612 Milmans Anne Doleyn. - C^AY, 



We will admit, however, that religious poems find readers ; and that from 

 the customary studies of a writer, he may be led to write such poems without a 

 view to the jjeculiai- productiveness of their compensation, i But Mr. Milman 

 presses this point upon us rather too ostentatiously His preface is a tissue of 

 apologies ; and for what ? — for doing what no man needs be ashamed to do ; 

 or what, if it required so much clearing of the way, no man ought to have done. 

 But it is too late for the reverend author to plead Profession. He had com- 

 mitted himself to the full extent already ; he had written a tragedy — he had 

 had it acted : and if this be guilt, he is guilty beyond redemption by all the 

 prefaces that will ever flow from his apologetical pen. We shall tell him fur- 

 ther, that his tragedy is incomparably the best thing that he has ever written. 

 He may cast it off if he will, but with it he casts off his poetic mantle. 



He commences his preface by acknowledging that he had an old intention 

 to write something upon the story of Anne Boleyn, nay, that he had made a 

 sketch to the purpose, which, being interpreted, means that he long ago laid 

 down a tragedy upon the stocks. Fi'om this alarming act of irregularity, how- 

 ever, he would have refrained finally, but that the " course of pi-ofessional 

 study, which led him to the early annals of the church," recalled it to his re- 

 membrance, and, " as it were, forced it on his attention." 



We hope that, after the discovery of so much sanctity of motive, no stern 

 doubter of the words and wajs of mankind will be stern enough to deny, that 

 Mr. Milman has washed his hands, with the purity of Pilate himself, from the 

 imputation of intending to write a tragedy, or any thing thereunto tending. 

 Now, where is the necessity for all this double-tongueing? We see reverend 

 men, of hoary hair and comfortable stalls, giving versions of Horace in all his 

 sins ; we see a right reverend man sitting on the episcopal throne of Chester, 

 by no other discoverable claim, than that he compiled all the notes of all other 

 men upon a Greek writer of tragedies. 



When these horrors pass muster, we think that we may set Mr. Milman's sen- 

 sitive soul at its ease. Warburton came into notice by writing the very worst 

 notes that ever were written on Shakspeare. Farmer, a dignitary, did the same, 

 by writing the next worst notes. What was Hurd, from first to last, if we 

 forget his Horatian commentary ? Or what would be the national misfortune if 

 every parson in the land could write as good a tragedy as " The Revenge," or 

 even as " Douglas ?" We wish that even Mr. Milman would gird up his poetic 

 loins, and give us, before it be too late, a second " Fazio." He may rely upon it, 

 that he has never done any thing the hundrcth part as good, and will never do 

 any thing so popular in any other shape. But can he persuade himself that any 

 one of the living world will be duped into the impression, that, in writing works 

 of the present kind, Mr. Milman looks on himself as urged by religious feehng ? 

 He may have this feeling, but it is in its proper place, his pulpit. At his desk, 

 with blank verse temptingly before him, he has no more professional feeling 

 than the rest of the mortal generation of blank-verse makers ; and it would be 

 as childish in the reader to expect it, as it sounds (a little) hypocritical in the 

 writer to pretend to it. There is a time for all things. The most pious man ' 

 alive may write a tragedy (if he have poetry enough abouthim), without expect- 

 ing to convert a single individual of the unsanctified. And he may do all this 

 without sinning in the most trifling degree against his profession, aye even, if he 

 were in the very vision of lawn sleeves. 



But, after all, what would be the value or common sense of restricting the 

 clerical pen? Why should not the poetry of the stage be as much within the 

 province of the sacred, as any other ? It is no argument that theatrical writing 

 has been, a century or two since, addicted to immorality. It is not so now ! Its 

 purity is actunily more vigilantly guarded (we do not say by the invidious 

 scrutiny of a licensei, but by the good taste of the public), than that of any 

 other species of popular literature. What grossness of expression would now 

 be suffered on the stage ! The author who ventured on any thing approaching 

 to the freedoms of the last century, would unquestionably be extinguished. 

 But, at once, to sustain the continuance of this delicate sense of propriety 



