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The most remarkable scene in this play is the scene in which the painter Bazardo comes to Hieronimo, whose son has been murdered. This scene is the one best known of any in this play. I shall, however, make a few extracts from it, premising that it is supposed that Ben Jonson, who, it appears, used to act the part of Hieronimo, introduced this scene into the play from his own pen. The following is exceedingly beautiful :

"ISABELLA. Is not this the place, and this the very tree Where my Horatio died, where he was murdered?

"HIERONIMO. Was, do not say what

This was the tree, I set it of a kernel;
And when our hot Spain could not let it grow,
But that the infant and the humane sap
Began to wither, duly twice a morning

Would I be sprinkling it with fountain water:

At last it grew, and grew, and bore, and bore;

Till at length it grew a gallows, and did bear our son,

It bore thy fruit and mine."

The following is a powerful piece of writing: Hieronimo is giving the painter instructions to draw him at the time when he discovered his son murdered.

"HIERONIMO. Well, sir, then bring me forth, bring me through alley and alley, still with a distracted countenance going along, and let my hair heave up my nightcap.

Let the clouds scowl, make the moon dark, the stars extinct, the winds blowing, the bells tolling, the owls shrieking, the toads croaking, the minutes jarring, and the clock striking twelve.

And then at last, sir, starting, behold a man hanging, and tottering, as you know the wind will wave a man, and I with a trice to cut him down

And looking upon him by the advantages of my torch, find it to be my son Horatio.

There you may show a passion-there you may show a passion.
Draw me like old Priam of Troy,

Crying the house is a-fire-the house is a-fire.
And the torch over my head! make me curse,
Make me rave, make me cry, make me mad.
Make me well again, make me curse hell,
Invocate, and in the end leave me

In a trance and so forth."

Every one who reads this passage must be struck with the extreme force and power of the writing. In fact, I do not know where to find any passage equal to it in these respects. I have in

vain sought in Lear for a passage of equal strength. And I know not where we can find anything to be compared with it. It certainly does not resemble the writing of Kyd, but I do not think it bears any very plain marks of Ben Jonson about it. Whoever wrote it, wrote a passage of wonderful beauty; but I think it must be acknowledged that the discovery of the real author is a matter of very slight importance.

Here is another forcible piece of writing, but this is certainly Kyd's:

"BAYULTO. I am a grieved man, and not a ghost,

That came for justice for my murdered son.

"HIERONIMO. Aye, now I know thee, now thou nam'st thy son:

Thou art the lively image of my grief,

Within thy face my sorrows I may see:

Thy eyes are gummed with tears, thy cheeks are wan;

Thy forehead troubled, and thy muttering lips

Murmur sad words abruptly broken off;

By force of windy sighs thy spirit breathes,

And all this sorrow sueth for thy son:
The self-same sorrow feel I for my son.

Come in, old man, thou shalt to Isabel;
Lean on my arm. I thee, thou me shalt stay,
And thou and I and she will sing a song.

Three parts in one, but all of discords framed ;
Talk not of cords, but let us now be gone,

For with a cord Horatio was slain."

This is indeed a splendid passage, and in short all through this play we have continually passages of this kind.

The next that I shall direct attention to is in the fifth Act, and is spoken by Isabella. To make this passage quite clear to the reader, it should be known that while she speaks this, she is in the orchard or garden in which Horatio, her son, was murdered.

"ISABELLA. Tell me no more: O monstrous homicides! Since neither piety nor pity moves

The king to justice or compassion;

I will revenge myself upon this place,

Where thus they murdered my beloved son.

(She cuts down the Arbour.)

Down with these branches, and these loathsome boughs

Of this unfortunate and fatal pine;

Down with them, Isabella, rend them up,

And burn the roots from whence the rest is sprung.

I will not leave a root, a stalk, a tree,

A bough, or branch, a blossom, or a leaf,

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No, not an herb within this garden plot,
Accursed complot of my miseries!
Fruitless for ever may this garden be;
Barren the earth; and blissless whosoe'er
Imagines not, to keep it unmanured.—

An eastern wind, commixed with noisome airs,
Shall blast the plants and the young saplings.
The earth with serpents shall be pestered,
And passengers, for fear to be infect,
Shall stand aloof, and looking at it, tell

There, murdered, died the son of Isabel."

Although this passage is very fine, the reader will perceive the same blemish which too often characterises the finer parts of Shakspere's works, namely, an useless quibble introduced for no purpose whatever but to play upon the word. It will be sufficient to mention one of these in Shakspere-" Too much of water hadst thou, poor Ophelia." I think this is the besetting sin of old writers.

One more passage, and I have done with this play. Hieronimo, for the purpose of revenging his son, constructs a play, and by arranging the parts according to his design, succeeds in stabbing Lorenzo. The king, however, at the end of the play, asks what follows for Hieronimo.

"HIERONIMO. Marry this follows for Hieronimo.— Here break we off our sundry languages,

And thus conclude I in our vulgar tongue.

Haply you think (but bootless are your thoughts,)

That this is fabulously counterfeit,

And that we do as all tragedians do,

To die to-day, (for fashioning our scene,
The death of Ajax, or some Roman peer,)
And in a minute starting up again,
Revive to please to-morrow's audience.
No, princes; know I am Hieronimo,
The hopeless father of a hapless son,
Whose tongue is tuned to tell his latest tale;
Not to excuse gross errors in the play.

I see your looks urge instance of those words-
Behold the reason urging me to this.

(He shows his dead Son.)
See here my shew, look on this spectacle ;
Here lay my hope, and here my hope hath end.
Here lay my heart, and here my heart was slain :
Here lay my treasure, here my treasure lost:
Here lay my bliss, and here my bliss bereft :

But hope, heart, treasure, joy, and bliss,

All fled, failed, died; yea, all decayed with this."

From forth these wounds came breath that gave new life,
They murdered me,

that made the fatal marks."

This, it must be confessed, is infinitely above all modern dramatic writing; but there can be but one feeling, that of regret, when we find language like this attached to a plot that out-melodrames all melo-drames, and is most improbable. Horatio is murdered;-Andrea is soon transformed to a ghost, in which character we see him through five acts at intervals ;- Hieronimo goes mad;-Isabella "runs lunatic," and stabs herself;-Belimperia stabs first Balthazar, and then herself;-Hieronimo stabs Lorenzo-bites out his tongue-stabs the duke and himself with a pen-knife-and the Tragedy concludes with the entrance of the ghost of Andrea, and Revenge, who express themselves extremely well satisfied with the catastrophe.

It is really lamentable to find such magnificent writing as we have throughout this play attached to a plot so truly ridiculous. However, let us remember that this was not the fault of the author, but of the age in which he lived.

C. H. H.

THE YELLOW LEAF.

EVEN as the sear leaf on the tree in its blossom, so stands among the rustling concourse of his fellow-men the Miser, tainted with his yellow gold. No longer can he taste the dews of heaven, no longer can he draw in life from the warm sunlight; the very breeze that sporteth gaily through the boughs, singing of joy to all creation else, murmurs his requiem. For in its gladsome course the golden store is shaken, and thereat grieving, doth the sear leaf fall. But then when its death-hour hath come, then payeth it to sovereign nature that just tribute-debt of good which at one time, be it in their life or death, all things that are, have been created but to pay. And the yellow leaf nourisheth in its death the roots of the fair plant that in their life its fellows have maintained.

ΗΑΙ.

WEEP NOT FOR THE DEAD.

"Not lost, but gone before."

-Oh, weep not for the dead!
They have passed away from this world of care,
To dwell amid scenes ever blooming and fair;
Like mariners storm-tost they've reached at last
A haven secure from the wave and the blast;
Like wand'ring pilgrims in search of a rest
They have reached the place of their toilsome quest,
And calmly repose on the banks of those streams
That sparkle and glow in eternity's beams,
As softly they glide 'neath the emerald bowers,—
And murmur soft songs to the many-hued flowers,—
Those flowers ever fragrant which know not decay:
Unlike the frail perishing things of this earth,
That bloom for a moment, and then pass away,
By the dews of delight and the sunshine of mirth,
Unfading, they ever are fed ;-

Then weep not for the dead!

-Oh, mourn not for the dead!

Is it not better,-far better to know

That the snares which are spread for man's footsteps below

Are spread vainly for them? that dark sorrow and pain

Can vex them no more? that the wearisome chain,
Which bound them to trouble and wasting disease,
Is severed, and now, as a lark on the breeze
Soareth upward and singeth, so wing they their flight
To the home of the blessed, the land of delight?
And as basks that sweet bird in the life-giving ray,

And poureth the fulness of joy in his lay,

So they bask in the beams which effulgently shine
Round the throne of their Maker, and join in the hymn

Which the seraphs upraise to the Godhead divine,

With hearts never weary, and eyes never dim

With such tears as on earth they shed?

Then mourn not for the dead!

H. G. ADAMS.

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