[2] Mr. Alfred Austin, himself a true poet and critic, has long ago repented of his juvenile escapade in criticism, and made ample amends to the Poet-Laureate in a very able article published not long since in Macmillan’s Magazine.
[3] I have just read the Laureate’s new plays. They are, like all his best things, brief: “dramatic fragments,” one may even call them. “The Cup” was admirably interpreted, and scenically rendered under the auspices of Mr. Irving and Miss Ellen Terry; but it is itself a precious addition to the stores of English tragedy—all movement and action, intense, heroic, steadily rising to a most impressive climax, that makes a memorable picture on the stage. Camma, though painted only with a few telling strokes, is a splendid heroine of antique virtue, fortitude, and self-devotion. “The Falcon” is a truly graceful and charming acquisition to the repertory of lighter English drama.
[4] See Virgil, Ecl. viii.
[5] Napier’s Scotch Folk-lore, p. 95.
[6] The Folk-lore of the Northern Counties and the Border, by W. Henderson, pp. 106, 114. Ed. 1879.
[7] Napier, p. 89.
[8] Ibid. p. 130.
[9] Henderson, Border Folk-lore, p. 35.
[10] Henderson, Border Folk-lore, p. 35.
[11] Ibid. p. 35.