Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 102.djvu/154



"Rejected Addresses" are said to have met with a clerical critic, an unsophisticated vicar in one of the midland counties, who candidly owned, after careful perusal, that, for his part, he didn't see why they should have been rejected; some of them seemed to him to be very good. We can readily suppose a brother clerk, "simple, grave, sincere"—some Reverend Abraham Plymley, who Lives in the Country—to take a similarly earnest view, at the present time, of "Firmilian, a Spasmodic Tragedy.” The good parson has not very long since read Mr. Bailey's “Festus;" he has also groped his way, dark with excessive bright of sun, moon, and stars, through Mr. Alexander Smith's "Life-Drama;" and he has followed up this trying undertaking by a long pull and a strong pull at Mr. Dobell's "Balder." Each of these works he read in perfect good faith. Then why not "Firmilian?" He did not suppose Festus to be mocking him, or Walter to be in mere make-believe convulsions, or Balder to be laughing in his sleeve. Then why not give credit to the Student of Badajoz for genuine soul-strife ? or why impute to that impassioned Mr. Percy Jones the indignity of sham spasms? If "Firmilian" contains abrupt transitions from the lofty to the low, and sometimes oscillates apparently between the sublime and the ridiculous, and indeed is quite open to the charge of neglecting that austerity of classical taste, and that scrupulous observance of sound critical canons, which genius and talent used to follow when he, the good parson,was a younger man,—why, the same thing, you know, may be said of the Smith and Yendys' wares; and, at the worst, the distinction seems to be rather in degree than in kind.

For some time past, the Spasmodic School has been a growing nuisance. Its poets and critics have multiplied exceedingly, till the multiple threatens to become n, an infinite power, even as the mystic matter they work upon is x, an unknown quantity. The spasms were for a while sporadic, but are now epidemic. Bad cases have increased, are increasing, and ought to be diminished.

Now, any one acquainted with the parodies and burlesque ballads of Bon Gaultier, must have been convinced that Bon could, if he pleased, do yeoman's service in putting down this nuisance. He, who could "take off" Tennyson so languishingly, and Macaulay so closely, and Moore so melodiously,—how tempting, and again how legitimate, a field for his powers of travestie lay open in the Spasmodic School! The bait was irresistible, and it took. And the result is, "Firmilian; or, the Student of Badajoz: a Spasmodic Tragedy, by T. Percy Jones." As in the case of previous bravuras from the same composer, this performance comprises passages that look like sparkling poetry, expressed in rhythm now sweetly,