days of the First Part, and it was painful to see its majesty veiled with crape, its towering strength sink to ruins in the second. Then there are more grand and full passages in the First which can be detached and recollected; as,
We have not time to mourn; the worse for us,
He that lacks time to mourn lacks time to mend;
Eternity mourns that. ’T is an ill cure
For life’s worst ills, to have no time to feel them.
Where sorrow’s held intrusive and turned out,
There wisdom will not enter, nor true power,
Nor aught that dignifies humanity.
That beginning,
To bring a cloud upon the summer day,
or this famous one,
Nor do I now despond, &c.
or the fine scene between Clara, Van Artevelde, and Father John, where she describes the death scene at Sesenheim’s, beginning,
Much hast thou merited, my sister dear.
The second part must be taken as a whole, the dark cloud widening and blackening as it advances, while ghastly flashes of presage come more and more frequent as the daylight diminishes. But there is far more fervor of genius than in the First, showing a mind less possessing, more possessed by, the subject, and finer touches of nature. Van Artevelde’s dignity overpowers us more, as he himself feels it less; as in the acceptance of Father John’s reproof.
| VAN ARTEVELDE. |
| Father John! |
| Though peradventure fallen in your esteem, |
| I humbly ask your blessing, as a man, |
| That having passed for more in your repute |
| Than he could justify, should be content, |
| Not with his state, but with the judgment true |
