The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Dramatic Works• of James Sheridan Knowles.
2 vols. G. Routledge and Co.
Sheridan Knowles and Bulwer Lytton occupy
undisputedly the lofty position befitting the most
successful of living dramatists. Sheridan Knowles,
indeed, stands forth alone as pre-eminently the
dramatist of his generation. For Sir Edward takes
rank as a playwright among the most versatile men
of genius in our own, or for that matter, indeed, in
any other, literature. Knowles is essentially a dra-
matist. Lytton is a dramatist, so to speak,
casually, intermittently, episodically. He is a dra-
matist, besides being—almost everything writer well
could be—satirist, essayist, novelist, publicist,
historian, translator, metaphysician, above all,
peculiarly and in the very largest sense of the
word, both by reason of his many splendid ro-
mances and of his noble epic of " King Arthur"—
POET ! Sheridan Knowles, on the other hand, is
a dramatist, and nothing but a dramatist. His re-
cent escapades as a controversialist, to our mind
at least, going for nothing. As a dramatist, and
as a dramatist alone, he has won for himself his
extended and, we believe, enduring reputation.
To Sir Edward, the English stage is indebted for
many an exquisite production, the glory of which
will prove perennial—for the most finished comedy
of our time, Money, for the eloquent Richelieu
and the ever-charming Lady of Lyons, to say no-
thing of the picturesque Sea Captain, or of the
impassioned Duchesse de la Valliere, or of the inge-
nious Not so Bad as we Seem. To Mr. Knowles
the actors of our country were still earlier,
and, if possible, still more largely, indebted
than to the Admirable Crichton of our national
literature—his benefactions as a playwright extend-
ing back over a lapse of more than a quarter of a
century. What memorable names they are—the
names of these glorious and beautiful dramas from
the hand of James Sheridan Knowles ! What as-
sociations they are fraught with ! How they live
in the popular recollection I How pleasant is their
mere enumeration ! Virginius, originally per-
formed in 1820—with Abbot as Appius Claudius,
and Terry as Dentatus, and Charles Kemble as
Icilius, and Macready as the heroic Centurion 1
William Tell, first produced in 1825, with the same
eminent tragedian as the hero-patriot of Switzer-
land. Caius Gracchus, brought out the year before
with the same inimitable actor in the part of the
chief tribune. Alfred the Great, performed origi-
nally in 1831—the hero of the piece still, as of old,
Macready. The _Hunchback, produced in 1832,
with Fanny Kemble as Julia 1 The Wife, in 1833,
with Ellen Tree as Mariana The Love Chase, in
1837, with Mrs. Nisbett as Constance ! Woman's
Wit, in 1838, with Helen Faucit as Hero the hero-
ine ! Love, in 1839, with Madame Vestris as
Catherine ! What actors—what actresses }lave
shone behind the footlights of Drury-lane, of Co-
vent-garden, of the Haymarket, in the famous
plays from the pen of Sheridan Knowles ! How
we cherish the recollection of them as of the last
golden age of our dramatic literature, when
the Drama was still in some sort in its
halcyon days—before tragedy had given way
to mere spectacle, and comedy to sheer burlesque I
Besides the celebrated plays already enumerated
as among the dramatic masterpieces of Sheridan
Knowles—others are included in the two volumes
here submitted to our examination, such for ex-
ample as The Beggar of Bethnal-green, performed
at the Victoria in 1834, as The Daughter, originally
produced as the "Wrecker's Daughter," in 1836,
as the Maid of Mariendorpt, originally performed
in 1838, as John of Procida, otherwise known as
" The Bridals of Messina," brought out in 1840, as
Old Maids, produced, in 1841, as The Rose of Ar-
ragon, performed originally in 1842, and finally, as
the drama of-The Secretary. All of them, with the
single exception of the three-act-comedy of " The
Beggar of Bethnal Green"—plays in five acts,
abounding with passion, pathos, wit, eloquence,
poetry. Everywhere the dramatist shows himself
a perfect master of "situation." His knowledge
of stage effect he proves to be consummate. His
skill in the discrimination of character is at times
absolutely inimitable. His appreciation of the
tragic element is complete and faultless, as the
brimming eyes of many a crowded house have again
and again attested during the representation for
example of his Tell, or of his Tirgintus. His spark-
ling humour is remembered as something wonder-
fully delicious by every one who calls to mind the
sweet, clear, silvery, ringing laugh of charming
Mrs. Nisbett, as Constance, in " The Love Chase."
Remembering all which, as we do, so vividly and so
delightfully let us here accord to these two beau-
tiful volumes of poetry in a dramatic form, the
earnest and unaffected welcome to which we believe
them to be eminently well entitled. The
Dramatic Works of James Sheridan Knowles
have been so long out of print, whether separately
or collectively, that we conceive the present
holders of the entire copyright, the enterprising
publishing firm of the Messrs. Routledge and Co.,
to have done good service to the cause of contem-
porary literature by the issue of this popular and
acceptable edition —an edition as cheap as it
is in every way excellent. Volumes, they are,
not unworthy of being ranged upon our national
bookshelves immediately in sequence with the
writings of Fletcher, and Dryden, and Wycherley
and Sheridan—affording us as they do another
and not inglorious epoch in the wondrous develop-
ment of our splendid and prolific dramatic litera-
ture.

The Holly Tree Inn. Being the extra number of
"Household Words "—for the Christmas of

1855. Conducted by Charles Dickens.

Never before was there such a groat's worth of
winter's tales presented to the lovers of story for
perusal in the glow, and light, and warmth of the
dear old Christmas fireside ! Half a dozen tales—
and such tales I—for fourpence " Think of that,
Master Brook." And two or three of these charm-
ing stories told by the most delightful writer of
the ago—the most genial and incomparable hu-
mourist, to our thinking, in the whole range of
literature. No ono but our glorious Charles
Dickens could, by any possibility whatever, have
penned that wonderful opening chapter, entitled,
"The Guest," that exquisite narrative of the
stranger " snowed up" one memorable Christmas
in the dim, old, ghostly, cheerless, and yet right
snug and comfortable " Holly Tree Inn :" whore
the nameless wayfarer strives at first to wile
away the tedium of his solitude by conjuring
up all sorts of odd recollections about inns,
good, bad, and indifferent, and where not
quite succeeding in the attempt, he extracts, one
after another, stories of terror or merriment, from
" The Ostler,"—The Boots,"—" The Landlord,"—
" Trio Barmaid,"—and " The Poor Pensioner."
Who but our matchless Boz could ever dream of
such a marvellous personage as the one depicted in
the following description ?

"That was a good inn down in Wiltshire where I put
np once, in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before
all beer was bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury
Plain, and the midnight wind that rattled my lattice win-
dow, came moaning at me from Stonehenge. There was a
hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally pr,-
served Druid, I believe him to have been, and to be still),
with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking
afar off : who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who
seemed to be ever watching for the re-appearance on the
verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that
had been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a
weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of
Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them ;
likewise, that ono who counted them three times nine
times, and thou stood in the centre and said "I dare !"
would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken
dead. He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him
to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner follow-
ing : Ho was out upon the plain at the close of a late
autumn day, when he dimly discerned, going on before him
at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what hat first sup-
posed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some
conveyance, but what ho presently believed to be a lean
dwarf man upon a little pony. Having followed this ob-
joct for some distance without gaining on it, and having
called to it many times without receiving any answer, he
pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up
with it, he discovered it to be the last bustard in Great
Britain, degenerated into a wingless state, and running
along the ground. Resolved to capture him or perish in
the attempt, he closed with the bustard ; but, the bustard,
who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do
neither, threw him, stunned him, and was last seen making
off due west. This weird man at that stage of metem-
psychosis may have been a sleep walker, or an enthusiast,
or a robber ; but, I awoke ono night to find him in the
dark at my bed side, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a
terrific voice. I paid my bill next day, and retired from
the county with all possible precipitation."
Who but Charles Dickens could recount so won-
drously the terrible story, half horrible, half gro-
tesque, about the grimly murder at the Swiss hos-
telry ?—a story recounted as follows

" That was not a common-place story which worked it-
self out at a little inn in Switzerlaad, while I was staying
there. It was a very homely place, in a village of ono nar-
row, zig-zag street among mountains, and you went is at
the main door through the cow-house, and among tho
mules and tho dogs and the fowls, before ascending a great
bare staircase to the rooms ; which were all of unpainted
wood, without plastering or papering—like rough packing
cases. Outside, there was nothing but the straggling
street, a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple,
a pine forest, a torrent, mists, and mountain-sides. A
young man belonging to this inn, had disappeared eight
weeks before (it was winter-time), and was supposed to
have had some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone
for a soldier. Ho had got up in the night, and dropped
into the village street from the loft in which ho slept with
another man ; and he had done it so quietly, that his com-
panion and follow-labourer had heard no movement when
he was awakened in the morning, and they said, " Louis,
where is Henri ?' They looked for him high and low, in
vain, and gave him up. Now, outside this inn there stood,
as there stood outside every dwelling in the village, a
stack of firewood ; but, the stack belonging to the inn was
higher than any of the rest, because the iun was the richest
house and burnt the most fuel. It began to be noticed,
while they were looking high and low, that a bantam cock,
part of the live stock of the inn, put himself wonderfully