"'I von't!' said she, and scream'd a scream,
Then she voke, and found she'd dream'd a dream!"
These are the last words we have left to descant upon: they are such as
should be the last; and, like _Joseph Surface_, "moral to the end." The
glowing passions the fervent hopes, the anticipated future, of the loving
pair, all, all are frustrated! The great lesson of life imbues the
elaborate production; the thinking reader, led by its sublimity to a train
of deep reflection, sees at once the uncertainty of earthly projects, and
sighing owns the wholesome, though still painful truth, that the brightest
sun is ever the first cause of the darkest shadow; and from childhood
upwards, the blissful visions of our gayest fancy--forced by the cry of
stern reality--call back the mental wanderer from imaginary bliss, to be
again the worldly drudge; and, thus awakened to his real state, confess,
like our sad heroine, Molly Brown, he too, has _dreamt a dream_.