MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. In which I shall not see my mother! Nor these old walls, in which, from every stone, Childhood speaks eloquent of happy years; Nor vines and woods which made me love the earth, The vesper bell! My mother, when once more MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. Do I not know thy soul? through every snare warn, And Conscience be thy mother and thy guide! MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. Oh, may I merit all thy care, and most Thy present trust! Thou'lt write to me, my mother, The images gathered into this picture of the home of childhood and its associations are sufficiently common-place, and discover in the author no higher poetical faculty than that of collecting with skill the figures and allusions most appropriate to the situation. But Mr. Bulwer is capable of an occasional snatch of poetry full of true feeling, although, perhaps, slightly spoiled by extraneous embellishment in the expression. Ex. gr., from the interview between Bragelone and Louise, when she is struggling with her half-confessed passion for the king. BRAGELONE. Curs'd be the lies that wronged thee !-doubly curst MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. Hold!-thou malign'st thy king! BRAGELONE. He spared not thee! MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. The king!-God bless him! BRAGELONE. Would'st thou madden me? Thou!-no-thou lov'st him not?-thou hid'st thy face! Woman, thou tremblest! Lord of Hosts, for this Breathing through earth the Lovely and the Holy, I thought of thee, and smiled-for thou wert sinless! To lose thee, I can bear it; but to lose The best scenes are those that take place between Louise and Bragelone, and Bragelone and the King. There is more pith in them-more reality-more intense emotion. and just sentiment, than in the whole of the rest of the play. From one of the latter we take a burst of denunciation, uttered by the indignant lover, who has now taken the cowl, against the monarch, who at this period acquired the title of the Great. The world proclaims you "Great;" A million warriors bled to buy your laurels; A million peasants starved to build Versailles ; Your people famish; but your court is splendid! Priests from their pulpits bless your glorious reign; Poets have sung thee greater than Augustus ; And painters placed you on immortal canvass, Limned as the Jove whose thunders awe the world; But, to the humble minister of God, You are the king who has betrayed his trust, Now learns the name he leaves to time and God! But the work is very unequal. There are passages in this drama which are not only unworthy of Mr. Bulwer's reputation, but which we are surprised could have escaped the pen of any writer whose judgment was not utterly overborne by the We find an examcaprices of his fancy. ple of this species of mere rhodomontade in the soliloquy of Bragelone, after he has succeeded in prevailing on Louise to take the veil an historical untruth, but a good stage incident. A never-heard philosopher is Life! Our happiest hours are sleep's ;-and sleep proclaims, That REST is earth's elixir! Why, then, pine We learn betimės THE MORAL OF REPOSE? I will lie down, and sleep away this world. "Sleep's sweetest taken soonest!" Which piece of information, to be ob tained from the labourer, is a palpable plagiarism from the good old adage. Early to bed, Early to rise, Makes a man healthy, Wealthy, and wise! We beg of the reader to analyse the whole of this passage, if it were for no other purpose than to assure himself of the skill with which a quantity of words can be put together, and subdivided into heroic lines, without containing a single grain of sense. The confusion of images is almost without a parallel: the elixir and the moral of repose the sleeping away the world-the lateness of the night-the gilding of the "brief sun"-the falling of chill silence over the music upon the leaves of life, when the fluttering hopes that used to sing such pretty songs are gone to roost-are dug up from the lowest depths of bathos. But such faults are less censurable than the grand moral of the drama. It is in this that Mr. Bulwer has placed himself beyond the pale of clemency: his meretricious and silken absurdities may be excused, but what apology can be offered for an attempt to redeem the character of Louise de la Vallière, and elevate her into a stage heroine ? |