It makes the heart seem empty, hollow, starved,
Till one grows half-affrighted with himself.
I, who, a boy, in admiration heard,

When men told of a thing called Fear-almost
I turn ghost-seer here. Each blasted trunk
Looks like a giant to me'; and a light

Appears a walking man of fire.-'Tis strange!
What is indifferent elsewhere, here seems frightful;
And what is elsewhere hideous, common here.
'Tis not an hour ago, I saw i' the wood
A Bear, perhaps the hugest I have seen ;
It was to me almost as I should stroke
The shaggy monster with familiar hand,
An 'twere some fawning Fondling at my foot,
So small and insignificant it shew'd,

To the grim lowering world of which it was.
-Thou hear'st me not!

Jason (who has been observing the tower.) 'Tis so

Milo. Art thou raving?-(Seizing his arm.) Hear me, Jason! Jason (disengaging himself, and unsheathing his sword.)

I will-and who shall stay me?-See, my sword:

My help with foes, and inconvenient friends.
Here the first human traces have I found,
And I will in. With menace of my sword
One of this building's dwellers I enforce
To follow with me, and to lead our band
Securely from the circuit of this wood,
Where hunger, and the ambush of the foe,
Strike them much surer, than me danger here.
Say not! It is resolved!-Return thou to them—
Hearten our band. I bring them speedy rescue.
Milo. Think!
Jason.

It is thought!

herself to assist in the destruction of the invaders.

The Scene changes to an open place in the forest, with the King's tent in the background. Eight delegates of the Argonauts appear, on the King's invitation, to a conference. Whilst they await him, under some dismay, from the prolonged absence and surmised possible loss of their leader, Jason and Milo join them. Presently the King enters to the conference. Jason-in whom is fitly represented the adventurer of a desperate, almost of an impossible enterprise, that must speed, not by prudence, but out of the hope of prudence, by a will moving, rushing irresistibly to its aim, kindling at the show of opposition, and leaping, like one allured, into the arms of danger,-in a few words exchanged, so daunts and masters the spirit of the Barbarian with haughty and reckless defiance, as to betray him into acknowledging, after he had denied, his possession of the Fleece: if that information indeed, may be needed, from his mouth, by the Argonauts, who appear to have come well instructed in respect not only to the country which contains it, but the particular art and terrors by which it is secured. The King is not so, however, disarm

parties, as are needed to leave Medea at the point of conducting her so far triumphant lover to the cavern, where the ulterior prize of his great adventure is mysteriously and fearfully guarded. The new emotion which invades her bosom, has in a few hours wrought such alteration there, that when, on her reappearance amongst ber damsels on the following morning, with which the Second Act begins, one of them, whose charge he was, comes, full of trepidation, to tell her, that, during the confusion of the night, her favourite Tiger-Horse has escaped, she answers simply that "it is well;" -and upon Feritta, whose disgrace is fresh in the reader's recollection, presenting herself to her, to implore assistance in her distress, her husband having been made a prisoner, and their hut burnt by the strangers, Medea leans her head upon her shoulder and bursts into tears. Either she does not understand her feelings, or seeks to hide them from herself; for, in conversing with Gora (who witnesses all this mutation with surprise enough) on the transactions of the night, she communicates to her her conviction, which the shrewd old woman can by no means be brought to partake, that the stranger, whose sudden presence disturbed her ceremonies, was Heim-ed of his wiles. A question which he, dar, the God of Death! Heimdar, wont to manifest himself to mortals at the point of their passing under his power -who had come to set on her his seal (we did not say that Jason, ere he yielded to retreat from the arms of Absyrtus and his followers, had placed on her lips a hasty and unresisted kiss) and presignify her approach ing fate. She could know, by the annihilation of her spirit as he stood before her, that he was not of terrestrial birth; as the oppression that gathers over her, the fading away of her senses, and the desire that draws her to the grave, all give promise of her near dissolution. If she has deceived herself, she is speedily undeceived. For her father, entering with her brother, demands account of her conduct, in rescuing the bold violator of her mysteries from the sword bent to punish him, and placing it out of question that he was no God, but a Greek, taunts her quiet endurance of the insult offered her. She is overwhelmed with shame, and impatiently proffers

VOL. XXIV.

in his turn, extorts from Jason respecting the tower in the forest, uncovers the power which he holds over him, and he sends for Medea; who brings, as on the like former occasion, the draught, by her father again required, of fatal sleep. She is veiled, but Jason recognises her habit, and though he has till now steadily refused the offer of Aietes' dangerous hospitality, giving solid and plain reasons for doing so, he instantly accepts the offered cup, and would drink, when Medea warns him of the treason mingled with it, and he throws it from him. He now plucks away her veil; and twice saved by her, begins on this plea to press with eager words, the pretensions of his passion; from which she escapes into her father's tent.

The curtain falls and rises again, the interval sufficing to transfer the audience from without to the interior of the Royal Pavilion, into which Jason is seen endeavouring to force an entrance, opposed by Aietes. The Colchian soldiers, hitherto inactive as

X

in truce, incited by Medea, assail the Argonauts, who are driven back, fighting, towards their ship. In the tent is now consulted what further shall be done. To her father's angry reproaches of her faithless preservation of his enemy, Medea replies by entreaty, earnest and inspiriting, that he will muster his strength, and before the coming dawn, have cast out the strangers from his land. To her further urgently expressed desire, he grants that she shall proceed, under her brother's escort, to some concealed place of safety in the heart of the country: "Thither," says he, "where is the Fleece kept;" to which she vehemently but fruitlessly objects. There are two roads. One, passing near the encampment of the Greeks; the other, rough, difficult, and less trodden, by

a bridge over the river. The last is made choice of. As she is departing, her father again slighting her repugnance and horror for every thing which threatens to connect her with the blood stained sorrow-teeming Fleece, forces into her hand the key of the hidden entrance, or falling-door as the Germans have the advantage of calling it, to its subterranean strong-hold: and she takes her leave.

We extract, chiefly for the view which they present of her feelings and character, one or two speeches of hers out of this scene, although perhaps chargeable with the same fault, in a still higher degree, on which we have already remarked. The passage will explain for itself the connexion in which it occurs.

Aietes. Good, then! I arm my friends. Thou goest with us.
Med. I?

Aietes. Strange one, thou. Not only from the bow
To wing, I know, the shaft, but thou art train'd

To whirl the ponderous spear, and swing on high
The sword in dreaded hand.

And drive the foe.

Med. Never.

Aietes. No?

Med. Send me back

Come on with us:

To the land's heart, my father, deep, where only
Woods, and dark-rifted vales are, where no eye,
Ear, voice, finds way-where solitude shall dwell
Alone with me. There will I sue the Gods
For thee,-for aid, strength, victory to thee;-
Pray, father, but not fight!-And when thy foes
In flight are driven, and not one stranger's foot
Wounds more our gentle soil, then will I, father,
Come back to thee, and stay by thee, and tend
Truly thine age,―till Death, the peaceful God,
With hushing finger laid to breathless lip,
Steals nigh, and on his pillow of dust and moss
Bids the thoughts sleep, and the quick wishes rest.

Aietes. Thou wilt not with us! and shall I believe thee?

Tremble, thou unadvised!-Jason!-Ha?—

Med. Why ask me, if thou know'st it? Must thou hear
From my own lips what I unto this hour

Hid from myself?—I hid ?—the Gods hid from me.

Let not my troubled transport, the warm flush

That clothes, I feel, my cheeks, mislead thee. Thou
Willest to hear, and I will bear to tell.

Not amid darkness can I guess and fear:
Light must be round Medea. It is said,
And truly-I have found it-in our being
Is something that, unmaster'd of our will,
Blindly draws and repels. Like that which calls
Lightning to metal, iron to the wondrous stone,
Felt and unknown, a strong coercion flows
From human breast to breast. It is not Form,
Not the soul's winning Grace, not Virtue, Right,

That knits, or can unknit, those magic bands.
Invisibly is spann'd the enchanted bridge
Of inclination. Many as have trod,

Seen it hath none: what pleases thee, must please;
This nature works. But if not thine to bid
The affection, 'tis of thee to follow; there
WILL'S sunny realm begins :-and I will not-
Will not.

When I beheld him,-first beheld him,-
The blood stood in my veins, while from his eye,
Hand, lips, fire stream'd, and sparkled over me,
Whereto within me flamed. Yet from myself
I had conceal'd it. Then first, when he spake it,
Spake, in the fury of his mad endeavour,

Of love-Oh, too fair name for cursed thing!.
I saw it-and thereafter will I do.

But wish not that I meet him! let me fly him!
Weak are we, even the strongest weak. When I
Look on him, round my senses turn, a dull
Oppression over head and bosom creeps.-

I am not she I am.-Drive out, hunt, kill him.
Yea, if he yield not to thee, kill him, father.
The dead will I look on, were it through tears,
Not on the living.

As may easily be supposed, the river during the night, in flood, has "disdained its bridge," and the first intelligence which meets Absyrtus on setting out, is that the only road open to him is that which endangers his sister's falling into the hands from which she flies. Accordingly, the escort has not proceeded far when it finds itself engaged with the lately retreating Argonauts, who have taken up, on the way to their camp, a position favourable, as they think, for cutting off the King's communication with his interior. The eight or ten Greeks-if, as we incline to think, the reinforcement sent for cannot yet have come up,-drive out the forty or fifty Colchians, leaving Jason to urge his suit alone with Medea. He woos her characteristically, with passion that will not be withstood, and successfully, if it could appear to him success to shake her spirit from height to depth, with uncontrollable, unconcealable emotion. But he finds her inexcusably self-willed and perverse; and he conceives that he does nothing unless he wring from her what is not easy, and it seems, in truth, too early to exact, an avowal, in words, of her love. At the moment when he is compelled to confess himself in this point frustrated-(we regret not to insert the scene, or monologue, as it might almost be called-it is long, eloquent, and original,)-Aietes, who has in the meantime succoured his son, fol lows the now in turn again retiring

Argonauts; and Jason, utterly impatient of his discomfiture, without difficulty or hesitation, on the first word said, makes over to him his daughter Medea.

It might seem that the advantage of the accident which had effected their meeting to the movement of the drama was, with the assistance of Medea to the Argonautic enterprise, for the present, at least, here lost. On the contrary, she no sooner feels herself again under the protection of her father, than her inflexibility, unmoved whilst she seemed to be in her lover's power, falters; and when he, eager to prosecute his perilous achievement unaided, bids her a passionate and final farewell, she is conquered, and breathes his name. Quite satisfied, he herewith claims her as his wife; with one hand taking her by the arm, whilst with the other he throws off her father's hold, and leads her back amongst his own party. More fighting does not, for the present, ensue. Aietes challenges his daughter to elect between passion and duty; and, when she has answered him by her silence, pouring out on her his parental maledictions, he gives her over to the selfchosen miseries which he foresees awaiting her, turns from her, and departs.

Jason now desires her to lead him to the Fleece, which she refuses He will go alone. With importunate and pathetic entreaty, as prescient of the

Chorus.

Hear! hear our prayer

Daughter of Heaven!-Dread Maid! Darimba ! hear!
Gora. See, I have slain thee a swift-footed roe!
From the strong bow loosing mine air-wing'd shaft!
Let its blood please thee, Goddess!-It is thine !-
Send blessing upon field, and forest stored !—
Give to do justly, to fight happily,

That love us, well to love, to hate that hate!

Make us rich! make us strong!-Great Queen!-Darimba !
Hear me !

Chorus. Hear us! Darimba!-Hear! Darimba!
Gora. The victim on the bloody altar-stone
Quivers and dies!-So end thy foes, Darimba!
Thy foes so end, and ours!It is Medea,
The princely daughter of wide Colchis' king,
Whose voice re-echoes in thine high abodes.
Hear, Goddess, hear!-and what I asked fulfil.

Chorus. (Striking Cymbals and Timbrels).

Darimba! Goddess! hear!-Hear! hear! Darimba!
Med. Therewith enough!—The victim offer'd is;
And a slow business ended.—Now have ready
Arrow and stiff-drawn bow; set the dogs forward,

And with the alarums of our loud-voiced chase

Let the green forest clamour near and far!

The sun doth mount!-Out! out !—And she amongst us,
Who runs the fleetest, who the lightest bounds,
Shall be the Queen o' the day.

-Thou here, Peritta? &c.

Medea, aware that the damsel, so named, (who had lately, by giving way to the weakness of love, and against a positive formal promise not to desert her mistress, intending, at least, to marry, incurred her displeasure, and been, in consequence, forbidden her presence,) has transgressed the prohibition, bitterly upbraids her falsehood, and dismisses her with great scorn to the lowly duties she has chosen in the poor and " smoky" cabin of her lover. The incident is given to display her character, and present haughty freedom from feelings which will fatally overrule her will and life. A Colchian, now entering, announces, that a ship, manned with strangers, has touched their coast. The Princess refers him to her father, Aietes, who, upon hearing the tidings, comes out immediately after from his palace.

Not one of all the characters is more forcibly and entirely conceived, or more successfully drawn, than this old barbarian king. Without law-inflamed instantaneously with the prospect of plunder-artful, false, courageous in his person, whilst suspicious of men, mistrustful even of events, he is timid in his expectations and pur

poses, strongly loving his children, yet wayward and harsh in his humour and conduct towards them-as a king, challenging compliance with his will, yet dishonouring his state, and not seeming to know that he does so, by the frank avowal of unkingly fearseager in his hate of a stranger, to whom he feels no tie-superstitious, but, under the impulse of his passion, impious. He discloses, although in doubt, to his daughter, his quicklytaken resolution to possess himself of the "gold, treasures, wealthy spoil," which the vessel bears; then desires from her counsel and aid, versed as she is in her mother's arts to draw from herbs and stones potions that bind the will and fetter the strength, able to summon spirits, and conjure the moon. Whilst he is in anger at her wilful slowness in her part, a second Colchian brings him the request of the strangers for an audience, which may result in a friendly covenant. The result he foresees, and now distinctly requires of his daughter a drink known to him as within her skill, infusing irresistible sleep, which she, having first asked "for what use," and received no answer, but the command repeated, goes out to prepare.