Page:Osorio; a tragedy, as originally written in 1797 (IA cu31924105501831).pdf/23

 "The drama was presented for the first time on Saturday, and called, or in the more scrupulous phrase of the author, is to be called, Remorse. The plot was singularly involved and laboured

"Mr. Coleridge is a poet, and it would be next to impossible that a work of his could be utterly destitute of poetic value; but he is one of a school whose conceptions scorn the bounds of humble taste, and his 'vaulting ambition hath o'erleapt them all.' There are, however, intermingled with those fierce ventures, occasional passages of true poetic cadence. The speech of the Moresco woman, describing her imprisonment, is a strong and deep picture of feelings that could scarcely be coloured too strongly. Her story of her husband's murder is finely told; her eager listening,—her hearing his last groan from the bottom of the chasm,—her finding his sword,—and her solemn determination to have blood for blood, did honour to the capacity that conceived and expressed them; and in defiance of the foolish blasphemy, in which she is made to talk about 'plucking the dead out of Heaven,' and other exploded plagiarisms from the German school, the whole dialogue of the part received great applause.