The Press. — 1856-07-05 (London, England)

RESS.  equally partial view of human nature. His characters are also cast in the mould of naked general notions ; and he frequently paints the extremes of black and white side by side and in unrelieved contrast. His villains, for the most part, betray all their deformity in their outward conduct: this might perhaps be allowed to pass, although, indeed, such a picture will hardly enable us to recognise them in real life; but his virtuous persons are not amiable, and this is a defect open to much graver censure While the unity of place is strictly observed, the scene chosen is for the most part so invisible and indeterminate, !eat one would fain imagine it is soma out-of-the-way corner, where nobody comes but persons involved in painful and disagreeable transactions. Again, the stripping his kings and heroes, or the sake of simplicity, of all their external retinue, produces the impression that the world is actually depopulated around them." Making every allowance for German prejudices, surely every spectator who has seen Rosmunda must agree with Schlegel. Where were we? What historical characters had Alfieri in his mental vision, in presenting Rosmunda and the regicide Almachilde. In the beginning, Rosmunda, who is of the Lady Macbeth species, without her grandeur and remorse, alludes to a battle on the Ticino ; and reference is here and there made to the Lombards, so in Venetian Lombardy, or some other " out-of-the-way corner " let it be. A dreadful Alaric is oft alluded to, but does not show; but he is the bite noire, with whom Romilda is menaced as a husband, with the agreeable Blue Beard addition that Marie has stabbed one wife and poisoned another. It is the Queen Rosmunda who thus persecutes Romilda, because the latter is the daughter of her first husband, Alboin, who was assassinated by Almachilde, at the instigation of Rosmunda, who marries him after her long-desired widowhood. Rosmunda, as she assures her auditory, has an abstract feeling of intense hate against Romilda— first, because her father, Alboin, was in the habit of making his wife. Rosmunda, drink healths out of the skull of her murdered father; and, secondly, because she entertains a vague suspicion, subsequently fully confirmed, that her husband No. 2, the said Almachilde, loves the child whose father he had killed. Then there is a warrior named Ildovoldo, whose antecedents are very misty; but he, loving Romilda, resolves to restore her to the throne, by immolating his friend Almachilde, whose faithful vassal he affects to be. Here are crosses enough in all conscience to show that the course of false as well as true love never did run smooth, and rough indeed are the roads through which Alfieri arrives at his climax, which is reached in the fifth act, when there is this striking stage situation. Rosmunda, who is of the physical-force school, holds Romilda in such a position that if Almachilde and Iklovoldo, her two lovers, should attempt to approach her, she must die by the dagger of the furious queen. There is no parallel scene to this to be found, except in Sheridan's Critic. A capitulation of course must follow. Almachilde and Ildovaido are commanded to send away their respective adherents, and they obey; but the wily Rosmunda then does that which she could have done before, stabs Romilda. Ildovado then stabs himself, and the curtain falls with the intimation that Rosmunda only waits for the descent to complete her vengeance by stabbing her second husband. Is not Schlegel most truthful in the criticism cited above?  Out of these repulsive materials, so closely bordering on the burlesque, the genius of Ristori has created another magnificent part, as was duly recorded in last week's