his beloved steeds, pearls, gems, all went,-the very jewels that England had presented him, to obtain a few moments of life. On the day of his death, Runjeet bestowed in pious gifts a million sterling. As the last resource, the Koh-i-Nur, "the Hill of Light," was sent for to adorn the image of Juggernaut. But his successor represented that a gem, which the revenues of the empire could never purchase, ought not to be given to the Brahmins. He expired, distributing to the last his gifts, on the 27th June, 1839, aged fifty-eight. Our previous article describes the consequences on his death. Accounts since seem to leave much doubt on the manner of the death of Shere Singh, as detailed therein. It is a remarkable circumstance that Shere Singh requested of the Rev. Mr. Wolff, on his visit to Cashmeer in October 1833, to furnish him with a copy of our New Testament. Where has the worthy doctor not spread the knowledge of the book? The well-known victories of Aliwal, of Sobraon and Ferozeshah, are next detailed in the work before us, and a description of Lahore, once the splendid abode of Aurungzebe and the rival of Delhi, will interest most readers. The Punjaub may now be considered as virtually a British possession; in fact, has ceased to be a distinct kingdom, and is now simply shrunk into the diminished sovereignty of Lahore. An annual tribute is exacted, and the provinces of Cashmeer and Hazarah are ceded as indemnifications for the war, all the Doab, between the Beas and the Indus. Further, all territory south of the Sutlej is also ceded. Thus dismembered is the mighty empire of Runjeet Singh, the Lion of the Punjaub. The assault was provoked by the Sikhs, it has terminated in their utter discomfiture. Other troubles may yet attend this state of matters: rumours are rife that the disturbances will be again revived, and so youthful a sovereign as the king of Lahore is not the best adapted to calm them. All this will but render more necessary British assistance, until his hands grow strong. Our treaties give us the undisturbed navigation of the Indus, the Sutlej, and its extensions; and if ever empire was complete, the Indian, with Sinde as a portion of it, appears so. The latter acquisitions, by which among minor agreeable points, the beautiful forms of our ladies will be encircled in their now British Cashmeers, and by which a powerful check over the Affghauns is satisfactorily held, will, we trust, lead to the consolidation of this empire for untold

ages.

ART. XVI.-The Horatii: a Tragedy. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1846.

THE poem before us, although the subject scarcely commands much novel interest after the splendid efforts of Corneille, however revived by Rachel, is yet one that we consider well deserving of consideration

from certain merits of its own. It is a pity that these are greatly obscured by some very trashy prose and attempts at humour, in which quality the author is eminently deficient. It is a further pity that persons write Greek and Roman tragedies, in utter ignorance of such ordinary points as the method of addressing even the most exalted personages of their land in those countries. Thus, for example, we have in this tragedy one of the Horatii addressed as "Worthy Master Marcus;" now as the most exalted individuals of that nation, were addressed simply by their name, without any possible addition of this description, which the slaves Terence and Plautus would certainly not have omitted, such efforts as that before us are valueless as exemplars of life and manners in these countries; whereas the Drama, the positive exhibitor of action wherever extant, ought not to fail in these distinctive characters of a people. But if persons seek for a less critical character of Tragedy, they have in that before us very powerful exemplifications of the human feelings, that belong to all places and to all times. In the grander details, this poem is not deficient, although it fails awfully in the scholar-like trim, and in the intuition of a Visconti or a Birch as to classic imagery, peculiar habits, and distinctive language. It is further most carelessly composed, unhappy Priscian's head being broken in repeated places.

To detail the story of the Horatii and Curiatii would be too much for the patience of our readers; but there is one point in that story hit most happily, we conceive, by the writer of this tragedy, in representing the victorious issue of the contest as the result of the reluctance of Metius Curiatius to injure the Horatii from love to their sister. He consequently receives wounds, but gives few or none in return; and his generosity is met by downright brutality on the part of the victorious Marcus Horatius. The difficulties that encompass him, from his duty to Alba and his love to Horatia, are, we think, well conceived and boldly expressed; and the final scene between Horatia and Marcus, as he returns from the strife arrayed with the scarf which she had given to her lover, is as striking as any recent effort of tragic art. We subjoin the speech of Metius before the battle, in illustration of the above remarks, further objecting to many liberties of style, awkward contractions, and occasionally to some vulgarity in the writer:

"Metius. Cousins of Rome, sometime play-fellows! I do beseech ye hearken to my words,

And give them credit for sincerity.

Most heartily it grieves this soul o' mine,
That being that we are by nat'ral ties,

By pers'nal friendship and past intercourse,
And other cause not utterable here,
We this day meet upon such hostile sort.
Would that the fates had plann'd it otherwise!
But since they do compel me to the deed,
I'd have ye know the mood wherein I fight.

1

I fight you from necessity, not choice;
I fight ye as I'd fight bone of my bone,
Flesh of my flesh. I fight ye grudgingly :
No coward e'er went against a foe

With more reluctance (though from other cause)
Than I 'gainst you to-day. I seek no fame,
No personal honour, and no self-renown.
To spare your lives, I'd let ye hew me down
Without a counter-thrust, were what's at stake
Mine own, and not my country's. If you fall,
(Which be as Heav'n decrees,) I'll do my best
To stead those left behind and dear to ye,
And get them gentle handling. If I fall,
Do ye likewise for me. Now, I beseech you,
Let us embrace as kinsmen,-lovingly.
Let us forget past animosities,

All paltry and all puerile dislikes,

If ever such did in our souls find place,
And let us fight and fall in charity

One t'wards the other." (p. 73.)

Equally characteristic is his address to the Alban people :--
"Friends! fellow Albans! and good countrymen!

Albeit these your doubts go near to move
The restive temper that I got at birth,

I will not quarrel with ye; but with patience
I've learn'd to think that patience more becomes
We human-kind,—we things of flesh and blood,
Than hot and haughty bearing, though the world
The latter more esteems. Hear me, my friends:
If you to-day do want a thorough hero,-
So thorough, that he chuckles while he fights,
So eaten up of selfish lust of fame

That he'd not be withheld for all the world
From such a chance of getting glorified,
Why, you are like in me to miss your man ;
But, if you are content

To have a man who, though against his will,
Will fight his best because he's bound to do't,
One that hath ever had a spotless fame
As a stout soldier, and a dauntless man,
Why here I am the office to assume.
Now say, my countrymen, do you accept,
Or, doubting me, reject my services?""

(p. 75.)

The fight being supposed to be seen from the stage, offers a fine dramatic development of the feelings of Horatia, while the circumstances of it are recounted by an aged Roman. After two of the Roman champions have perished, and she learns that the third only survives, her favourite brother Marcus, she exclaims,

"Horatia, (kneeling.) Ye gracious powers!
Will ye look on and see this butchery?
Will ye allow the creatures of your hands
To blast each other thus ?-Forbid it, Heaven!

VOL. VIII.-NO. II.

2 L

My gallant Marcus !-Marcus, my beloved!
What two upon thee,-it is woful odds.

O they will kill thee-yea, they will; they must.
O spare his life, ye gods! O spare his life.
Spare him that was my mother's chiefest joy,

And my young childhood's champion! Spare, O spare
My mother's darling, and my sire's pride!

Ha! what means this?

[loud shouts from the Albans, with reproachful
cries from the Romans.

Romans. Shame! shame! Horatius. He retreats: shame !-shame!
Horatia. Silence, ye brutes! silence, blood-thirsty things,—
Silence, I say. Why should he not retreat?

Marcus Horatius! Marcus !-brother!-brother!

[shouts renewed.

Come from the lists :-come out. Ne'er mind,—come out.
Oh! he heeds not my voice. None heed me,-none.
These shouts drown all. Hark!-hark!
Now, now they hew him down,-both on him, both!
Death! if thou hast a grain of pity in thee,

Take me from out this world! Ha, gods! what now?

[shouts by the Romans." (p. 77.) The well-known sequel, in which her lover and brother are opposed, and the antagonistic feelings of her heart at that moment, are admirably given :

"Hor. (suddenly kneeling.) Hear me, ye gods! hear me, ye occupiers O'the realms above our heads!

Suddenly from out their nostrils withdraw

The breath of life; strike them both dead! both! both!

Let neither win, but both drop dead at once.

Into the regions of the shadow of death
Plunge them together instantaneously!
Awful may be the prayer, I pray it still,
That neither may the horrid triumph get.
Unto the shades with both!

Let sudden death leap on them! let it come
By plague, by pestilence, by sudden fire,
By the fork'd lightning or the thunderbolt;

By some dread means ye have at your high call,
Flash on 'em sudden, simultaneous death,

And let them drop co-corpses to the earth!

[tumultuous shouts of triumph from Rome." (p. 78.)

After reproaching her brother for his slaughter of her lover, the following scene ensues :

"Marcus. Art thou my sister?

Horatia. Kinsman-slaught'rer, no.

No, no, no, no! Oh! let that syllable

Peal through the vaults of heav'n, stun the earth,

And echo through the regions of the tombs.

Hear it, ye nations of the realms above!
Hear it, ye dwellers on this globe of blood!
Hear it, pale population of the graves!
(Oh how I travail with this mighty curse.)

Hear, Heaven! hear, Earth!

Be witness sun, and moon, and starry sky,
Witness ye trees, shrubs, flowers, senseless stones!
Witness all living and unliving things,

Ye folk around! and witness, too, ye dead!
Bear witness with one compound voice, that I
Eternally abjure my sisterhood;

That neither here, nor in the world to come,
Alive or dead, a living soul or corpse,
Absent nor present, near nor far away,
At home, abroad, in life, in death, in youth,
Ay, sickness, health, in sorrow, or in joy,
Nowhere, at no time, in no small'st degree,
Will I be sister to this thing of stone.
Because he did it upon such a sort,
Because he revels thus i' the result,-

With all my soul, with all my heart and mind,
With all my will, my power, and my might,
I wrench him from my heart, and curse him, gods!
Marcus. Is this my recompense for my brave deed,
In sending Rome's weak foes to their last homes?

Horatia. Don't swagger here, incarnate pestilence!

Thou husk of vanity, don't swagger here.

Boast not thyself against his memory.

Peace, peace, peace, peace, I say! Peace, drunk ape, peace!
Red thing! 'twas love of me, and e'en of thee,

Unstrung his arm, or he'd have beat

ye

all.

He could have beaten forty thousand such,
Ay, with one hand alone, unarm'd, he could,
But that he spared ye in his charity."

(p. 81.)

The melancholy sequel is known to all, and probably the above extracts will sufficiently prove that the writer of the Horatii is not deficient in the high element of feeling, without which nothing great or good can exist; and this forms a mighty portion of the bard, and when superior cultivation and carefulness enable the writer to display this in genuine dignity, and with every artificial advantage of style and acquaintance with national manners and habits, we doubt not that we shall trace far nobler works from the pen of the author of the Horatii. We are well aware every author considers his first tragedy unrivalled; and so it is, for it contains much that no other can express; but still even "Die Räuber," with all its wild imagery and daring conception, was but an ebauche of the then undeveloped powers of Schiller.