to ceremony, because the proper dignitaries were not at hand to render him assistance Let us suppose that Lord Clarendon, instead of filling hundreds of folio pages with copies of state papers, in which the same assertions and contradictions are repeated, till the reader is overpowered with weariness, had condescended to be the Boswell of the Long Parliament. Let us suppose that he had exhibited to us the wise and lofty self-government of Hampden, leading while he seemed to follow, and propounding unanswerable arguments in the strongest forms, with the modest air of an inquirer anxious for information; the delusions which misled the noble spirit of Vane; the coarse fanaticism which concealed the yet loftier genius of Cromwell, destined to control a mutinous army and a factious people, to abase the flag of Holland, to arrest the victorious arms of Sweden, and to hold the balance firm between the rival monarchies of France and Spain. Let us suppose that he had made his Cavaliers and Roundheads talk in their own style; that he had reported some of the ribaldry of Rupert's pages, and some of the cant of Harrison and Fleetwood. Would not his work in that case have been more interesting? Would it not have been more accurate?" Aye, truly! If we could get such histories as these, there would be no danger of their being called "Old Almanacs." But unhappily, we fear, the minds of Sir Walter Scott and M. de Sismondi are nowhere fused together, and enclosed within "one case.' The review of Mr. Hallam's work is exceedingly impartial. They give him the highest praise for his industry, his acuteness, his vast knowledge, his almost preternatural impartiality. Indeed, they say, "On a general survey, we do not scruple to pronounce the Constitutional History the most impartial book we ever read." But they differ from him upon many conclusions to which he has come, and their arguments upon them draw forth the finest parts of this extraordinary paper. They premise one particular merit of Mr. Hallam, which they state him to possess to an astonishing degree. We shall give some portion of it, were it only to bring in the magnificent portrait at the end. The man who recognized himself therein must have shrunk under it : "There is one peculiarity about Mr. Hallam, which, while it adds to the value of his writings, will, we fear, take away something from their popularity. He is less of a worshipper than any historian whom we can call to mind. Every political sect has its esoteric and its exoteric school; its abstract doctrines for the initiated, its visible symbols, its imposing forms, its mythological fables for the vulgar.... From the very nature of man it must be so. The faculty by which we inseparably associate ideas which have often been presented to us in conjunction, is not under the absolute controul of the will. It may be quickened into morbid activity. It may be reasoned into sluggishness. But in a certain degree it will always exist. The almost absolute mastery which Mr. Hallam has obtained over feelings of this class, is perfectly astonishing to us; and will, we believe, be not only astonishing, but offensive to many of his readers. It must particularly disgust those people who, in their speculations on politics, are not reasoners but fanciers; whose opinions, even when sincere, are not produced according to the ordinary law of intellectual births, by induction and inference, but are equivocally generated by the heat of fervid tempers out of the overflowings of tumid imaginations. A man of this class is always in extremes. He cannot be a friend to liberty without calling for a community of goods, or a friend to order without taking under his protection the foulest excesses of tyranny. His admiration oscillates between the most worthless of rebels and the most worthless of oppressors; between Marten, the scandal of the High Court of Justice, and Laud, the scandal of the Star Chamber. He can forgive anything but temperance and impartiality. He has a certain sympathy with the violence of his opponents, as well as with that of his associates. In every furious partisan he sees either his present self or his former self, the pensioner that is, or the Jacobin that has been. But he is unable to comprehend a writer who, steadily attached to principles, is indifferent about names and badges,-who judges of characters with equable severity, not altogether untinctured with cynicism, but free from the slightest touch of passion, party-spirit or caprice." The first very striking portrait we come to is that of Cranmer. Nothing can by possibility be more severe, scarcely, we think, more just, than this admirable moral painting. We never read any thing which impressed us with a stronger idea of the possession by the author of keen and clear sight of the extent of the power to cast aside the irrelevant, and single out the real, points to be considered-of elevation above the dupery of faction-of uncompromising justice in holding the balance. The rapid recapitulation of Cranmer's public life is done with a vigour such as we have seldom seen equalled. The facts every one who reads them knows to be historically true, the conviction which they carry with them is irresistible; and, as we finish the beadroll of meannesses and cruelties, we wonder how Cranmer has been able to crawl through history with so decent a character. Partly, perhaps, from the part he took in the reformation, nearly all the promoters of which our English historians have canonized, while those on the opposite side have been painted as black as though they were devils indeed. The conclusion is rather lenient, when we consider the items that have gone before. We think its termination exceedingly happy, and perfectly true in metaphysics : He was "We do not mean, however, to represent him as a monster of wickedness. He was not wantonly cruel or treacherous. merely a supple, timid, interested courtier, in times of frequent and violent change. That which has always been represented as his distinguishing virtue, the facility with which he forgave his enemies, belongs to the character. Those of his class are never vindictive, and never grateful. A present interest effaces past services and past injuries from their minds together. Their only object is self-preservation; and for this they conciliate those who wrong them, just as they abandon those who serve them. Before we extol a man for his forgiving temper, we should inquire whether he is above revenge, or below it." The account of the origin of the church of England, as contra-distinguished from Catholicism and Puritanism, is very happily conceived. Henry VIII., whom the reviewer represents as an orthodox Catholic, excepting that he chose to be his own pope," determined to retain the Catholic doctrines and rites in the church of England, while he was to have the control formerly belonging to the pope. Thus he was equally opposed to both religious parties, and persecuted them both with very impartial rigour. Those who denied transubstantiation, or the king's supremacy, suffered equally. The reviewer ascribes his power to do this to circumstances which were not continued to his successors, not only" the extraordinary force of his character," but "the fortunate situation in which he stood with reference to foreign powers, and the vast resources which the suppression of the monasteries placed at his disposal." But, at last, it became necessary for the government to declare really for one side or the other. In Reluctantly and sullenly it at last joined the Protestants. forming this junction, its object was to procure as much aid as possible for its selfish undertaking, and to make the smallest possible concessions to the spirit of religious innovation. "From this compromise the Church of England sprung. In many respects, indeed, it has been well for her, that, in an age of exuberant zeal, her principal founders were mere politicians. To this circumstance she owes her moderate articles, her decent ceremonies, her noble and pathetic liturgy. Her worship is not disfigured by mummery. Yet she has preserved, in a far greater degree than any of her Protestant sisters, that art of striking the senses, and filling the imagination, in which the Catholic Church so eminently excels. But, on the other hand, she continued to be, for more than a hundred and fifty years, the servile handmaid of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liberty. The divine right of kings, and the duty of passively obeying all their commands, were her favourite tenets. She held them firmly through times of oppression, persecution and licentiousness; while law was trampled down; while judgment was perverted; while the people were eaten as though they were bread. Once, and but once,-for a moment, and but for a moment,-when her own dignity and property were touched, she forgot to practise the submission which she had taught." The reviewer passes rapidly to the Long Parliament, and here our limits absolutely preclude our following him. There is a character of Strafford, a corollary and supplement to that in the article on the State Trials, where Strafford's is discussed at length; but, in itself, a complete and noble portraiture. We cannot resist giving the following morsel of it: "For his accomplices various excuses may be urged; ignorance, imbecility, religious bigotry. But Wentworth had no such plea. His intellect was capacious. His early prepossessions were on the side of popular rights. He knew the whole beauty and value of the system which he attempted to deface. He was the first of the Rats,--the first of those statesmen whose patriotism has been only the coquetry of political prostitution: whose profligacy has taught governments to adopt the old maxim of the slave-market, that it is cheaper to buy than to breed, to import defenders from an opposition than to rear them in a ministry. He was the first Englishman to whom a peerage was not an addition of honour, but a sacrament of infamy,—a baptism into the communion of corruption. As he was the earliest of the hateful list, so was he also by far the greatest-eloquent, sagacious, adventurous, intrepid, ready of invention, immutable of purpose, in every talent which exalts or destroys nations pre-eminent, the lost Archangel, the Satan of the apostacy. The title for which, at the time of his desertion, he exchanged a name honourably distinguished in the cause of |