And, having saved her, sever the last link

That binds me to the world. [He rushes out.

This closes the third act, which is incomparably superior to the second. The action does not advance very rapidly, but it does not stand still. This act is not oppressed with the mass of extraneous encumbrances which clog the preceding one, and it contains some passages of high poetic beauty.

The fourth act opens with an apartment in Ventoso's house, Leonora glides in, and, upon a symphony of horns being heard, exclaims,

Oh, silver sounds! whence are ye? From the thrones,
That spirits make of the empurpled clouds,
Or from the sparkling waters, or the hills,
Upon whose leafy brows the evening star
Lies like a diadem! O, silver sounds!

Breathe round me till love's mother, slow-paced Night,
Hears your deep summons in her shadowy cell.

We will not suppose our readers so deficient in taste and sensibility, as not to appreciate the beauty of this passage. The Countess enters, and shortly after Ventoso, exultingly, to communicate some news which he has obtained of the incalculable wealth of the Prince de Pindemonté; which intelligence rests on the authority of a certain Signor Stefano, who has just arrived from Naples, and whom the Count craves his wife's permission to ask to supper. The arrival of the Prince is now announced; servants and minstrels fill the stage; Torrento enters, attired in magnificent costume, and is welcomed by a septett and chorus. After some attempts at speech-making by the Count and Countess, Stefano enters, and deports himself with considerable haughtiness. Victoria is introduced veiled, and Torrento, who supposes her to be Leonora, and is apprehensive that her surprise may defeat his project, makes her an affected speech, conceiving that his only chance is to "talk her dumb." Victoria at last unveils, and Torrento is of course undeceived. He now produces the

of Victoria, which he had received from the Hussars, Lorenzo having left it behind him when he hurried despondingly from the jail, in the second act. How Torrento's possession of this portrait is to be reconciled with his expectation of meeting Leonora, we cannot conjecture. Victoria recognizes the miniature; Stefano snatches it from Torrento, and gives it to her, and she retires. Torrento expresses great indignation; Ventoso apologizes for Stefano, intimating that he knows the Prince well. Stefano says that he had mistaken his highness for a "famous reprobate," called Torrento. The mention of this name agitates the Count and Countess, as

it seems Torrento is "Old Anselmo's son, the rightful heir" of the title and estate which they enjoy. Torrento dreading their enquiries, and having no suspicion of their cause, seeks to divert them from the subject, by delivering the following rhapsody upon Curiosity:--

"CURIOSITY!

True, lady, by the roses on those lips,

Both man and woman would find life a waste,

But for the cunning of-Curiosity!

She's the world's witch, and through the world she runs

The merriest masquer underneath the moon!

To beauties, languid from the last night's rout,

yawn,

She comes with tresses loose, and shoulders wrapt
In morning shawls; and by their pillow sits,
Telling delicious tales of-lovers lost,
Fair rivals jilted, scandals, smuggled lace,
The hundredth Novel of the Great Unknown!
And then they smile, and rub their eyes, and
And wonder what's o'clock, then sink again;
And thus she sends the pretty fools to sleep.
She comes to ancient dames,-and stiff as steel,
In hood and stomacher, with snuff in hand,
She makes their rigid muscles gay with news
Of Doctors' Commons, matches broken off,
Blue-stocking frailties, cards, and ratafia;
And thus she gives them prattle for the day.
She sits by ancient politicians, bowed
As if a hundred years were on her back;
Then peering through her spectacles, she reads
A seeming journal, stuff'd with monstrous tales
Of Turks and Tartars; deep conspiracies,
(Born in the writer's brain;) of spots in the sun,
Pregnant with fearful wars. And so they shake,
And hope they'll find the world all safe by morn.
And thus she makes the world, both young and old,
Bow down to sovereign CURIOSITY!"

This is cleverly written, but is too palpable an imitation of the description of Queen Mab. The next scene displays a saloon decorated for a fête, which commences, but is interrupted by a tumult, occasioned by the entré of Lorenzo, driving before him the attendants, who would intercept his progress; he denounces the Prince as an impostor, and Ventoso and his wife are almost inclined to give him credit, when Spado enters with the letter with which he had been despatched at the end of the third act; and, in a struggle for its possession, Torrento is successful: the Count, however, seizes, and begins to read it; but, it commencing with some very free remarks upon the Ventoso family, he tears it. Torrento is

restored to his confidence, and quits the saloon in triumph, accompanied by the whole assembly. Lorenzo, being left alone, begins to soliloquize; but Stefano appears, and tells him, that 'tis noble blood that fills" his "veins." Lorenzo is not inclined to believe it, and abruptly departs.

The business of the miniature is not the only improbability in the progress of the fourth act. The mistrust entertained by the Ventosoes of their visitor, seems to vanish without any sufficient reason. The circumstance of Lorenzo having written a letter, in which he abused them, could be no evidence of the validity of Torrento's pretensions; and, as the supposed Prince is addressed in the said letter by the irreverend appellation of scoundrel, it should rather have confirmed than removed their suspicions: and it would have been far more natural, if, instead of being reinstated in favour, Torrento had been kicked out with disgrace; but it was necessary for the author's purpose that he should retain the confidence of his host, and we must acquiesce in this absurdity, "for the better carrying on the plot." The coming of Lorenzo, and the delivery of the letter, appear to answer no purpose whatever, but to make a bustle on the stage; they neither assist nor retard the progress of the action, but every thing goes on just as it would have done, if neither one nor the other had taken place. The language of this act displays some poetry, and is not disgraced by any jargon: some anchronisms, however, we shall presently

notice.

The fifth act introduces us to the mess-room of the hussars; and, upon the entrance of Lorenzo, we learn that the marriage between Victoria and the impostor Prince is to take place that evening at a castle a league out of town. This castle, somehow or other, none of the family have ever visited; and it has been contrived to drive the party round the suburbs, and, under the cover of night, to lodge them in the jail, instead of the castle. Spado announces that the cavalcade is gone.

"The old Count and Countess, full of bustle, blunders, and Brussells' lace, according to custom; the bride full of blushes and tears, according to custom; and the bride's maids, servant-maids, and maids of all descriptions, full of laughing and impudence, tattle, and white top-knots, also according to custom."

Lorenzo determines on going alone, but has no sooner departed than the Colonel, the Major, and the Cornet, resolve to follow him. The next scene is in the jail, where the Ventoso party arrive. Torrento justly enough observes, that it is a most singular looking castle. And here we must protest against the utter improbability of prevailing upon a number of persons to believe that a town-jail was the chateau of a

marquess. Torrento indeed remarks, with some humour, that "it has the look of a jail, the smell of a jail,—it feels like a jail;" but the rest of the company are perfectly satisfied that they are in the baronial mansion of a nobleman. The hussars presently arrive; but this circumstance does not alarm the Countess; and, though their impertinence excites her anger, she exhibits no surprise at their unasked intrusion into her "castle." Ventoso introduces Leonora, who recognizes Torrento, and threatens to expose him; but he appeases her by an appeal to the "brightness of" her "eyes," and retires with her to explain. Victoria shortly enters, and Lorenzo makes his appearance at the same moment from an opposite door: the Countess storms, Victoria seems disposed to faint, and Ventoso calls lustily to the Prince to take his "bride." Torrento approaches, and at this moment Lorenzo calls to the jailer to "fling the impostor into the dungeon whence" hetook him :" Torrento draws, but the jailer's men rush behind, and pinion him; he calls upon the Count to become security for him, but the Count declines, and the bridegroom is carried off. The hussars then retire; and Lorenzo delivers the moral of the whole business thus: ·--

"You, Victoria, have suffered for the crime of inconstancy; you, Count, for the folly of being a slave to the will of women; you, Countess, for the violence of your temper; and all for your common crime, Pride."

We are now transported to a room in Ventoso's house. Victoria declares that she will take the veil, but Leonora thinks that she had better not ;- —a messenger enters to command their attendance at the palace, by order of the Viceroy the Prince de Pindemonté. This, of course, occasions some surprise; but, as the message is pressing, and their attendance required without delay, they only stop to perform an elaborate piece of musical composition, previous to their setting out for the palace.

We now arrive at the last scene, which is a saloon in the palace, where we learn that Stefano is the real Prince de Pindemonté, and Viceroy of the Island, who, after a long search for a lost son, has found him in Lorenzo; the objections to his union with Victoria of course vanish, and he expresses his delight in these terms:—

"Lor. Fair ladies, nobles, gallant cavaliers !
This day shall be a bright one in the web
Wherein our lives are pictur'd-Thro' all years
This shall be a holiday-The prison gates
Shall know no envious bars; rich pageantries
Shall paint our love-tale; children's merry tongues

Shall lisp our names; and old men, o'er their fires,
Flourish their cups above their hoary heads,
And drink our memory! Come in, sweet love!"

But another discovery remains to be made, to give the pride of the Ventosos an additional fall. Stefano declares Torrento to be "old Anselmo's heir, the banker's son;" and that Ventoso must surrender not only the title, which he is not unwilling to part with, but the estate, which he much prefers to keep. The speech of Torrento, on his good fortune, is sufficiently characteristic:-

"A banker's son, magnificent! a golden shower!-Leonora, my love, we'll have a wedding worthy of bankers. What trinkets will you have? the Pitt diamond, or the Great Mogul? A banker, my angel! 'Tis your bankers that sweep the world before them! What army shall I raise? What cabinet shall I pension? What kingdom shall I purchase? What emperor shall I annihilate? I'll have Mexico for a plate-chest, and the Mediterranean for a fish-pond. I'll have a loan as long as from China to Chili. I'll have a mortgage on the moon! Give me the purse, let who will carry the sceptre."

The fifth act is better than the second, but not equal to the first, third, or fourth; it is deficient in business: the action of the comedy properly terminates in the second scene, and the remaining two seem excrescences clumsily appended to the play. The necessary discoveries ought to have been made immediately after Torrento was reclaimed by the jailer; but then the act would not have been of sufficient length, and, moreover, we should have missed an Italian trio in the third

and a view of the interior of the palace in the fourth. The improbabilities which attend the progress of the action, we have adverted to: the characters also exhibit considerable defects; none of them, except Torrento, seem to be finished; they are all mere sketches: neither the avarice of the Count, nor the pride of the Countess, are brought out as they ought to have been; yet these, after Torrento, are perhaps the most finished characters in the piece. Lorenzo is the merest walking-gentleman that ever was advanced into a hero; his three brother-officers seem to be thrown in but as makeweights: Spado is only the ghost of a character; Victoria is a sentimental heroine, and Leonora a gay one; but the sentiment of the one, and the spirit of the other, are pourtrayed with equal feebleness, and take no hold either on the feelings or the fancy. We cannot but regret the introduction of so many songs; it is probably owing to this that the characters are so sketchy and imperfect. The author appears to possess powers adequate to their development, and we are persuaded that the cause which we have assigned has prevented his suc

VOL. I. PART I.