Poems by William Thompson Bacon. In one volume. pp. 134. Boston: Weeks, Jordan and Company.
'These poems are the results of my leisure at college, and published for experiment. If the public find any thing worth reading in them, they may be followed by another volume.' Such is the sensible and sententious preface to this very beautiful little book, which we have read with much gratification. The preface itself, so often a medium for childish extenuation, forced egotism, or the long-winded dissertations of those adepts in the art of being deep-learned and shallow-read, who are ambitious of 'showing off,' led us to anticipate something more than mere respectable mediocrity at the hands of the author; and we have by no means been disappointed. As might be expected, we find in this little work no affected phrases, nor new-conceited words. The young writer has evidently chosen the best models; and the good taste which generally characterizes his productions, evinces that he possesses, to a great degree, the ability to separate beauty of thought and style from the corruption which apes it. He is a quiet but acute observer of nature; his ever-veering spirit catches naturally its sunlight and shadow; and he has the power often to clothe the heart of the reader with the changeful vesture which robes his own. In the blank verse, we sometimes detect examples of false rhythm, and inharmonious words now and then mar the construction of an otherwise well-turned poetical sentence. These faults, however, are amply counterbalanced by abounding graces of language and diction, and by a pervading spirit of pure feeling, and moral and religious sentiment. We had prepared for insertion an extract from a poem entitled 'Other Days,' with one or two passages from 'A Forest Noon-Scene;' and although in type, for the intended gratification of the reader, we are compelled to postpone their publication until the November number. We repeat, we welcome this little volume with unaffected pleasure, and commend it to the reader's favorable suffrages.
[EDITORS' TABLE.]
'Bianca Visconti: or the Heart Overtasked.'—A successful tragedy, at the present day, is an event too rare to be passed over with indifference. The modern stage has been poverty-stricken so long, that it welcomes every thing in the shape of its natural food; although it is constantly reminded of its too credulous judgment, in the repeated nausea which it suffers from the flatulent and unsubstantial trash which its starved condition urges it to attempt to swallow. The American drama, if indeed we have any claim to such a possession, is such as may reasonably be expected, more lean and wretched than the drama of any of the more cultivated nations. But we have no national drama, as yet, although we think the corner-stone of its structure has been laid, and that there is bright promise of a noble edifice, in the aspiring efforts of the many able writers whom a few years have brought to light, as well as in the encouragement which the taste of the American people seems inclined to afford to this branch of literature.
The tragedy now before us, is the first dramatic effort of a pen whose easy and finished tracings have made its master, even in the spring-time of his life, well known to fame. A mere experiment, in this most difficult department of literature, is worthy of praise. Whoever has considered the difficulties attendant upon the production of a play, of any class of the drama, would shrink from the task of bringing an original tragedy before the public, unless urged on by that firm confidence which genius gives to its possessor, and upheld through all by the hope of that ample reward which must attend the successful dramatist. Scott, in his letters to a theatrical friend in London, often adverts to the restraining of taste which the purveying for conceited or interested actors and actresses demands at the hands of a dramatic author, whose success is at their mercy, not less than at that of those of the audience who come to the theatre with palled animal and spiritual appetites, to 'snooze off their dinners and wine.' An expressionless 'oratorial machine,' high in the 'supe' department, whose delivery of the commonest matter of fact is Stentorian and Ciceronian, may have it in his power, by ludicrous mal addresse, to mar the best acting play, and to render ridiculous the most refined poetry; while a higher order of Thespian, by slumbering over a level part, in a villanously indifferent manner, inadmissible as acting, may jeopardize an entire drama. But to return to 'Bianca Visconti.'
Mr. Willis has bravely accomplished his task; and without the slightest thought of depreciating the efforts of others of our countrymen who have written for the stage, we must honestly declare, that his work deserves the place of honor above them all. 'Bianca Visconti,' if considered merely as a dramatic poem, is replete with enduring beauties of poetry. Considered as a tragedy, it has many of the essential qualities of an acting play; not all, perhaps, in their highest perfection, but sufficiently marked, to convince the most fastidious of the power which the writer possesses, and of a certain promise of future efforts more decidedly faultless. The story of Bianca Visconti is well told. Although it proceeds without the aid of any extraordinary incidents, yet an interest is awakened, continued, and increased to the catastrophe. The characters are naturally drawn, and they have the especial merit of possessing in themselves an individuality—a form of their own, defined and marked out; and not, as is too often the case in modern dramas, made with the sole quality of filling up the space not occupied by the principal character. In other words, they have a merit in themselves, detached from the heroine, and are only subservient to the natural progress of the drama.
There is hardly incident enough in the first three acts, to keep up that melo-dramatic influence which the artificial appetite of the present day delights in. The author seems to have scorned the clap-trap which has become the chief merit of many modern playwrights. In this we think he has done wisely, on more accounts than one. In the first place, clap-trap is dangerous. We have seen an audience 'bathed in stillness,' the pulse of a crowded theatre beating like that of one man, convulsed by some blundering misconception of a forced dramatic point, into roars of laughter, though the play were a deep tragedy. We have seen the devil, in 'Faust,' by reason of a 'solution of continuity' in the waist-band of his diabolical unmentionables, make a palpable hit on the stage, dropping unexpectedly from an upward distance of some twelve feet, with the emphasis of 'a squashed apple-dumpling.' We have seen the cauldron in Macbeth, through some defect in the subterranean witch-craft, return, after its disappearance, before the eyes of an enrapt auditory, with the greasy hats and dirty coats of the prime movers exposed to the general eye. In short, we have seen enough to convince us, that profuse clap-trick, whether of language or scenic addittaments, although it may make the million stare or applaud, seldom fails to 'make the judicious grieve.'