The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-25 00:00:00

By miracle upon a cloudless sky,
Did I exchange our books, and4ds is her's !
Oh ! sweet Ilerminia ! woni l thou had -t bee n born
In mine own France and of more liberal sire !
For thine doth ban her as th' accursed land
Whence no good thing can come, and by hia will
his life were like the unsocial banyan tree,
Which, sclf-enantoured, casts its young sh.oota down
Year after year, close by the parent trunk,
In the same soil, ever and evermore."

In allusion to Sant Angelo's dream of the union
between Raphael and Herminia, the dream of a
union happily for four hearts never realised. The
metaphor must be allowed to be one eminently
graceful, novel, and felicitous. The dramatist, it
should be observed, moreover, has a lively sense of
the humorous, as we find pleasantly indicated by a,
number of gay touches hero and there throughout.
Sometimes visible in surly comments, like that of
the artisan who observes :
" I am no brawler, though men call nte so ;
But I do love to call things by their names ;
To call a knave a knave—a fool a fool,
And so my life grows storms, three crops in the year."
Sometimes in casual conceits such as that of
Raphael, who says :
" ----Why looking carelessly abroad
Who would not swear this world of ours is flat I

Many do think so still, and that the sun
Runs like a lacquey bowing round and round.'"
Kindred to another fantastic thought articulated
later on by Constance :--
"Trees are but out-door servants, liveried
In varied green to bow as we do walk."

Reminding us of the phrase put in the mouth of
the young Prince in Planche's burlesque of the
" Sleeping Beauty," when the trees gf the magic
grove separate to give ingress to the stranger-hunts-
man, his Highness advancing amongst them plumed
hat in hand, with a graceful " By your leaves 1" In
regard to mere style there is one other charm in
this drama of "Passing Clouds" not yet montioned
—i.e., that it is in no way characterised by affec-
tation or grandiloquence. There are passion and
sensibility—no ranting or drivelling. A servant is
attacked by cut-throats in the fourth act, and thus
quoth he :
Murder me if thou wilt, yet thou shalt gain
Nought but damnation. Not a groat have I
In either pocket ; no, nor hidden coins
Within my shoes or vest. A rod of steel
Have I alone :—that I present to thee,
Thou bloody knave. Take all I have (they fight). All's
lost !
The blade bath snapped."
Again. Constance has gradually growing up in her
heart's core a mingled sense of love and respect for
Raphael, yet, speaking of him to the Countess, her
godmother, she simply remarks—

" E •lieve me still, this is no common man."
While Herminia, in the anguish of her dread lestl
Raphael Sant Angelo may really in earnest aspire.
to be her husband, says—
" But gentle Raphael, if thou lov'st me well,
. Tell me at once thou lov'st me not too much."

Towards the close of the fifth scene in the thiri
act, when Raphael comes magnanimously to t 1 e
aid of the imprisoned Gaston, the latter exclaims-...

" Oh, Raphael ! not a word of thanks
Hast thou yet heard from me, who owe thee all
From vessels, full to the brim, no drop will flow :
Empty they seem ; so much resembling show.
Too little and too much !"
With gratitude as with grief—a grief like that x.
quisitely sung by Tennyson :
" There twice a-day the Severn fills ;
The salt sea-water passes by,
And hushes half the babbling Wye,
And makes a silence in the hills.
The Wye is hush'd nor moved along,
And hush'd my deepest grief of all,
When fill'd with tears that cannot fall

I brim with sorrow drowning song."
Gracefully floating over the landscape of the• scene
—the beautiful groves and gardens of Tuscany—
" Passing Clouds " chequer with alternate light
and shade the courtly figures of the drama—
" Ladies fair and gallants gay "
until the last faint shadow is lost at the close in
the sunshine of prevailing happiness. " Passing
Clouds," howbeit, we accept rather as a love-story
than as a drama—less as a play than as a simple,
tender, charming Tale of Florence.

THE GREAT GLOBE.