Cardinal Beaton.

About Cardinal Beaton

Cardinal Beaton; A Drama, in Five Acts (1823) is an historical drama by William Tennant based on the life of David Beaton. It was not received well.This dramatic poem few have read, and of that few not half of the number would greatly care to remember it. The subject itself is a noble one, and the character of the cardinal, that "less than a king, yet greater," was amply fitted to develop the very highest of poetic talent. But, unluckily, the poet, instead of exhibiting this bold bad man with the lofty regal and intellectual qualities which he undoubtedly possessed, has stuck to the sordid and sensual vices with which Beaton was chargeable, and has thus converted him into a mere vulgar incubus. In fact, he has made him talk, not in the elevated language of one to whom high designs, by which Europe itself was to be shaken, were familiar, but rather after the fashion of the vulgar sensualist, who, in the phrase of Knox, "was busie at his compts with Mistris Marion Ogilbie." This was not a picture suited to the improved tastes of the day, and therefore the public would none of "Cardinal Beaton."