A TRAGEDY,
BY MONTI.
This tragedy, though inferior in power and interest to the Aristodemo of the same author, is nevertheless distinguished by beauties of a high order, and such as, in our opinion, fully establish its claims to more general attention than it has hitherto received. Although the loftiness and severity of Roman manners, in the days of the Republic, have been sufficiently preserved to give an impressive character to the piece, yet those workings of passion and tenderness—without which dignity soon becomes monotonous, and heroism unnatural—have not been (as in the tragedies of Alfieri upon similar subjects) too rigidly suppressed.
The powerful character of the high-hearted Cornelia, with all the calm collected majesty which our ideas are wont to associate with the name of a Roman matron, and the depth and sublimity of maternal affection more particularly belonging to the mother of the Gracchi, are beautifully contrasted with the softer and more womanish feelings, the intense anxieties, the sensitive and passionate attachment, embodied in the person of Sicinia, the wife of Gracchus. The appeals made by Gracchus to the people are full of majestic eloquence; and the whole piece seems to be animated by that restless and untameable spirit of freedom, whose immortalised struggles for ascendency give so vivid a colouring, so exalted an interest, to the annals of the ancient republics.
The tragedy opens with the soliloquy of Caius Gracchus, who is returned in secret to Rome, after having been employed in rebuilding Carthage, which Scipio had utterly demolished.
His soliloquy is interrupted by the entrance of Fulvius, his friend, with whose profligate character and unprincipled designs he is represented as unacquainted. From the opening speech made by Fulvius (before he is aware of the presence of Caius) to the slave by whom he is attended, it appears that he is just returned from the perpetration of some crime, the nature of which is not disclosed until the second act.
The suspicions of Caius are, however, awakened, by the obscure allusions to some act of signal but secret vengeance, which Fulvius throws out in the course of the ensuing discussion.
Caius afterwards inquires what part his brother-in-law, Scipio Emilianus, is likely to adopt in their enterprises.
This conversation is interrupted by the entrance of Cornelia, with the wife and child of Caius. They are about to seek an asylum in the house of Emilianus, by whom Cornelia has been warned of the imminent danger which menaces the family of her son from the fury of the patricians, who intend, on the following day, to abrogate the laws enacted by the Gracchi in favour of the plebeians. The joy and emotion of Gracchus, on thus meeting with his family, may appear somewhat inconsistent with his having remained so long engaged in political discussion, on the threshold of their abode, without ever having made an inquiry after their welfare; but it would be somewhat unreasonable to try the conduct of a Roman (particularly in a tragedy) by the laws of nature. Before, however, we are disposed to condemn the principles which seem to be laid down for the delineation of Roman character in dramatic poetry, let us recollect that the general habits of the people whose institutions gave birth to the fearful grandeur displayed in the actions of the elder Brutus, and whose towering spirit was fostered to enthusiasm by the contemplation of it, must have been deeply tinctured by the austerity of even their virtues. Shakspeare alone, without compromising the dignity of his Romans, has disencumbered them of the formal scholastic drapery which seems to be their official garb, and has stamped their features with the general attributes of human nature, without effacing the impress which distinguished “the men of iron,” from the nations who “stood still before them.”
The first act concludes with the parting of Caius and Fulvius in wrath and suspicion—Cornelia having accused the latter of an attempt to seduce her daughter, the wife of Scipio, and of concealing the most atrocious designs under the mask of zeal for the cause of liberty.
In the second act, the death of Emilianus is announced to Opimius the consul, in the presence of Gracchus, and the intelligence is accompanied by a rumour of his having perished by assassination. The mysterious expressions of Fulvius, and the accusation of Cornelia, immediately recur to the mind of Caius. The following scene, in which his vehement emotion, and high sense of honour, are well contrasted with the cold-blooded sophistry of Fulvius, is powerfully wrought up.