STANLEY : A DRAMA.*

Mn. THOENELY has a considerable share of the poet in him, but not even a fragment of the dramatist. He has written a drama on the old subject of the struggle between the Puritans and Cavaliers in which that fierce conflict has become quite dim and ghostly, and the upshot of the drama in the reader's mind is that neither Cavaliers nor Puritans had much to fight for that was worth fighting for, if they had no more than is here depicted. The seventh Earl of Derby, who is the hero of it, is represented as trusting, without so much as a good excuse for trusting, "an imperious and unprincipled master" who betrayed him. The younger hero, Captain Edge, is represented as fighting for the Puritan cause, in which he does not believe, only because he had made a death-bed promise to his father to do so ; and yet there seems to be only one power- ful reason wby he did not believe in the Puritan cause,

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and Conley : a Drama. By James L. Thornely. London: Began Paul, Trench, and that is the not- very conclusive one that he was in love with Lord Derby's daughter, and that, so far as the principles of the conflict were concerned, his mind was a blank. There is no sense of personal force in any one character in the little drama. Even James Stanley himself rises above the great conflict of the day rather than represents it in his own character. The reader hardly sees that he is at heart a Cavalier. There is nothing but charity in him for the Puritans he is making war upon, and hardly even a sense of disgust for the religious phraseology and fanaticism which they adopt. As for the young Puritan hero, Captain Edge, as we have already said, he is not at heart a Puritan at all, but almost ostentatiously contemptuous of Puritan principles; nay, he does not even go so far as one of Sir Walter Scott's betwixt-and-between heroes, Waverley or Morton, in showing you how much there is to be said on both sides. On the contrary, what Captain Edge shows you is how little there is to be said on either side, how completely he is divided between his promise to his father and his admiration for Lord Derby, and how be only holds to the former because a promise is a promise and should not be broken. If Mr. Thornely had called his little book " Stanley : a Play, but not a Drama," he would have been nearer the mark, for there is nothing dramatic in it from beginning to end. It would have been hard to write anything about Cavaliers and Roundheads which would have inspired more perplexity in its readers, had they bad no other source of information, as to why they fell out and what it was that inspired in them so passionate a loyalty to their respective standards.

But though Mr. Thornely is as far as possible from showing any grasp of the dramatic situation, or, indeed, any strong sense of the shock which one character produces on another when there is a collision between the most cherished purposes and desires of those who struggle for social or individual ascendency, though his one villain is even rather more dim and shadowy than his heroes, and though his heroine is as sub- missive to the villain's misrepresentations of her lover as she afterwards shows herself to be to the will of Providence in bereaving her of her father and her lover at one fell stroke, the little play has given us considerable pleasure from the snatches of true poetry scattered through it. We heartily admire only one of the lyrics, for Mr. Thornely is sometimes very unmusical in his rhythms ; but the first of the lyrics has a genuine beauty of its own :— [" CATHERINE discovered alone, spinning at a wheel. She sings—] IN Spring, when Love was young,

His heart was free from care, And lighter than the air, And thus he sung : The little leaves that on the bough are hung Shall never fade again, for Love is young.'

Then golden Summer came, And Love was in his prime, And swiftly went the time, And his heart was flame.

But Autumn next drew nigh, And Love aweary grew, And found his fair untrue, And heaved a sigh.

And now the Winter dread Has borne Love home,

And laid him in a tomb—

For Love is dead.

Oh, wherefore sorrow that the leaves are shed ?

They can no longer bloom, for Love is dead.' "

Even better, perhaps, is this picture of the anguish which war involves :- " Cafh. Oh, war ! oh, cruel war ! Why must it be ?

Edge. The answer's woven in the life of man. Can you remember, mistress, long ago— But it is like the memory hath escaped you— How in the fields around my father's house We used to play, as little children, while Our playmates mingled with us, and the flowers, The dews, the trees, the sun, the summer wind, Seemed all and each more heavenly than the other ? I wonder if you mind it? Did we think Of war then ? Did we dream what war could bring? What could we know of trumpet-clanging war, Of partings in the night, of hours of prayer, Of watchings, of hope long deferred—of hope Blasted with one chill breath, when lifting dawn Brought light upon the world, but on some hearts Night, dawnless, endless ?"

That has the genuine "lyrical cry" in it. But perhaps the

most effective poetry in the play is to be found in the later scenes, after Lord Derby has been taken prisoner, and is looking forward to his end :—

[" The EARL OF DERBY in captivity. With him his Servant, and the Ray. HUMPHREY BAGOERLEY ; the latter with a Bible before him.] Lord Derby. Good Mr. Baggerley, read once again those words. Baggerley. ' And He shall be as an hiding-place from the wind,

and a covert from the tempest ; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.'

L. Derb. Wonderful ! And beneath that shadow will I lay me

down, Fearing nothing ; yea, even unto the bitterness of death.

Bag. My good lord, be cheered. The governor's chaplain

Hath lively hopes that they will spare your life. He told me that the major-general Had prayed the parliament on your behalf.

L. Derb. He is a worthy man. And yet I'll not believe it.

I am resolved no more to be deceived By the vain hopes this fading world can give. No, no. This little play is well-nigh over, And I, chief actor, must anon retire.

And it is best so. Life's a cage, and man Is the poor bird that feigns that he is happy;— Who walks his bounds, and tries to think them large, And sings, and whistles ; but is oft struck mute When sudden breezes sigh against the pane, Bringing the scent of meadows, or he sees The summer sunbeam darting from the cloud, And knows there is a universe without Where he might wing and soar, but that he feels His prison bars close round, and he grows sad.

Yes, friend, there is a world beyond our own—

A world of worlds, where we shall know ourselves, And lose ourselves in God. To-day I'm happy ; I am so near to death. Take death away, I scarce would live ; for he will come to me In such a royal guise, to be his guest, So honoured, tops my loftiest ambition.

Last evening in the minster I thanked God That I should die so royally. I sat, Conscious of height immense, of slender columns That shot from earth, and journeyed on till lost Amid the dim roof's mystic tracery.

The windows shone a richly coloured dream, Trackless, of sainted kings and martyred dead, Of white-winged angels ; the warm sunset poured

-Upon the pane ; the organ's mighty voice

Troubled the gloom, till a seraphic chant Rose tremulous in flight to the arched roof, Yet ringing with the thunder swell ; and words Like silver flute-notes fell upon mine ear, That told of God's great love for all His saints.

Oh, there was comfort in those words to me !

Methought that I was even then in heaven ; And since that hour I've longed for heaven alone."

No one could have written that without a tree vein of poetry in him; and though, if Mr. Thornely is to turn into a true dramatist, he must be greatly changed and reinforced by the experience of life, we may fairly hope that, in some form or other the genuine poetry in him will yield other and richer signs of life, and that he may find a better medium for the expression of the poetical feeling which is deeply implanted in his nature.