The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-03 00:00:00

LITERATURE

TILE ROMAN. A Dramatic Poem. By Sydney
Yendys.
Drawing hi.; inspiration from the late heroic
struggle of the Italiars, the author of this volume of
poetry—poetry at once graceful and impassioned—
has in "The Roman" added one more remarkable
contribution to our contemporary literature. His
effusion,. though evincing in its freshness and anima-
tion the ardour of an, adolescent fancy;-,and the reaun-
dant energies a youthfid arid unjadekiiittgination--!
is, nevertheless, entirely devoid of the customary
tokens of immaturity. In this circumstance, more
even than in th 2 frequent beauties scattered throughout
the work, we r cognize larger promise, pr. ,rise of a
more brillianeoharacter as to the future ...nployment
of his abilities. It affords of its a sufficient
intimation that already the hand that, has struck the
chords of thii lyre is the hand of a master—no tyro
touch, no school-bred performance this, no thesis of
a poetic pupilage—but the bold, earnest, and harmo-
nious ebullitton of a young but copions and virile
capacity. It is told of Paganini, the Magician of the
Fiddle, that no human being ever heard him tone a
violin ; that an instrument which in other band* was
filled with discordance became at oncein his sensitive
and capacious grasp an organ of inevitable melody ;
his exquisite sense of concord detecting .at once the
necessities of imparting more or less tension to. the
strings, without obliging him, like all other violinists,
to scrape them into due relationship. Although we
are not going to ileignate Mr. Sidney Yeudys the'
Paganini of the Poetic Lyre, we must, nevertheless,
avouch at once that he so far bears a' resemblance to
that most miraculous of musicians, that he altogether
abstains from tuning his harp, at least publicly or
audibly, to the' task of authorship. He runs his
fingers over the instrument of verse for the first time
—and from the first:it is concordant. Insomuch, that
even to that most exquisitely sensitive of senses, the
sense of a refined and exacting criticism-, we
believe that, not-6 note will be found to jar 'either
into the sharps o'rant or extravagance, or into
the equally distressing flatness of an irredeemable
mediocrity. He sings -always in twit., and ttimottt•
always in time—his .'veree being invarial4iSiolliie
and melodious. Po* a first _wor34;ir,c4 especiaili
poetical work, "we scareelY ever remember one so
nearly altogether devoid of important blemishes.
Even to discern the lesser flaws which are inevitable
in every preliminaryeffort of the intellect, will require
a scrutinizing attention, and a captious temperament.
" The Roman" throughout is conceived in a high
and pure strain, its execution being ell but commen-
surate in excellence. Vittorio Santo, g missionary of
Freedom, disguised as a monk (a sort of idealised Gio-
herd) is The Roman. And, according to an expression
contained in this poem commemorative of his genius,
his eloquence, and. his patriotism, he is assuredly, in-
deed, and in truth .(p. 61,), a " polyglot of prophets."
Imbibing his wisdom from the most evangelizing ofthe
Apostles, he is "all things to all men." His oratory,
as ela,stic and adaptable as the form of Proteus, de-
rives its energy, like the thews of Antoms, froiu the
bosom of his mother earth. All the children of, that
historic country bow before the magic wand of his
rhetoric. , He calls to them in the thrilling tones of
antiquity—his voice rings over ;the laud like the
Last Trumpet of ,a political Resurrection. To all
grades of the community he appeals in the language
most calculated to roluta.their latent civism, by pene-
trating within the circle of their comprehension,
Thus—he chides theAttsbandtpan—
_ " for7the German weeds.that choke
The Roman crop of WY."
thunder,
He calls to a posy eccler:t.sttioo.
and
" At carting gives him
The whip of knotted cords ihat cleansed the temple.
'Preach, priest,' he cries, that from these sacred boundr,
This outraged temple Italy, each Roman
Scourge those that sell the sacrilegious doves
Of perjured peace. O'erturn, o'erturn,' he cries,
The tables of'thoie. German money-changerS,
That make this house of prayer a den of thieves.'"
Pleading to the merchant in the name of Italy, that
Italy which he would see transformed into one great
Roman Republic, he likens her to a
" glorious galleon, mino rar ov;isc et
teat
The
Now stranded and forlorn: her freight of honours
Strew'd up and down the world, purpling strange
snows,
And loading cold barbaric winds with incense!"
Turning even to the village forge, he sends ti whole
troop of
" Wrongs, hopes, :end duties trooping through the soul
Of the stout smith, and there on his own smithy
Blows the rough iron of his heart red hot."
Then, again, with a resounding and impassioned pe-
roration,
" Seizing the magic time, with sudden band '
He stamps him to the.quick;—Patriot! the hour
Is come to beat our litough,shares into swords—
Our pruning-hooks.to spears!"
Even to the gentler sex' his burning adjurations are
spoken, and that, moreover, so effectually, that one of
them (a daughter of nobility) goes forth at his bid-
ding, like a new Cassandra, crying mit, "Rome is at
hand!" But we are anticipating. The poetical
drama of "The Roman," divided into nine scenes,
opens with a chorus of dancers, in rhymes
daintily itterated like the throb of the cas-
tanets, and the twitter Of the flute :
" Sing lowly; foot-slowly, oh why should we chase
The hour that gives lie-liven to this earthly embrace?"
The revellers are startled by the interruption of the
Monk, who warns them not to desecrate with the
dance the grave of his mother--arresting their atten-
tion with a story of fietitious suffering, until he tells
them that that mother is Italy, that that Italy is
Rome. " Look," he exclaims, "upon
oe
Imperials e
craps a o
the purple
f dejected
round
her m pi
" Her mountain boscm,.where the very sky
Beholds with passion: and with the last proud
outraged breast,
And even in fetters cannot be a skive."
Again, transfiguring the land of hie love and of his
nativity with the glory of her vverlasting sorrows, he
cries out—.

" Your giant fathers
Call'd Atlas demigod. But what is she
Who, worn with eighteen centuries of bondage,
Stands manacled before the world, and bears
Two hemispheres—innumerable wrongs,
Illimitable glories."
Subsequently he apostrophises his country to emerge
from her prolonged ang'uisb, adjuring her.
" By her lung agony, her bloody sweat,
Her passion of a thousand years !"
In a similar mood of horror he inquires later
on (p. 88)
" Did this land, which bore gods, spend all its strength
In the sublime conception, and birth-worn
Bring pigmies forth i❑ these last days?"
Ali his eloquence when addressed to the voluptuous
revellers proves of no avail, even when he reminds
them that the land is what it was of yore in all
things but themselves, saying very gracefully, 1,1
illustration

" Chat tc-day
TThehedflanocweerrsa stlhainkL waawveady: inontehebyE
A seed into the earth, and it shall bear thee
Egyptian
etiainn hauaicrcession,
Of Pharoah's daughter.",
all, except a young girl, FraAcesca, who has im-
bibed the intoxicating draughts of his eloquence, and
enrolled among his disciples in
patriotism, ioo dteismxdesxctlo be
exclaiming
derisively in allusion to her
sex as affording but a flimsy obstacle-
-- " Doth Salique law entail
The heritage of glory
From the first moment of .her apparition from among
the trees it is sufficiently manitest that Francesca is
in love with Santo. While endeavouring to
allay the impetuosity of her patriotism, the
Monk thus speaks to her in tones" of
blended suavity and sarcasm. The • passage affords
so admirable a specimen of the vigour end terse-
ness of our author's manner that we transcribe the'
lines entire and unmutilated
" The feeblest tongue that freemen use will deafen
These ears where every word' went bowing in!
`These pamper'd ears, born in the purple chamber
Of silken state, these soft Voluptuous ears,
Dainty and fancy-fed, that of the f:iva
Of many-visaged language, know alone
That bastard and emasculated speech
That does court embassies. That perfumed minion,
Which runs the powder'd errands of intrigue;
That slave-born stave, that audible obeisance."
In a different mood he warps Francesca from the
perils of her unfeminine ambition, observing—
child freedom bath sanctuaries
Wherein the chaste hauda of her best high priest
Tremble to serve."
At the same time, on recognizing the sincerity of her
devotion to the cause he is advocating, he encourages
her by the assurance that---
The earnest soul
Drawing a sword is warrior ea-_
y a-pied I"
Having accepted Francesca as a handmaid in the
great effort at Italian, or rather Rotnan emancipa-
tion, Santo goes forth in the neighbourhood of Milan
and encounters a band of insurgents, by whom he is
almost destroyed, in consequence of his hinting at a
general confederation of the states into one Republic.
A moonlight scene between Cecco and Francesca,
fraught with passionate outbursts of emotion on the
part of the latter, carries on the story v of the drama to a
crisis—the. denouement of whichis clearly explained in
a tavern scene of students. The animation and humour
of this scene in the Italian hostelrie is felicitous,
the author evincing much comic poiver in his
sketch of the village schoolmaster Doctor Scio, in
the interpolated surprise of the hostes's, the waggery
of some of the students, and the mingled pathos and
merriment of Lelio. The same faculty for appreciat •
ing the droll or grotwue is afterwards betrayed
towards the close of the peem In the curt inquisi-
tiveness of the President of an Austrian court-martial,
as well as in the babbling garrulity of Old Goffo, one
of the witnesses. Here is ,an indication of
his facile aptitude ate
.t humorous. A con-
tention going forwaid among the students,
a challenge is thrown out by Lelio, 'and