The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-17 00:00:00

THt PR.E SS, OCTOBER 17, 1857.

gies on Crabbe, Southey, Scott, Byron, Hogg,
Burns, Tennyson, and others, ho answers his
own interrogatory in the negative, and pro-
ceeds, in sporting language, to " try back" for
a more satisfactory result. The Augustan age
is, however, drawn blank also ; and, thrown
back on the Elizabethan, our critic can find
nobody but Shakespeare to whom the author-
ship of a " great poem' is justly assignable.
This paper contains some fine discriminative
criticism, and two especially good passages
about Dryden and Pope. But the most re-
markable judgment is that passed upon the
" old English dramatists," the favourites of
Sir Walter Scott, and deserving, we cann.it but
think, of a more favourable verdict than is
here passed upon them—e g. :
It is satisfactory to know that the good sense, and good
feeling, and good taste of the people of England will not
submit to be belaboured by editors and critics into un-
qualified admiration of such enormities. The Old English
Drama lies buried in the dust with all its tragedies. Never
more will they move across the stage. Scholars read
them, and often with delight, admiration, and wonder; for
genius is a strange spirit, and has begotten strange chit•
dren on the body of the Tragic Muse. In the closet it is
pleasant to peruse the countenances, at once divine,
human, and brutal, of the incomprehensible monsters—to
scan their forms, powerful though misshapen—to watch
their movements, vigorous though distorted—and to hold
up one's hands in amazement on hearing them not seldom
discourse most excellent music. But we should shudder to
see them on the stage enacting the parts of men and
women—and call for the manager. All has been done for
the least deformed of the tragedies of the Old English
Drama that humanity could do, enlightened by the Chris-
tian religion ; but nature has risen up to vindicate herself
against such misrepresentations as they afford, and some-
times finds it all she can do to stomach Shakespeare.

Whether we agree with it or not, the above
passage bears evident marks of sincerity. But
we think it questionable how far the preference
now accorded to vapid farces or bombastic
melodramas over the plays of Beaumont and
Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and Massinger, be
evidence either of good sense or good feeling.

Calendar of State Papers. Domestic Series.
James I. 1603-1610. Edited by Mary
Anne Everett Green. London : Longmans.
TH►s volume, edited by Mrs. Mary Anne
Everett Green, the talented authoress of the
" Lives of the Princesses of England" and
other valuable works, is the second instalment
of a series to be published under the direction
of the Master of the Rolls, with the sanction
of her Majesty's Secretary of State fur the
Home Department. The object of these pub-
lications is to afford the public the means of
ascertaining the nature and properties of the
papers contained in her Majesty's State Paper
Office. The object is doubtless a most praise-
worthy one—but the natural questions which
occur to every one are, why has the task been
so long deferred? and if these papers are of
such great interest to the people of this coun-
try, why have they been kept in solitary con-
finement for so many years past?
It is difficult to find a satisfactory answer
to these questions. The apathy of our cowl
cillors respecting these papers—the defective
system of management applied to them—and,
above all, the want of a building of a size
capable of affording protection to the docu-
ments themselves and accommodation to their
readers—will doubtless be found to have more
or less bearing upon their solution. For the
last two or three years the State Paper Office
has been amalgamated with the Public Record
Department, and has thereby come under the
control and superintendence of the Master of
the Rolls, who, by virtue of his office as custos
rotulorant, is the supreme head of the Public
Record Department. Whether it be a wise
thing or not to jumble together our judicial
and legal records with our historical, social,
and political papers, is a questionable matter ;
for our own part, we think it would have been
wiser to have kept them distinct and separate.
There is no analogy whatever between these
several classes of documents. Our " Records"
are as distinct from " State Papers," properly
so called, as anything can be. They spring
from entirely distinct sources. Our " Records,"
that is to say, our strictly " legal" records,
emanate directly and exclusively from the
courts of law—common law as well as equity.
" The State Papers"—to use the words of Air.
Lemon in his preface to his " Calendar of
State Papers, Domestic Series, 1547-1580,"