Mr. Marston has lately written a Tragedy, called "The
Patrician's Daughter," which we have read with great pleasure,
barring always the fatal prescription, which in England seems to
mislead every fine poet to attempt the drama. It must be the reading
of tragedies that fills them with this superstition for the buskin
and the pall, and not a sympathy with existing nature and the spirit
of the age. The Patrician's Daughter is modern in its plot and
characters, perfectly simple in its style; the dialogue is full of
spirit, and the story extremely well told. We confess, as we drew
out this bright pamphlet from amid the heap of crude declamation on
Marriage and Education, on Dietetics and Hydropathy, on Chartism and
Socialism, grim tracts on flesh-eating and dram-drinking, we felt the
glad refreshment of its sense and melody, and thanked the fine office
which speaks to the imagination, and paints with electric pencil a
new form,-- new forms on the lurid cloud. Although the vengeance of
Mordaunt strikes us as overstrained, yet his character, and the
growth of his fortunes is very natural, and is familiar to English
experience in the Thurlows, Burkes, Foxes, and Cannings.
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