ABSTRACT
So much of the general attention has been in later years turned upon Spain, that it might not seem unnatural to expect deeper results than those connected with mere passing curiosity. There was even in the nature of the crisis what might well have awakened the higher and more secluded feelings. War is the scene for the fiercer qualities of 119man: but there is nothing single in the human heart; and those qualities, repulsive as they are, are surrounded with a crowd of others full of nobleness and generosity, partially shaded, perhaps, by the alliance: like Milton’s fallen spirits, their brightness dimmed by their following ‘that leading spirit of ill’, but exhibiting traces of grandeur, haughty bearing, and faded beauty, that compel the wonder of less towering and perturbed natures. The Spanish war, offering to us the perpetual spectacle of heroic resolution struggling against arrogant strength, individual bravery and disunited counsel proudly waving the sword in the eyes of the most powerful, connected, and disciplined mass of force that the modern world had seen, was still ‘more germane’ to the impressions which generous spirits love; and we should not have been surprised to see the most distinguished geniuses of the age engrossed by the contest, and, in the language of Philosophy and the Muse, bequeathing to the ages to come the high lessons of wisdom for which that contest had been ordained. Yet upon this striking subject, our poets and philosophers have been eminently silent; and, with the exception of a few poems of moderate merit, we are scarcely able to recollect any thing by which English genius will have paid its contribution to the cause of patriotism and honour. A drama has at length been produced by Mr. Coleridge, a writer already known to the public; and we were inclined to hope, that the stigma of indolence and apathy was about to be taken away, by a man, presumed to be at least not cold to the pressure of the higher powers, in other countries than Spain. This drama was presented for the first time on Saturday, and called, or in the more scrupulous phrase of the author, ‘is to be called Remorse’. The plot was singularly involved and laboured….
[a summary of the plot follows]
