"DEATH'S JEST BOOK, OR THE FOOL'S TRAGEDY."


The _Examiner_, for July 20, contains an elaborate review, with
numerous extracts, of a play just published under this title in
London. "It is radiant," says the critic, "in almost every page with
passion, fancy, or thought, set in the most apposite and exquisite
language. We have but to discard, in reading it, the hope of any
steady interest of story, or consistent development of character:
and we shall find a most surprising succession of beautiful passages,
unrivaled in sentiment and pathos, as well as in terseness, dignity,
and picturesque vigor of language; in subtlety and power of passion,
as well as in delicacy and strength of imagination; and as perfect and
various, in modulation of verse, as the airy flights of Fletcher or
Marlowe's mighty line.

"The whole range of the Elizabethan drama has not finer expression,
nor does any single work of the period, out of Shakspeare, exhibit so
many rich and precious bars of golden verse, side by side with such
poverty and misery of character and plot. Nothing can be meaner than
the design, nothing grander than the execution."

In conclusion, the _Examiner_ observes--"We are not acquainted with
any living author who could have written the Fool's Tragedy; and,
though the publication is unaccompanied by any hint of authorship,
we believe that we are correct in stating it to be a posthumous
production of the author of the Bride's Tragedy; Mr. Thomas Lovell
Beddoes. Speaking of the latter production, now more than a quarter