of thought, attributed to Robert d'Heredon, the | spiration is not wanting: Werner evidently Scottish Templar, in the Sons of the Valley, was thinks that in these his ultramundane excurborrowed, it appears, as if by regular instal- sions he has found truth; he has something ments, from these conferences with Hitzig; the positive to set forth, and he feels himself as if result of the one Sunday being duly entered in bound on a high and holy mission in preachdramatic form during the week; then audited ing it to his fellow-men. on the Sunday following; and so forming the text for further disquisition. "Blissful days," adds Hitzig, "pure and innocent, which doubtless Werner also ever held in pleased remembrance!"

To explain with any minuteness the articles of Werner's creed, as it was now fashioned, and is here exhibited, would be a task perhaps too hard for us, and, at all events, unprofitable in proportion to its difficulty. We have found The Söhne des Thals, composed in this rather some separable passages, in which, under dark questionable fashion, was in due time forth- symbolical figures, he has himself shadowed coming; the First Part in 1801, the Second forth a vague likeness of it: these we shall about a year afterwards. It is a drama, or It is a drama, or now submit to the reader, with such exposirather two dramas, unrivalled at least in one tions as we gather from the context, or as Gerparticular, in length; each Part being a play man readers, from the usual tone of speculaof six acts, and the whole amounting to some- tion in that country, are naturally enabled to what more than eight hundred small octavo supply. This may, at the same time, convey pages! To attempt any analysis of such a as fair a notion of the work itself, with its work would but fatigue our readers to little tawdry splendours, and tumid grandiloquence, purpose: it is, as might be anticipated, of a | and mere playhouse thunder and lightning, as most loose and formless structure: expanding by any other plan our limits would admit. on all sides into vague boundlessness, and, on the whole, resembling not so much a poem as the rude materials of one. The subject is the destruction of the Templar Order; an event which has been dramatized more than once, but on which, notwithstanding, Werner, we suppose, may boast of being entirely original. The fate of Jacques Molay, and his brethren, acts here but like a little leaven; and lucky were we, could it leaven the lump; but it lies buried under such a mass of Mystical theology, Masonic mummery, Cabalistic tradition, and Rosicrucian philosophy, as no power could work into dramatic union. The incidents are few, and of little interest; interrupted continually by flaring shows and long-winded specu-in glimpses, of so enigmàtic a sort, that we lations; for Werner's besetting sin, that of loquacity, is here in decided action; and so we wander, in aimless windings, through scene after scene of gorgeousness or gloom; till at last the whole rises before us like a wild phantasmagoria; cloud heaped on cloud, painted indeed here and there with prismatic hues, but representing nothing, or at least not the subject, but the author.

Let the reader fancy himself in the island of Cyprus, where the Order of the Templars still subsists, though the heads of it are already summoned before the French King and Pope Clement; which summons they are now, not without dreary enough forebodings, preparing to obey. The purport of this First Part, so far as it has any dramatic purport, is to paint the situation, outward and inward, of that once pious and heroic, and still magnificent and powerful body. It is entitled The Templars in Cyprus; but why it should also be called The Sons of the Valley does not so well appear; for the Brotherhood of the Valley has yet scarcely come into activity, and only hovers before us

ACT FIFTH.- -SCENE FIRST.

Midnight. Interior of the Temple Church. Backwards, a deep perspec. tive of Altars and Gothic Pillars. On the right-hand side of the foreground, a little Chapel; and in this an Altar with the figure of St. Sebastian. The

know not fully so much as whether these its Sons are of flesh and blood like ourselves, or of some spiritual nature, or of something intermediate, and altogether nondescript. For the rest, it is a series of spectacles and dissertations; the action cannot so much be said to advance as to revolve. On this occasion the Templars are admitting two new members; the acolytes have already passed their prelimIn this last point of view, however, as a pic-inary trials; this is the chief and final oneture of himself, independently of other considerations, this play of Werner's may still have a certain value for us. The strange chaotic nature of the man is displayed in it: his skepticism and theosophy; his audacity, yet in- scene is lighted very dimly by a single Lamp which hangs before the Altar. trinsic weakness of character; his baffled longings, but still ardent endeavours after Truth and Good; his search for them in far journeyings, not on the beaten highways, but through the pathless infinitude of Thought. To call it a work of art would be a misapplication of names: it is little more than a rhapsodic effusion; the outpouring of a passionate and mystic soul, only half knowing what it utters, and not ruling its own movements, but ruled by them. It is fair to add that such also, in a great measure, was Werner's own view of the matter: most likely the utterance of these things gave him such relief, that, crude as they were, he could not suppress them. For it ought to be remembered, that in this performance one condition, at least, of genuine in

ADALBERT (dressed in white, without mantle or doublet; groping his way in the dark.)

Was it not at the Altar of Sebastian

Here should it be ; but darkness with her veil
Inwraps the figures.

That I was bid to wait for the unknown?

(Advancing to the Altar.)
Here is the fifth pillar!
Yes, this is he, the Sainted.-How the glimmer
Of that faint lamp falls on his fading eye!—
Ah, it is not the spears o' th' Saracens,
It is the pangs of hopeless love that burning
Transfix thy heart, poor Comrade !—O my Agnes,
May not thy spirit, in this earnest hour,
Be looking on? Art hovering in that moon-beam
Which struggles through the painted window, and dies
Amid the cloister's gloom? Or linger'st thou

(Looking up, then shrinking together as with dazzled eyes.) | (Leads him to the opposite Coffin where the Body is lying.)

ARMED MAN.

Hear: "Corruption is the name of Life." Now look around; go forward,-move, and act!(He pushes him towards the back-ground of the stage.)

ADALBERT (observing the Book.)

Ha! Here the Book of Ordination!-Seems

(Approaching.)

As if th' inscription on it might be read.

(He reads it.)

"Knock four times on the ground,

་

Thou shalt behold thy loved one."

O Heavens! And may I see thee, sainted Agnes?
(Hastening close to the Book.)

My bosom yearns for thee!-

And shook the gold into a melting-pot,
And set the melting-pot upon the Sun,
So that the metal fused into a fluid mass.
And then he dipt a finger in the same,
And, straightway touching Baffometus,

Anoints him on the chin and brow and cheeks.
Then was the face of Baffometus changed:
His eye-balls rolled like fire-flames,

His nose became a crooked vulture's bill,
The tongue hung bloody from his throat; the flesh
Went from his hollow cheeks; and of his hair
Grew snakes, and of the snakes grew Devil's-horns.
Again the Lord put forth his finger with the gold
And pressed it upon Baffometus' heart;
Whereby the heart did bleed and wither up,
And all his members bled and withered up,
And fell away, the one and then the other.

(With the following words, he stamps four times on the At last his back itself sunk into ashes:

ground.)

One, Two,-Three-Four!-

(The Curtain hanging from the Book rolls rapidly up, and covers it. A colossal Devil's-head appears between the two Skeletons: its form is horrible; it is gilt; has a huge golden Crown, a Heart of the same in its Brow; rolling flaming Eyes: Serpents instead of Hair: golden Chains round its neck, which is visible to the breast and a golden Cross, yet not a Crucifix, which rises over its right shoulder, as if crushing it down. The whole Bust rests on four gilt Dragon's feet. At sight of it, ADALBERT starts back in horror, and exclaims :)

Defend us!

ARMED MAN.
Dreaded, may he hear it?
CONCEALED VOICES.

Yea!

ARMED MAN (touches the Curtain with his sword: it rolls down over the Devil's-head, concealing it again; and above, as before, appears the Book, but now opened, with white colossal leaves and red characters. The ARMED MAN, pointing constantly to the Book with his Sword, and therewith turning the leaves, addresses ADALBERT, who stands on the other side of the Book, and nearer the foreground.)

List to the Story of the Fallen Master.

(He reads the following from the Book: yet not stand
ing before it but on one side, at some paces distance, and
whilst he reads, turning the leaves with his sword.)
"So now when the foundation-stone was laid,
The Lord called forth the Master, Baffometus,
And said to him: Go and complete my Temple!
But in his heart the Master thought: What boots it
Building thee a temple? and took the stones,
And built himself a dwelling, and what stones
Were left he gave for filthy gold and silver.
Now after forty moons the Lord returned,
And spake: Where is my temple, Baffometus ?
The Master said: I had to build myself
A dwelling: grant me other forty weeks.

And after forty weeks, the Lord returns,
And asks: where is my temple, Baffometus ?

He said: There were no stones (but he had sold them

For filthy gold;) so wait yet forty days.

In forty days thereafter came the Lord,

And cried: Where is my temple, Baffometus ?

Then like a mill-stone fell it on his soul
How he for lucre had betrayed his Lord;
But yet to other sin the Fiend did tempt him,
And he answered, saying: Give me forty hours!
And when the forty hours were gone, the Lord
Came down in wrath: My Temple, Baffometus?
Then fell he quaking on his face, and cried
For mercy; but the Lord was wroth, and said :
Since thou hast cozened me with empty lies,
And those the stones I lent thee for my Temple
Hast sold them for a purse of filthy gold,
Lo, I will cast thee forth, and with the Mammon
Will chastise thee, until a Saviour rise

Of thy own seed, who shall redeem thy trespass.
nen did the Lord lift up the purse of Gold;

The head alone continued gilt and living;
And instead of back, grew dragon's-talons,
Which destroyed all life from off the Earth.
Then from the ground the Lord took up the heart,
Which, as he touched it, also grew of gold,
And placed it on the brow of Baffometus;
And of the other metal in the pot
He made for him a burning crown of gold,
And crushed it on his serpent-hair, so that
Ev'n to the bone and brain, the circlet scorched him.
And round the neck he twisted golden chains,
Which strangled him and pressed his breath together.
What in the pot remained he poured upon the ground.
Athwart, along, and there it formed a cross;
The which he lifted and laid upon his neck,
And bent him that he could not raise his head.
Two Deaths moreover he appointed warders
To guard him: Death of Life, and Death of Hope.
The sword of the first he sees not but it smites him;
So languishes the outcast Baffometus
The other's Palm he sees, but it escapes him.
Four thousand years and four-and-forty moons,
Till once a Saviour rise from his own seed,
Redeem his trespass, and deliver him.”

(To ADALBERT.)

This is the Story of the Fallen Master.
(With his sword he touches the Curtain, which now as
before rolls up over the book: so that the HEAD under it
again becomes visible, in its former shape.)

ADALBERT (looking at the HEAD.)
Hah, what a hideous shape!

HEAD (with a hollow voice.)

Deliver me!

ARMED MAN.

Dreaded! Shall the work begin?

CONCEALED VOICES.

Yea!

ARMED MAN (to ADALBERT.)
Take the Neckband

Away! (Pointing to the HEAD.)

ADALBERT.

I dare not!

HEAD (with a still more piteous tone.)
O, deliver me!

ADALBERT (taking off the chains.)

Poor fallen one!

ARMED MAN.
Now lift the Crown from 's head!
ADALBERT

It seems so heavy!

vellous "Story of the Fallen Master," to shadow forth. At first view, one might take it for an allegory, couched in masonic language,— and truly no flattering allegory,—of the Catholic Church; and this trampling on the Cross, which is said to have been actually enjoined on every Templar at his initiation, to be a type of his secret behest to undermine that Institution, and redeem the spirit of Religion from the state of thraldom and distortion under which it was there held. It is known at least, and was well known to Werner, that the heads of the Templars entertained views, both on religion. and politics, which they did not think meet for communicating to their age, and only imparted by degrees, and under mysterious adumbrations, to the wiser of their own Order. They had even publicly resisted, and succeeded in thwarting, some iniquitous measures of Philippe Auguste, the French King, in regard to his coinage; and this, while it secured them the love of the people, was one great cause, perhaps second only to their wealth, of the hatred which that sovereign bore them, and of the savage doom which he at last executed on the whole body.

But on these secret principles of theirs, as on Werner's manner of conceiving them, we

ADALBERT (taking it from the Bust, and laying it softly are only enabled to guess; for Werner, too,

on the ground.)

The Cross of the Good Lord that died for me?

ARMED MAN.

Thou shalt no more believe in one that died;
Thou shalt henceforth believe in one that liveth
And never dies 1-Obey, and question not,-
Step over it!

ADALBERT.

Take pity on me!

ARMED MAN (threatening him with his sword.)

ADALBERT.

I do 't with shuddering—

Step!

has an esoteric doctrine, which he does not promulgate, except in dark Sybilline enigmas, to the unitiated. As we are here seeking chiefly for his religious creed, which forms, in truth, with its changes, the main thread whereby his wayward, desultory existence attains any unity or even coherence in our thoughts, we may quote another passage from the same First Part of this rhapsody; which, at the same time, will afford us a glimpse of his favourite hero, Robert d'Heredon, lately the darling of the Templars, but now, for some momentary infraction of their rules, cast into prison, and expecting death, or, at best, exclusion from the Order. Gottfried is another

(Steps over, and then looks up to the HEAD which raises Templar, in all points the reverse of Robert. itself, as if freed from a load.)

How the figure rises

ARMED MAN (pointing to the Head with his Sword.) Go to the Fallen !-Kiss his lips!

-And so on through many other sulphurous pages! How much of this mummery is copied from the actual practice of the Templars we know not with certainty; nor what precisely either they or Werner intended, by this mar

Ask not!-Man's being is a spider-web:
The passionate flash o' th' soul-comes not of him ;
It is the breath of that dark Genius,
Which whirls invisible along the threads:

A servant of eternal Destiny,

which earthward strives to press the net:
But Fate gives sign; the breath becomes a whirlwind,
And in a moment rends to shreds the thing
We thought was woven for Eternity.

It purifies them from the vulgar dust,