_'Athulf._ But, sirs, it is in haste--in haste extreme--
Matters of state, and hot with haste.

_Second Monk_. My lord,
We will so say, but truly at this present
He is about to scourge himself.

_Athulf_. I'll wait.
For a king's ransom would I not cut short
So good a work! I pray you, for how long?

_Second Monk_. For twice the _De Profundis_, sung in slow time.

_Athulf_. Please him to make it ten times, I will wait.
And could I be of use, this knotted trifle,
This dog-whip here has oft been worse employed.'

In his recent play, _The Virgin Widow_ (1850), Mr Taylor declines from
the promise of his earlier efforts. The preface suggests great things;
but they are not forthcoming. There is much careful finish, much
sententious rhetoric, much elegant description; but there is little of
racy humour (the play is a 'romantic comedy'), little of poetical
freshness, little of lively flesh and blood portraiture, and more of
melodramatic expedience than dramatic construction. Neither comedy nor
melodrama is our author's _forte_.

In 1836 Mr Taylor published _The Statesman_, a book which contained
the 'views and maxims respecting the transaction of public business,'
which had been suggested to its author by twelve years' experience of
official life. He has since then allowed that it was wanting in that