426 
after the downfal of Saul, Dayid reigned, 
and every day increased his power. Me- 
phibosheth, the son of Jonathan, and the 
last’ of the race of Saul, was received at 
his table and in'his palace. Chosen from 
his’ infancy as the anointed of the Lord, 
the shepherd» king: accomplished by his 
skill, “what had heretofore been effected 
only by force :—he pacified the tribes of 
Israel ; he subdued strange nations to his 
yoke ; he was feared and revered as the 
elected of God ; and he softened and in- 
spired all hearts by his divine melody. He 
began a new and brilliant era for the Israe- 
lites; but the prophet Nathan predicted 
that his prosperity should not be of long 
duration, because he had departed from the 
ways of, uprightness, and the hour of tri- 
bulation was come. Absalom took arms 
against his father; he excited the people 
to revolt ; and David, bearing with him the 
sacred ark of the covenant, fled before his 
son. Such is the subject Mr. Hillhouse 
has treated, occasionally introducing imagi- 
nary incidents and characters. The most 
remarkable of these is Hadad, the hero of 
the poem: he is a Syrian prince, detained 
at Jerusalem as an hostage. He secretly 
conspires against the king, and kindles the 
fire of ambition in the heart of Absalom— 
he awakens his jealousy against Solomon, 
the youngest and dearest of David’s sons ; 
sometimes, even, he has the audacity to 
insult the Majesty of God—the protector of 
Sion; he compares the austerities of the He- 
brew ritual, its anathemas, and its bloody 
sacrifices, to the cheerful superstitions of his 
own belief—to the complacent divinities 
who, in his country, animate the rivers, the 
forests, and the hills. He addresses his se- 
ductive discourse to Tamar, the daughter of 
Absalom; he loves her, and wishes to per- 
vert her by his deceitful dogmas; but, pro- 
tected by her faith, she resists. David 
reassembles his army; Joab marches 
against the rebels, and the battle which 
is to be decisive is in preparation. Tamar, 
confided by her father to the care of Hadad, 
arrives at the tent of acompany of Ismaelites 
(who have come from afar, to gather the 
incense from Mount Ephraim), and there 
she awaits the issue of the combat. A 
oung. Ismaelite announces, that the plain 
is already covered with warriors; and the 
women hearing the deafening sound of the 
trumpets, and feeling the earth tremble 
under the steps of the war-horses, rush on 
to collect the bloody spoils irom the fallen 
warriors. Hadad observes this wander- 
ing tribe returning laden with shields and 
lances; and on being interrogated, they de- 
clare, that they have seen the chariot of 
the chief enveloped in a cloud of darts, 
and a whirlwind of dust and flames; they 
saw the horses fall bathed in blood, but 
_ still the hero combated, though surrounded 
by a rampart of dead bodies; at length he 
fled, covered with mortal wounds. Hadad 
wishes to conceal the truth from Tamar ; 
be induces her to join her father in the 
American Dramatic Literature. 
[Dee, 1, 
asylum he has chosen;- they arrive in 
the middle of a wood on the borders of a 
river ; night is drawing on, and the young 
maiden, affrighted by the darkness’ of this 
solitude, requests to pursue her! journey ; 
Hadad then informs her of the defeat and 
death of Absalom; he conjuresherto’con- 
fide-herself to him, that they may together 
quit this accursed land ;- that he may, trans- 
port her into a delicious paradise, where 
she shall be undisputed soyereign, and 
where she will be waited upon by beings 
more brilliant than her dreams could picture, 
and where even the elements should bow 
beneath her nod. He assures her that this 
is no extravagant delirium; that he came 
down from heaven for her sake; that he 
has invested the dead body of the Syrian 
whom she loved; that she must be his: 
he then drags her, unmindful of her eries, 
into a deep and dark cayern, the refuge of 
infernal spirits: a troop of Dayid’s soldiers, 
scouring the woods, hear her groans, and 
rescue her from this abode of demons. 
In this piece, the situations are dramatic 
and interesting, and there is, in many parts, 
a considerable share of imagination and 
poetic spirit. The first scene between 
Hadad and Mephibosheth, where the latter 
describes the luxury of Dayid’s palace, and 
the excessive pride of the king’s son, is 
filled throughout with beauties. The ac- 
count of the flight of David, given by 
Tamar, who, not as yet aware of the revolt 
of her father, hears the tumult, and from a 
terrace discovers the crowd, afar off, all in 
tears, and her grandfather marching with 
naked feet, despoiled of his royal mantle, 
appears well calculated for stage effect, as 
does also that part in which the battle is 
described by the Ismaelites, who, them- 
selves, witnessed the bloody slaughter. ‘The 
character of Hadad is finely conceived, and 
there is, throughout the work, an air of 
melancholy, passion and mystery, which 
gradually prepares us for the final catas- 
trophe. As for the intervention of a super- 
natural agent, it is a license justified by 
many passages in holy writ. In. the 
speeches of Hadad may be traced some 
similarity to Moore’s second angel, in the 
poem of The Loves of the Angels ; there are 
also, now and then, words borrowed from 
the Hebrew, which obscure the sense, and 
give an appearance. of affectation to the 
style of this poem. A race of people, and 
an epoch, cannot be described by a few so- 
litary expressions ; there must be, through- 
out, a general and decided colouring: an 
historical poem, like a picture, must be in 
perfect harmony. 
*,* Weare not unaware that the com- 
munication of M. R. is little more than a 
translation from a criticism in the Revue 
Encyclopédique. We haye deemed it, how- 
ever, of sufficient interest to have a place 
in our pages, though not under mask or 
pretence of originality. —Eprz. 
PRUsSIAN 
