Ion.

Medon.

To this great peril, and I will not stay thee.
When wilt thou be prepared to seek it?

Now.

Only before I go, thus, on my knee,
Let me in one word thank thee for a life
Made by thy love a cloudless holiday;
And O, my more than father! let me look
Up to thy face as if indeed a father's,
And give me a son's blessing.

Bless thee, son!
I should be marble now; let's part at once.
Ion. If I should not return, bless Phocion from me;
And, for Clemanthe-may I speak one word,
One parting word with my fair playfellow?
If thou wouldst have it so, thou shalt.

Medon.
Ion.

Farewell then!

Your prayers wait on my steps. The arm of Heaven
I feel in life or death will be around me.

His parting interview with Clemanthe, the Priest's daughter, the beloved companion of his youth, is throughout very beautiful; but we cannot trust ourselves to extract all that is beautiful for fear of trespassing on the Reviewer's licence. The haughty Adrastus, the too confident descendant " of a great race of kings, along whose line the eager mind lives aching," is introduced in the second Act; and to him Ion, supported by the strength of heaven and the nation's good cause, pleads for the people of Argos, and warns the tyrant of his speedily approaching hour of doom. As this scene contributes more than any to develope the plot of this noble Tragedy, and at the same time will give an excellent idea of the Poet's descriptive powers, we hesitate not to give a large portion of it to our readers.

Ion.

King Adrastus,
Mail'd as thy heart is with the usages

Of pomp and power, a few short summers since
Thou wert a child, and canst not be relentless.
O! if maternal love embrac'd thee then,
Think of the mothers who with eyes unwet

Glare o'er their perishing children: hast thou shared
The glow of a first friendship, which is born
Midst the rude sports of boyhood, think of youth
Smitten amidst its playthings; let the spirit
Of thy own innocent childhood whisper pity!
Adrastus. In every word thou dost but steel my soul.
My youth was blasted; parents, brother, kin—
All that should people infancy with joy-
Conspired to poison mine; despoiled my life
Of innocence and hope-all but the sword
And sceptre-dost thou wonder at me now?
I knew that we should pity-

Ion.
Adrastus.

Ion.

Adrastus.

Pity! dare

To speak that word again, and torture waits thee!
I am yet king of Argos. Well, go on-

Thy time is short, and I am pledged to hear.
If thou hast ever loved-

Beware! beware!

Ion. Thou hast! I see thou hast! Thou art not marble,

Adrastus.

Ion.

And thou shalt hear me! Think upon the time
When the clear depths of thy yet lucid soul
Were ruffled with the troublings of strange joy,
As if some unseen visitant from heaven
Touch'd the calm lake and wreath'd its images
In sparkling waves; recal the dailying hope
That on the margin of assurance trembled
As loth to lose in certainty too bless'd
Its happy being;-taste in thought again
Of the stolen sweetness of those evening walks,
When pansied turf was air to winged feet,
And circling forests, by etherial touch
Enchanted, wore the livery of the sky,
As if about to melt in golden light

Shapes of one heavenly vision; and thy heart,
Enlarged by its new sympathy with one,
Grew bountiful to all!

That tone! that tone!

Whence came it? from thy lips? It cannot be-
The long-hushed music of the only voice
That ever spake unbought affection to me,
And waked my soul to blessing!-O sweet hours
Of golden joy, ye come! your glories break
Through my pavilion'd spirit's sable folds!

Roll on! roll on !-Stranger, thou dost enforce me
To speak of things unbreath'd by lip of mine
To human ear :-wilt listen?

As a child.

Adrastus. Again! that voice again!-thou hast seen me moved

Ion. Adrastus,

As never mortal saw me, by a tone

Which some light breeze, enamour'd of the sound,
Hath wafted through the woods, till thy young voice
Caught it to rive and melt me. At my birth

This city, which, expectant of its Prince,
Lay hush'd, broke out in clamorous ecstacies;
Yet, in that moment, while the uplifted cups
Foam'd with the choicest product of the sun,
And welcome thundered from a thousand throats,
My doom was seal'd. From the hearth's vacant space,
In the dark chamber where my mother lay,
Faint with the sense of pain-bought happiness,
Came forth, in hear-appalling tone, these words
Of me the nurseling Woe unto the babe!
Against the life which now begins shall life

Lighted from thence be arm'd, and both soon quench'd,
End this great line in sorrow!"-Ere I grew

Of years to know myself a thing accursed,

A second son was born, to steal the love

Which fate had else scarce rifled: he became

My parent's hope, the darling of the crew

Who lived upon their smiles, and thought it flattery

To trace in every foible of my youth

A prince's youth!-the workings of the curse;
My very mother-Jove! I cannot bear

To speak it now--look'd freezingly upon me!
But thy brother-

Died. Thou hast heard the lie,
The common lie that every peasant tells

Ion.

1drastus.

Ion. Adrastus.

Ion. Adrastus.

Not in open speech :-they felt

I should have seized the miscreant by the throat,
And crush'd the lie half spoken with the life

Of the base speaker;-but the tale look'd out
From the stolen gaze of coward eyes, which shrank

When mine have met them; murmur'd through the crowd
That at the sacrifice, or feast, or game

Stood distant from me; burnt into my soul
When I beheld it in my father's shudder!
Didst not declare thy innocence?

To whom?
To parents who could doubt me? To the ring
Of grave impostors, or their shallow sons,
Who should have studied to prevent my wish
Before it grew to language; hail'd my choice
To serve as a prize to wrestle for ;

And whose reluctant courtesy I bore,

Pale with proud anger, till from lips compress'd
The blood has started? To the common herd,
The vassals of our ancient house, the mass
Of bones and muscles framed to till the soil
A few brief years, then rot unnamed beneath it,
Or, deck'd for slaughter at their master's call,
To smite and to be smitten, and lie crush'd
In heaps to swell his glory or his shame?

Answer to them: No! though my heart had burst,
As it was nigh to bursting!-To the mountains
I fled, and on their pinnacles of snow
Breasted the icy wind, in hope to cool
My spirit's fever-struggled with the oak

In search of weariness, and learn'd to rive

Its stubborn boughs, till limbs once lightly strung
Might mate in cordage with its infant stems;

Or on the sea-beat rock tore off the vest
Which burnt upon my bosom, and to air
Headlong committed, clove the water's depth
Which plummet never sounded ;—but in vain.
Yet succour came to thee?

A blessed one!
Which the strange magic of thy voice revives,
And thus unlocks my soul. My rapid steps
Were in a wood-encircled valley stayed
By the bright vision of a maid, whose face
Most lovely more than loveliness reveal'd,
In touch of patient grief, which dearer seem'd
Than happiness to spirit sear'd like mine.
With feeble hands she strove to lay in earth
The body of her aged sire, whose death
Left her alone. I aided her sad work,
And soon two lonely ones by holy rites

Became one happy being. Days, weeks, months,
In streamlike unity flow'd silent by us

In our delightful nest. My father's spies—

Slaves, whom my nod should have consign'd to stripes
Or the swift falchion-track'd our sylvan home
Just as my bosom knew its second joy,
And, spite of fortune, I embraced a son.
Ion. Urged by thy trembling parent to avert
That dreadful prophecy?

Adrastus.

Ion. Adrastus.

Fools! did they deem
Its worst accomplishment could match the ill
Which they wrought on me? It had left unharm'd
A thousand ecstacies of passion'd years,
Which, tasted once, live ever, and disdain
Fate's iron grapple! Could I now behold
That son with knife uplifted at my heart,
A moment ere my life-blood followed it,
I would embrace him with my dying eyes,
And pardon destiny! While jocund smiles
Wreathed on the infant's face, as if sweet spirits
Suggested pleasant fancies to its soul,

The ruffians broke upon us; seiz’'d the child;
Dash'd through the thicket to the beetling rock
'Neath which the deep wave eddies: I stood still
As stricken into stone: I heard him cry,
Press'd by the rudeness of the murderer's gripe,
Severer ill unfearing-then the splash

Of waters that shall cover him for ever;
And could not stir to save him!

And the mother-
She spake no word, but clasped me in her arms,
And lay her down to die. A lingering gaze
Of love she fixed on me-none other loved,
And so pass'd hence. By Jupiter, her look!
Her dying patience glimmers in thy face!
She lives again! She looks upon me now!

There's magic in 't. Bear with me-I am childish.

Ion succeeds in awakening the sympathies of Adrastus; and, gaining his consent to an interview with the elders of the city, returns in safety to the temple, where he is eagerly welcomed by Medon and his own beloved Clemanthe, in an interview which is interrupted by the arrival of Phocion, the high priest's son, with tidings from the shrine of Delphi. The scene of the interview between the king and the elders, and the announcement of the prophecy-" Argos ne'er shall find release,-till her monarch's race shall cease," is very finely wrought. Ion's warning to Adrastus, and the king's reply, rur as follows::

Ion.

Adrastus.

Nay, yet an instant !—let my speech have power
From Heaven to move thee further: thou hast heard
The sentence of the god, and thy heart owns it;
If thou wilt cast aside this cumbrous pomp,
And in seclusion purify thy soul,

Long fever'd and sophisticate, the gods
May give thee space for penitential thoughts;
If not as surely as thou standest here,
Wilt thou lie stiff and weltering in thy blood.
The vision presses on me now.

Art mad?
Resign thy state? Sue to the gods for life,

14

The common life which every slave endures,
And meanly clings to? No; within yon walls
I shall resume the banquet, never more

Broken by man's intrusion. Councillors,
Farewell!-go mutter treason till ye perish!

faint

A conspiracy is formed to liberate Argos from the sway of the guilty and now heaven-accused tyrant, in which heaven prompts Ion to take a share. Chance allots to Ion the post of honour and danger, as the king's destroyer, and he receives at the altar the knife consecrated" to untrembling service against the king of Argos and his race." Phocion's lot calls him to second Ion if he should hearted. Meanwhile, by the agency of a slave, Irus, the proof of prove Ion's true and royal lineage is established, on hearing which Clemanthe, not ignorant of the conspiracy (for her fears had led her to track Ion to the rendezvous) wildly urges her father to stop or prevent the act of parricide, and prevails on him to seek the palace whither Ion was to strike the blow of death to Adrastus and freedom to Argos. The scene in which Ion wakes the sleeping monarch, and bids him prepare for death, and the recognition of Ion, through Medon, is, if we mistake not, the finest in the whole Play. Its earlier portion only is here given. Adrastus is asleep and Ion enters with a knife. We refer our readers to pp. 80-84 of the work.

Ion's purpose is stayed; but vengeance follows Adrastus from the dagger of another conspirator, whose parent had fallen a victim to the king's bloody tyranny. Ion re-enters, supporting his wounded father, and is pronounced "king of Argos" by his dying lips. A king indeed is Ion,-a king too, patriot enough to save his country by his own death. This high bearing and stern resolution to die for Argos disarms the enmity of the foes of Adrastus's race, and arrests the assassin arm of his friend Phocion. The scene in which this assassination is attempted is certainly one of the grandest passages that we ever read in any play, and affords scope for the highest powers of tragic representation.

[Enter PHOCION behind, who strikes at Ion with a dagger.]
Phocion.
This to the king of Argos!

[ION struggles with him, seizes the dagger, which he throws away.]
Ion. I will not fall by thee, poor wavering novice
In the assassin's trade-thy arm is feeble-
Phocion!-was this well aim'd? thou didst not mean-
Phocion. I meant to take thy life, urged by remembrance
Of yesterday's great vow.

Ion.
Phocion.
Ion.

And couldst thou think

I had forgotten?

Thou?

Phocion.