Proserpine and Midas | Page 9

clearly the more successful of the two, both more strongly knit as drama, and less uneven in style and versification, cannot for a moment compare with the far more original interpretations of Tennyson, Swinburne, or Meredith. [Footnote: Demeter and Persephone, 1889; The Garden of Proserpine, 1866; _The Appeasement of Demeter_, 1888.] But it is hardly fair to draw in the great names of the latter part of the century. The parallel would be more illuminating--and the final award passed on Mrs. Shelley's attempt more favourable--if we were to think of a contemporary production like 'Barry Cornwall's' Rape of Proserpine, which, being published in 1820, it is just possible that the Shelleys should have known. B. W. Procter's poem is also a dramatic 'scene', written 'in imitation of the mode originated by the Greek Tragic Writers'. In fact those hallowed models seem to have left far fewer traces in Barry Cornwall's verse than the Alexandrian--or pseudo-Alexandrian-- tradition of meretricious graces and coquettish fancies, which the eighteenth century had already run to death. [Footnote: To adduce an example--in what is probably not an easily accessible book to-day: Proserpine, distributing her flowers, thus addresses one of her nymphs:
For this lily, Where can it hang but at Cyane's breast! And yet 'twill wither on so white a bed, If flowers have sense for envy.]
And, more damnable still, the poetical essence of the legend, the identification of Proserpine's twofold existence with the grand alternation of nature's seasons, has been entirely neglected by the author. Surely his work, though published, is quite as deservedly obscure as Mrs. Shelley's derelict manuscript. Midas has the privilege, if it be one, of not challenging any obvious comparison. The subject, since Lyly's and Dryden's days, has hardly attracted the attention of the poets. It was so eminently fit for the lighter kinds of presentation that the agile bibliographer who aimed at completeness would have to go through a fairly long list of masques, [Footnote: There is one by poor Christopher Smart.] comic operas, or 'burlettas', all dealing with the ludicrous misfortunes of the Phrygian king. But an examination of these would be sheer pedantry in this place. Here again Mrs. Shelley has stuck to her Latin source as closely as she could. [Footnote: Perhaps her somewhat wearying second act, on the effects of the gold-transmuting gift, would have been shorter, if Ovid (Metam. xi. 108-30) had not himself gone into such details on the subject.] She has made a gallant attempt to connect the two stories with which Midas has ever since Ovid's days been associated, and a distinct--indeed a too perceptible--effort to press out a moral meaning in this, as she had easily extricated a cosmological meaning in the other tale.
Perhaps we have said too much to introduce these two little unpretending poetical dramas. They might indeed have been allowed to speak for themselves. A new frame often makes a new face; and some of the best known and most exquisite of Shelley's lyrics, when restored to the surroundings for which the poet intended them, needed no other set-off to appeal to the reader with a fresh charm of quiet classical grace and beauty. But the charm will operate all the more unfailingly, if we remember that this clear classical mood was by no means such a common element in the literary atmosphere of the times--not even a permanent element in the authors' lives. We have here none of the feverish ecstasy that lifts Prometheus and Hellas far above the ordinary range of philosophical or political poetry. But Shelley's encouragement, probably his guidance and supervision, have raised his wife's inspiration to a place considerably higher than that of Frankenstein or Valperga. With all their faults these pages reflect some of that irradiation which Shelley cast around his own life--the irradiation of a dream beauteous and generous, beauteous in its theology (or its substitute for theology) and generous even in its satire of human weaknesses.

MYTHOLOGICAL DRAMAS.
Unless otherwise pointed out--by brackets, or in the notes--the text, spelling, and punctuation of the MS. have been strictly adhered to.

PROSERPINE.
A DRAMA IN TWO ACTS.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
CERES. PROSERPINE. INO, EUNOE. Nymphs attendant upon Proserpine. IRIS. ARETHUSA, Naiad of a Spring.
Shades from Hell, among which Ascalaphus.
Scene; the plain of Enna, in Sicily.
PROSERPINE.
ACT I.
_Scene; a beautiful plain, shadowed on one side by an overhanging rock, on the other a chesnut wood. Etna at a distance._
Enter Ceres, Proserpine, Ino and Eunoe.
Pros. Dear Mother, leave me not! I love to rest Under the shadow of that hanging cave And listen to your tales. Your Proserpine Entreats you stay; sit on this shady bank, And as I twine a wreathe tell once again The combat of the Titans and the Gods; Or how the Python fell beneath the dart Of dread Apollo; or of Daphne's change,-- That coyest Grecian maid, whose