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Untitled Article
foregoing passages are faultless . There is not a wrong word , a word too much , or a word in the wrong place . It is a clear , muscular style , possessing deep pathos and entire simplicity . Let it speak for itself : and here is the critic of the London Heview who shall also speak !
" The spirit of ranting could not be absent from the poet even when he had struck so happily into the right path . Hieronymo ' s quibbles and quirks about Hecate and the stars are quite annoying , as an unexpected disturbance ; but the lines which we have put in italics remind us of one of the most tender and affecting lines \ n Garcilaso : * Y tu , rustica iTiosa , donde estabas ?*
Mr . Wiffen in his tasteful translation of that celebrated Spanish poet , has missed the exquisite delicacy of the original . The passage is a lamentation on the death of a lady who had perished in child-birth . The reproach of cruel neglect is addressed , as in the above passage , to the moon , but especially in her character of Lucina . Mr . Wiffen ' s translation is— * Discourteous power ,
Where wert thou gone in that momentous hour ?* He has taken Rustica in the sense of rude ; but the delicate allusion of the Spanish poet is to Diana s character as the goddess of fieldsports , for the sake of which she is supposed to have neglected the labouring female ' s—* gentle voice , &c / "
The reader will immediately perceive that a reverential sympathy with one of the greatest trials , as one of the most important events in the arcana of nature , must induce that retiring of the mind , which prevents such remarks as we would otherwise
right gleefully offer on the utterly contemptible vapidities , " tasteful" common-places , and nothings of smooth sound , which this gentleman is pleased to consider as subtle criticism and " exquisite" poetry ! It is a pity , however , but some worthy old bonne had been at hand to have suggested a few more
original ideas , and aided their production : — ' * Y lu , rustica Diosa , donde estahas ? " Let the reader only place this last specimen of the Reviewer beside the quotations we ha , ve given from the " mock tragedy" of the Duchess of Malfy , ^ nd from the specimen of Lamb ' s " complete hallucination of rjiind : "nothing further is necessary .
The scene of Hieronyrno ' s madness is rather too long for us to quote , more especially as it abounds with passages which excite such profound and varied reflections , and suggest so many thoughts and feelingn , that the present paper would be unavoidabl y drawn out to a far greater length than was intended . Concerning those passages , suffice it to say , the reviewer offers no remarks whatever . All his criticism is
contained in the " exquisite" specimen just quoted , and in the general observation , that the scene possesses great power . We shall now proceed to hie definition of power , as it becomes ne-
Untitled Article
£ 52 The London Review v . The British Dramd .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 252, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/60/
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