HENRY TAYLOR'S VIRGIN WIDOW. * THERE are men in the world

whose chief merit is in their man- ners; and this Play has an analogous quality, owing all its at- traction to sentiment and expression. The substance, that is the plot, is neither very pleasing nor wholesome in itself; the inci- dents s • • out of it or engrafted on it are not very probable ; both t ese an the manners or atmosphere of the play are of literary convention derived from the comic writers of the Eliza- bethan age, refined by the delicacy of our own. The court of Si- cily is the court of Denmark with a difference; Ubaldo, its Great Chamberlain, is a Polonius more faintly drawn, with less folly, less worldly shrewdness ; the gentlemen and ladies are those of the best Shaksperian comedy., perhaps with something derived from Beaumont and Fletcher; the style is equally unlike that of any one age, combining the Elizabethan with the diction of a modern man of the world. Dramatic action there is none, except once where the friend of the hero embarks in pursuit of sailors who are supposed to be carrying off his treasures. Yet the book is one of the most agreeable pieces of writing and reading we have perused for a long time ; owing almost wholly to the propriety and worldly good sense of the thoughts and the unforced felicity of the diction. The play is also distinguished by great consistency : although the life exists no longer, if it ever had a real prototype in nature, it has all the homogeneousness of original observation. Taste and study have made a second nature for Mr. Taylor. The story, as we have said, is not very probable, and the subject not very pleasing besides being too peculiar and too narrow to have a broad- human interest. Silisco, Marquis of Malespina, is in love with Rosalba, daughter of Ubaldo, the Chamberlain to Don Pedro King of Sicily. Unluckily, the Marquis, though an excellent man, is a thoughtless spendthrift; and, as if this were not enough to create difficulty, Rosalba has pledged herself to her dying mother to allow her father to dispose of her hand in marriage. The Chamberlain has made a match for her with a most excellent Sn.4 feeble old gentleman of seventy : Silisoo, however, avows his love ; Itosalba hardly denies hers ; and, though determined to marry Count Ur, consents to wait to All-Saints'-Eve. In the interim, Silisco, lying perdu to avoid his creditors, is suspected of an intrigue with a loose woman, whose paramour he is accused of murdering :

ho- salba is half coerced, half persuaded into marrying before the day ; the masked ball in honour of the nuptials is interrupted by Silisco's friend in the character of Conscience ; while, to in- crease the effect of the surprise, he is supposed to have been drowned.

Ruggiero (adraneing). Pass ye no further till my voice be heard. Ubaldo. What voice is that? a merry mask, I trow. Well, speak; I like the humour of thy mask,

Though it be dismal. Whom dost thou present ?

RuggiCIV. Sirs, I am Conscience. With this lamp I search

The hearts of sinners, with this scourge chastise. Men feast, men dance, men revel,—but I come. The shouts of jollity and riot rise; But what though jollity and riot shout, My knock is heard, and let me in they must. For wheresoever Evil enters, there I follow with my lamp, and Evil thus Is palpable, or by his substance seen,

Or by his shadow. Then my lamp I lift As now I lift it—yea, I lift my lamp,

And lift my scourge, for therefore am I here.

*The Virgin Widow; a Play. By Henry Taylor, Author of "Philip Van Ar- temide." Published by Longman and Co. Musicians, cease ; ye dancers, cease to dance, Trampling ye know not what beneath your feet.

What ye with noise and dancing celebrate

Are vows by prior vows made perfidy—

A heartless, faithless show of plighted faith.

Ubaldo. What masking call ye this A mask indeed,

That masks a railer and a villain. Ho!

Tear off this caitiff's mask—tear off his mask!

Gerbetto (supporting Roaalba). Sirs, she wants air—I pray you stand Fiordeliza. Cheerly-, my sweet fl,dba ! Villain ! Ugo. Run, Fetch that elixir . . . .

Ubaldo. Tear me of his mask! Tear off the villain's mask!

Ruggiero. Ye shall not need. [Unmasking. Fiordeliza. Ruggiero ! First Mask. What! the Count?

Second ifask. "ris he indeed! Third Mask. As strangely found as lost ! _Fourth Mask. Most wonder:Cul ! 9o. Whole it, sire? who is it ? for my eyes . . . . Lbaldo. I would that mine were dimmer than they are.

My Lord, or e'er thou ask me to unsay The name I gave thee in thy mask, say thou Wherefore thou troublest thus our marriage-feast?

Ruggiero. Say what you please, and unsay what you will.

Silisso loved your daughter ; she loved him, And pledged her faith that this side All-Saints'-Eve She would not wed another. I demand Why walks she here a bride?

Ubaldo. This outrage grows! Who says she loved?

Father, I did, I did.

. Ubaldo. Or pledged her faith? Rosalba. I did ; but he was false. Fiordeliza. Gerbetto knows it—and he slew the espoused Of her with whom he traffick'd.

Gerbetto. Sir, 'tis true; He slew him in the caverns.

Ruggiero. Oh, sad chance !

Disastrous error! Was it this betray'd The maiden's faith! Why then shall pity plead Against all anger. Whom he slew I know,— A wretch who, for the plunder of his ship, Sent to the bottom her and all her crew, Bv name Spadone. In the Catacombs, Silisco, hiding from his creditors, Met—innocently met, by accident- Spadoue's paramour. By him assair d, lie, certes, slew him.

Ubaldo. At the point of death, Spadone said . . . . Ruggiero. What like enough he thought ;

For with a hundred murders did-he reek, And foulest thoughts were uppermost. But lo! If any here shall say Silisco's soul Was not as pure as infant's at the breast,

True as confessing saints,—there is my glove—

I'll prove upon Ins body that he lies!

The upshot is, that trgo considers what has happened a provi-

dential punishment consequent upon a breach of vow, and starts instanter on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Thither he is accom- panied by Silisco in disguise; in due time the old man dies ; and after some ineidents, the lover marries the Virgin Widow.; his friend Ruggiefo, who has been in difficulties through saving a maid from the Xing's passion, and has also been caliimniated to his mistresS 'Fbardeliia, is pardoned and rewarded on the same occasion,.

Althour the piece is deficient in probability and action, some a_ -e situations are effective enough considered merely by themselves ; such as Ruggiero's appearance at the masque as Con- science. The writing, however—the sentiment or idea and the ex- pression—constitutes the real merit of the play. liany persons could have Contrived as good a story, or a better ; but we know nobody save Mr. Henry Taylor who could have written many of the passages. There is much truth nicely expressed, if it be not very new, in this remark on art, from a speech of Ruggiero to some players.

" 'Tis a speech

- 'That by a language of familiar lowness

• Enhances what of more heroic vein . Is next to follow. But one fault it hath; .- It fits too close to life's realities, truth to Nature missing truth to Art Tor Art commends not counterparts and copies, But from our life a nobler life would shape, Bodies celestial from terrestrial raise, And teach us, not jejunely what we are, But what we may be when the Parka block Yields to the hand of Phidias."

The following is a smart description of a country-house, by Fior. deliza, a character with a smack of Beatrice.

"Fiordeliza. Does nothing ever happen in this castle ? I have been gazing up the great avenue for an hour and more trying to think that there was a knight-errant pricking forward at the fusilier end ; but I saw only' two rabbits that crossed the road in a leisurely manner on their affairs, and a squirrel, which, for want of something to do, jumped from one tree and flung itself into the arms of another over the way. Look at Lion; he sleeps away his second childhood at the gate ; and if you hear a grunt, 'tis that ha dreams of his younger days, when once upon a time he saw a stranger and barked. For myself, my only companion is the ancient steward, and his only topic is the wholesomeness of the air; a commendation which I dare not deny, inasmuch as all the persons I have seen, beside himself, are ten serving-men, whose joint ages are nine hundred and thirty-six."

There is not the highest poetry, but there is close observation, in this sketch of the waning year.

"Ruggiero. So flies the year, and flying fades. The Sun

Comes not so like a bridegroom from his bed,

And Nature greets him with a changing cheek.

The willows wash their tresses in the brook That shrank before, but swells to meet them now ;

The plane- tree leaf is piebald with black blots ; Upon the thou-berry-bush the big drops bead ; And the goose plants stared patterns of her foot In the moist clay. Swift, changeful year, pass on; Sweet was the savour of thy prime, and sweet Should be thy fruitage."