Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 102.djvu/186

172 This tragedy has a construction which we will not attempt to construe. To construe some of its single lines has been too much for us. It rarely diverges much from the narratives of the prose chroniclers of the epoch; the chief divergence, perhaps, being that they give a less prosy account of the matter. Yet the poet is no groundling, either; he soars pretty high at times, and leaves us in amaze at the altitudes he affects. His imagery is almost as profuse as that of Mr. Alexander Smith, though without much likeness in other respects. Let us cull a dainty similitude here and there—not, indeed, picking and choosing, but taking them indifferently as they come. Saith Barrère to Robespierre

This is uncivil. But the disputants make it up, or pretend to do so; Barrère exclaiming as he goes out, in the most cordial manner,

But as soon as he is gone, Robespierre (who, like ourselves, appears dull to the beauty of Barrère's similitudes) is distrustful enough to observe to St. Just—and St. Just concurs, by adding,whereupon his bilious guide, philosopher, and friend remarks—(A couplet that might, peradventure, "bring down the house," if the house limited its entrance fees to "Boxes threepence," and pit and gallery in proportion. Indeed, Mr. Bliss is great in passages that the gods of the minors—Dî minorum—would relish; Whitechapel butchers, for instance, and the subs and supers of the slaughter-house; for he has a knack at writing such lines as,Or, again—