Of this dread moment’s conflict!
Thou, my friend,
Assist them, bear them from this scene of woe,
And tell them, when their eyes again unclose
To meet the day—that naught is left to fear.
Notwithstanding the pathetic beauties of the last act, the attention which this tragedy has excited in Italy must be principally attributed to the boldness of the author in so completely emancipating himself from the fetters of the dramatic unities. The severity with which the tragic poets of that country have, in general, restricted themselves to those rules has been sufficiently remarkable to obtain, at least, temporary distinction for the courage of the writer who should attempt to violate them. Although this piece comprises a period of several years, and that, too, in days so troubled and so “full of fate”—days in which the deepest passions and most powerful energies of the human mind were called into action by the strife of conflicting interests—there is, nevertheless, as great a deficiency of incident, as if “to be born and die” made all the history of aspiring natures contending for supremacy. The character of the hero is portrayed in words, not in actions; it does not unfold itself in any struggle of opposite feelings and passions, and the interest excited for him only commences at the moment when it ought to have reached its climax. The merits of the piece may be summed up in the occasional energy of the language and dignity of the thoughts; and the truth with which the spirit of the age is characterised, as well in the development of that suspicious policy distinguishing the system of the Venetian government, as in the pictures of the fiery Condottieri, holding their councils of war—
“Jealous of honour, sudden and quick in quarrel.”
CAIUS GRACCHUS.
A TRAGEDY,
BY MONTI.