Offend the sense! Thou, miscreative hell,
Let loose calamity!”
But it is not only in the “sublime and beautiful that Mr. Stephens’s genius delights” (vide Opinions, p. 4); his play exhibits sentiments of high morality, quite worthy of the “Editor of the Church of England Quarterly Review,” the author of “Lay Sermons,” and other religious works. For example: the lady-killer, Castaldo, is “hotly” loved by the queen-mother, while he prefers the queen-daughter. The last and Castaldo are together. The dowager overhears their billing and cooing, and thus, with great moderation, sends her supposed daughter to ——. But the author shall speak for himself:—
“Ye viprous twain!
Swift whirlwinds snatch ye both to fire as endless
And infinite as hell! May it embrace ye!
And burn—burn limbs and sinews, souls, until
It wither ye both up—both—in its arms!”
Elegant denunciation!—“viprous,” “hell,” “sinews and souls.” Has Goethe ever written anything like this? Certainly not. Therefore the “Monthly” is right at p. 11 of the Opinions. Stephens must be equal, if not superior, to the author of “Faust.”
One more specimen of delicate sentiment from the lips of a virgin concerning the lips of her lover, will fully establish the Syncretic code of moral taste:—