the same time its strength and it breaks with a lustre the great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well as its essence the reader easily goes within the contemporary poetry and it with all the life and promise of the day as the pilgrim goes within the temple and hears the faintest strains of the but it will have to speak to posterity these deserts through the ruins of its walls by the grandeur and beauty of its proportions vol iv no lines thou hast learned the woes of all the world from thine own and lone tears and now thy broad sails are and all men hail thee with loud cheers the flowing sunlight is thy home the of the sea are thine to all the nations shalt through every heart thy love shall shine the thought that finds its goal far far beyond the horizon s verge oh shoot it forth on arrows bold the thoughts of men on on to urge toil not to free the slave from chains think not to give the rest unless rich beauty fills the plains the free man still all men can dig and rude stone but must the above and high through thee alone shall rise our homes of love the modern drama a t in five acts � what student of poetry � for admire o posterity the strange fact these days of book craft produce not only inspired singers and enchanted listeners but students of poetry � what student in this strange sort i say has not felt his eye to this title as if it were written in letters of fire has not heard it whispered in his secret breast � in this form alone thou express thy thought in the of life this success alone should satisfy thy ambition were all these caught firom a genuine fire such as in led the master by their efforts to perfect this till it afforded the greatest advantages in the smallest space we should be glad to warm and cheer us at a very small blaze but it is not so the drama at least the english drama of our day shows a reflected light not a spreading fire it is not because the touch of genius has roused genius to pro but because the admiration of genius has talent ambitious that the harvest is still so abundant this is not an observation to which there are no ex some we shall proceed to but those who have with any care watched this ambition in their own minds or its results in the works of others cannot but feel that the drama is not a growth native to this age and that the numerous produce little worthy the toil they cost t is indeed hard to believe that the drama once invented should cease to be a habitual and healthy expression of the mind it so fully the wants both of sense and soul supplying both deep and light excite ments simple comprehensive and various adapted either the s daughter a tragedy in five by j london c red lion court fleet street a in five acts w smith esq william and sons london ana a tragedy by sterling london street the modem drama to great national and religious subjects or to the private woes of any human breast the space and time occupied the vehicle of expression fit it equally for the entertainment of an evening or the closet theme of meditative years chain us for the hour lead us through the age who would not this mirror which like that of the old not only but the whole range of forms this key which the of speculation at the hour when the lights are and the shadows most suggestive this whose single sparkling draught is locked from common air by walls of glittering ice an artful wild where nature finds no bound to her while art steadily draws to a whole its linked chain were it in man s power by choosing the best to attain the best in any particular kind we would not blame the young poet if he always chose the drama but by the same law of which that wishes shall be granted to the no form of art will succeed with him with whom it is the object of deliberate choice it must grow from his nature in a certain position as it first did from the general mind in a certain position and be no garment taken from the shining store to be worn at a banquet but a real body gradually woven and from the earth and sky which the poet in his youthful years he may learn from the old greek or but he must speak in his mother tongue it was a melancholy praise bestowed on the german that it was an echo of the greek mind o give us something rather than greece more so new so universal so individual an after muse an period must come to every kind of greatness it is the criticism of the upon the inheritance by his ancestors it writes and it makes and covers old chairs with patch work yet happy those who have no affection towards such and entertain their friends with a pipe cut from their own grove rather than display an ivory handed down from the old time whose sweetness we want the skill to draw forth the drama cannot die out it is too naturally born of certain periods of national development it is a stream that will sink in one place only to rise to light in another as it has appeared in greece rome we cannot count england spain france italy germany so has it yet to appear in new holland new and among ourselves when we too shall be made new by a sunrise of our own when our population shall have settled into a national life and we have 