These illustrations are designedly selected from the parts of the
lower characters, because they at once evince the diligence and
success with which Dryden has laboured even the subordinate points of
this tragedy.
"Don Sebastian" has been weighed, with reference to its tragic merits,
against "Love for Love;" and one or other is universally allowed to be
the first of Dryden's dramatic performances. To the youth of both
sexes the latter presents the most pleasing subject of emotion; but to
those whom age has rendered incredulous upon the romantic effects of
love, and who do not fear to look into the recesses of the human
heart, when agitated by darker and more stubborn passions, "Don
Sebastian" offers a far superior source of gratification.
To point out the blemishes of so beautiful a tragedy, is a painful,
though a necessary, task. The style, here and there, exhibits marks of
a reviving taste for those frantic bursts of passion, which our author
has himself termed the "Dalilahs of the theatre." The first speech of
Sebastian has been often noticed as an extravagant rant, more worthy
of Maximin, or Almanzor, than of a character drawn by our author in
his advanced years, and chastened taste:
I beg no pity for this mouldering clay;
For if you give it burial, there it takes
Possession of your earth:
If burnt and scatter'd in the air, the winds,
That strew my dust, diffuse my royalty,
And spread me o'er your clime; for where one atom
Of mine shall light, know, there Sebastian reigns.
Pages:
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324