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Untitled Article
declares he has lost his honour , with the loss of the title of it , (" Bertulphe . Where is thjr spirit ? Bouchard . Lost with my honour !") that "Great minds are mightiest upon great occasions . " Exactly so ; hut as soon as Bertulphe is left alone , all his apparent power of character seems to have been but little more than a masterly tact of statesman-like eloquence .
•* I have turned his headlong passion for a while , And must employ the interval . —But how ! Heaven guide me !—for my own distracted sense Knows not what course to take , —but overpowered , Loses Us early strength , and palsied sinks /"
Sink then , and be serfd !—have we beliered Bertulphe one of Nature ' s nobility all this time , and do we now find him , when brought " to the point , " almost as helpless as a mere lord ! The disappointment and dismay of the people at the situation of the Provost is grandly conveyed in these few lines : —
He was the poor man ' s hope ; and now they stand Like frightened cattle that beneath an oak Hud sought protection from the threatening storm , And find the forked lightning ' s earliest flash Strike even there where they had made their shelter . " There are not many passages of this kind in the tragedy . The style , though lucid and straightforward , is destitute of imagery and force of language . These matters , however , we leave to somebody else .
The scene in Act IV . between Bertulphe and the Earl , is very fine on the part of the former , —the passion bursting through the policy and attempted self-command of the statesman—and silly beyond endurance on the part of the Earl . First he designates Bertulphe as " a serf , whose unmatched boldness" ( courage , skill , intellect , perseverance ?) " has decked him in the mantle of a prince , and who beneath the mask of stolen honours , " ( hard and justly earned ?) " has made his lords
his fellows ! " That he most certainly has not . Those who are said to create peers , are not to our thinking , with submission , by any means equal to the power that created Bertulphe , short of the * great point as he may be . But directly the Provost has shown a proper spirit with this foolish prince , and explained how easily lie could have purchased the forgery of musty pedigrees and other " playthings for children , " we find the following admission ;
Earl . —Bertulphe , however low thy parentage , Thy soul was cast in such a noble mould As won my love—more than thy services . Thou hast a high atul chivalrous spirit ui thte That could not stoop to ba&euess . —No , Bertulphe , Thou couldst not do these things !
Untitled Article
The Proxo * of Bruges . M 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1836, page 137, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2655/page/9/
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