And can such a feeling be without its effect on the estimation
of the wedded life in general? Impossible! and the morals of both sexes in
Spain, Italy, France, &c. prove it abundantly.
The Papal church has had three phases,--anti-Caesarean, extra-national,
anti-Christian.
_April _20. 1833.
ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY.
The Romans would never have subdued the Italian tribes if they had not
boldly left Italy and conquered foreign nations, and so, at last, crushed
their next-door neighbours by external pressure.
_April _24. 1833.
WEDDED LOVE IN SHAKSPEARE AND HIS CONTEMPORARY DRAMATISTS.--TENNYSON'S
POEMS.
Except in Shakspeare, you can find no such thing as a pure conception of
wedded love in our old dramatists. In Massinger, and Beaumont and Fletcher,
it really is on both sides little better than sheer animal desire. There is
scarcely a suitor in all their plays, whose _abilities_ are not discussed
by the lady or her waiting-woman. In this, as in all things, how
transcendant over his age and his rivals was our sweet Shakspeare!
* * * * *
I have not read through all Mr. Tennyson's poems, which have been sent to
me; but I think there are some things of a good deal of beauty in what I
have seen.
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