Tragedies of Silvio Pellico [pp. 773-779]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
John. Remove thee from the palace;
The King.
Herodias. Such separation but Zephora
Could ask. And now, whate'er my crime has been
In slaying her-Zephora is no more.
None can now say to me,' Herod is mine!"
Is the Omnipotent a wrathful being
Who claims vain sacrifices, abject baseness,
And barbarous abandonment of all
The heart holds dear?
Johnt. Thou hypocrite! the peace
Of holiness thou would'st attain and joy thee
Still in the fruits of sin.
Herodias I
John. Peace I offerBut hence hypocrisy-a heart's deceit
That hopes to hide itself from God, and form
An impious league'twixt penitence and guilt,
A league impossible! The wicked, whom
His deeds of evil prosper still is wicked
If such prosperity he doth not spurn;
In his returning nobleness abhorring
The good which God gave not. I say to thee,
That throned at Herod's side, even as before,
Thou still would'st feed on pride, and evil passions,
On hatred and revenge. God's high decree
Is not capricious; this is man's own nature:
Necessity immutable. Amendment
There is not for the guilty, if he yet
Reject not of his infamy the fruit!
Herodias. No reformation is there-none-for me!
Now know I all. Expect the axe!-He goes
Tranquil to death-and I who slay him-tremble!
Herodias then instructs her daughter to claim as her
promised boon fiom the King, the head of John. Herod
grants it reluctantly, but would stipulate for the safety
of Zephora; and is horror struck at the story of her
death. Then comes the punishment. The daughter
of Herodias is struck dead in her mother's arms, who
reproaches the King as the cause of her crimes and
misfortunes.
Herod. Remove her from the cruel sight.
Herodiag. Back! thine
Is yet more horrible than death. Accursed
The infamous love which bound us once! Thou, thou
Hast on my head heaped up the fearful wrath
Of the Most High; hast torn from me my child,
My innocent child, whose only guilt it was
That I have been her mother. Who impelled me
Into such crimes? Who led me to contemn
The Eternal? Who inspired the secret hope
That earth and heaven contained no God? Ah me
Deluded! it was he!
Ilerod. Ah
Herodias Wretch! was't not
Thy part to curb my madness-guard the lives
Of John and of Zephora?-to repentance
Invite, compel me?-and to sooner rend
A thousand times my heart, than immolate
All innocence-all justice!
Herod. I
IIerodias. The Book
Of Life I see displayed! Lo! with the blood
Of John and of Zephora God blots out
Eternally my name-and yet anotherThe name of Herod!
Herod. This is terror-firenzy!
Alas! with her own desperate hands she tears
Her streaming hair! Help! help!
Herodias. Herod! our names
The finger of the Lord hath blotted out!
Thus ends this tragedy; which in energy and character is not inferior to the best of our author's compositions. The chief personage bears some resemblance
to the Saul of Alfieri, and has, like him, the ingredients
of a character adapted to the romantic school. The
last dramatic production from the pen of Silvio Pellico
which has reached this country is Thomas aore, of
which we have left ourselves but brief space to speak.
It is almost, if not altogether, a failure. The representation of the historical personages of the Court of Henry
VIII. in a piece in which not the slightest local or national coloring is preserved, has a singularly feeble
effect on minds familiar with the graphic power of the
English dramatists. With this association the scenes
are unusually bald and desolate; the characters, which
might have been Italians or Greeks for ought appearing
to the contrary, save in their names, (and those have a
Tuscan twist,) walk through the chill desert of their
parts with more than classic monotony. Not that we
believe Pellico could have succeeded, even had he attempted the task, in exhibiting a faithful picture of the
manners of that court and those times, or in painting
English character; we simply regard it as unfortunate
that he should ever have thought of writing a drama on
a subject in our history. Alfieri's Maria Stitarda ought
to have been a warning to deter him from such an effort. The chief business of the piece in question is to
exhibit the integrity and virtue of More, the fallen
Chancellor, and victim of tyranny, through trials and
persecutions. These, of course, avail nothing to turn
him from the path of duty; and the reader, foreseeing
from the beginning the certain catastrophe, is conducted
by slow steps through the play, as through a long
avenue of cypresses terminating with a scaffold. An
effort is indeed made, in the last Act, to divert attention
by exciting hopes of a deliverance, but it is feebly
effected. The historical answer of More to his enemies
is preserved; "As St. Paul, who took part in the murder
of Stephen, is with the martyr in heaven, so may you, my
judges, and I, be saved alike in the mercy of the Lord."
Pellico does not want energy, but he lacks that concentration of sentiment and passion which is one of the
greatest merits in dramatic poetry. His style is two
diffuse; his eloquence, though graceful, often devoid of
boldness and vehemence. No striking imagery is to
be found in his pages, though such is the genuine and
universal language of emotion. He never labors to
produce effect by a single sentence. Yet he excels his
contemporaries and most of his predecessors in the delineation of feeling, and in the interest imparted to his
dramas; especially in the expression of tender emotions. All with him is unaffected and simple; and his
faults are rather deficiencies than offences against nature and taste. Had he studied to give a local interest
to his pieces, and appreciated the advantages of a
knowledge of the scene and times, his success might
have been unbounded. Man may be man when stripped
of costume, but he is not man as we know him and as he
moves in the world; nor is any thing gained by removing from our view those external circumstances which
so universally influence his character and actions.
Sir John Hill, who passed for the translator of Swammerdam's work on insects, iunderstood not a word of
Dutch. He was to receive 50 guineas for the translation, and bargained with another translator for 25-this
other being in a like predicament paid a third person
1J 2 pounds for the job.
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