516 The Two Professors. [MAY, 



ings. There is also no question that Dr. Parr was but an indifferent 

 scholar, that Junius was a poor creature, that Richard Brinsley Sheridan 

 was " a fellow of infinite dulness," and that Goethe was " an old hum- 

 bug ! " O laughter ! where is thy sleeve ? Truly, too much learning 

 hath made Mr. De Quincy mad, or he bears a very near resemblance to 

 that Bristol alderman, who, by his own showing 1 , was wont to secretly 

 retire to a private summer-house, and to read for hours together " and 

 nobody never the wiser." 



And it is to a magazine, so conducted, that the public is to look up for 

 impartial and enlightened criticism ! A magazine that can waste twenty 

 pages upon a Robert Montgomery, and be utterly silent with the " Corn 

 Law Rhymes," and the " Village Patriarch" lying on its table ! A 

 magazine that is never wanting when ignorance, insolence, and scurrility 

 are in need of a good word a magazine with its Professor Wilson to 

 babble nauseous trash, and mischievous and wicked nonsense, about some 

 " Ode to the Holy Alliance," by a lord who happens to feel lyrical ; but 

 will take care to be as mute as Hippocrates as mum as a mourner in 

 the rear of a funeral, when " one of the people" speaks out with a voice 

 of inspiration. 



And now let us turn to Miss Kemble's tragedy. With much sorrow 

 (for we would willingly be among the troop of admirers " to help the 

 show" with our presence, and to aid the excitement by our vociferation) 

 we must say, that " Francis the First" is just such a clever, dull, vexatious 

 sort of a thing (not a play, unless Miss Kemble will have it so) as a young 

 lady of more than ordinary talents might ought, perhaps, to have written ; 

 but precisely the work she should never have published. We say this, 

 advisedly ; in spite of the admiration expressed by Miss Joanna Baillie. 

 What is this boasted performance, after all ? We hesitate not to affirm 

 (and this, too, in the teeth of the fawners) that there is not an act one 

 scene one passage a single line, which an honest and unprejudiced man 

 can lay his hand upon and say, " this is genius." 



And here we wish to guard ourselves against any suspicion of hostility 

 to Miss Kemble. What motive, indeed, can be supposed to actuate us, 

 but an anxious desire to keep literally " a clear stage and no favour j" 

 and if we express ourselves rather warmly, it does not arise from any 

 wish of ours to hurt the young lady's feelings, but it is the necessary and 

 unavoidable consequence of the gross and shameful flattery of her inve- 

 terate friends. 



In the first place, her performance, quasi a play, is a very bad one. It 

 does not hang well together. There is no plot leading to one catastrophe. 

 There is no interest in the situations. There is no marked delineation of 

 character. These are all very grievous indications in a tragedy. The 

 play, moreover, is overloaded with dull and unnecessary tattle about 

 nothing leading to nothing ; and wherefore this fifth act, occupied by 

 the braggart speeches of those u runaway curs of Pavia ?" The truth is, 

 a mere jumble of events is substituted for an artful evolution of circum- 

 stances leading to some definite and conclusive end. 



The characters, we have said, are not very ingeniously drawn. Francis 

 the First, is clearly intended to represent a gallant gentleman, hurried 

 away by passion to the commission of a sentimental crime, for which he 

 would afterwards fain make reparation ; instead of which, we are presented 

 to a selfish, cold-blooded voluptuary, content to gratify habitual vices at 



