of the Esmeralda. The act opens with a slang chorus of Truands--the words of which are in very unintelligible, but, doubtless, quite appropriate French--which terminates in shouts of joy, as that pearl among gipsies, that exquisite and fanciful creation, the Esmeralda, enters dancing. We transcribe her accompanying song, as a happy specimen of M. Hugo's better sentiments:-

"La Esmeralda.
"Je suis l'orpheline
Fille des douleurs,
Qui sur vous s'incline
En jetant des fleurs;
Mon joyeux délire
Bien souvent soupire;
Je montre un sourire,
Je cache des pleurs !
"Je danse, humble fille,
Au bord du ruisseau,
Ma chanson babille
Comme un jeune oiseau,
Je suis la colombe

Qu'on blesse et qui tombe;
La nuit de la tombe
Couvre mon berceau.

Chœur.

Danse, jeune fille!

Tu nous rends plus doux ;
Prends nous pour famille,
Et joues avec nous
Comme l'hirondelle
A la mer se mêle
Agaçant de l'aile
Le flot en courroux!
C'est la jeune fille,
L'enfant du malheur!
Quand son regard brille
Adieu la douleur !
Son chant nous rassemble
De loin, elle semble
L'abeille qui tremble
Au bout d'une fleur :
Danse, jeune fille,
Tu nous rends plus doux;
Prends nous pour famille,
Et joues avec nous.

"Claude Frollo, (à part). "Fremis, jeune fille ! Le prête est jaloux !”

"The Esmeralda.

"I am the orphan
Daughter of grief,
Who brings you flowers
And asks relief.
My melodies

Are attuned to sighs,

And oft on my lips a smile appears
When my lonely heart is full of tears!
I dance where the voice

Of the streamlet is heard,
And the lay I sing

Is the carolling

Of some young joyous bird!
I am the dove who wounded dies;
In the mystic gloom

Of the voiceless tomb
My cradle shrouded lies.

Chorus.

Dance on, young girl,
Thy magic hath bound us;
Let us be thy friends
And sport around us,
As the swallow skims
O'er the angry sea
Fanning the wave
Caressingly.
It is the maiden

The child of sorrow,
From whose eyes despair
A sunbeam might borrow;
At her song we unite
She seems to our sight
Like the bee that seeks rest
From its trembling flight
In the flowret's breast.
Maiden, dance on,

Thy magic hath bound us;
Let us be thy friends
And sport around us."

"Claude Frollo, (aside).
"Tremble, young girl!
The priest is jealous!"

Quasimodo next appears crowned and mitred as the pope of fools he is welcomed by the Truands:

"Chœur.

"Saluez! clercs de la bazoche!

Hubins, Coquillards, Cagoux!
Saluez tous! il approche

Voici le pape des fous!"

The archidiacre, his master, springs forward and indignantly tears off the rich trappings of Quasimodo. The Truands, indignant in their turn, are about massacreing him, when Clopin Trouillefou, the Bamfylde Moore-Carew of this Alsatia, enters and rescues "his superior in magic" from their hands. The crowd retires, and Claude Frollo and Quasimodo-that hideous epitome of depravities-are left alone in the square. The former communicates his impious design of carrying off the Bohemian girl, and the hunchback's only reply is—" Master, if thou needest me, take my blood-without explanation." The dwarf retires to watch, and the priest and his conscience are alone-hear his highly wrought and highly artificial soliloquy :

"Claude Frollo.

"O ciel! avoir donné ma pensée aux abîmes
Avoir de la magie essayé lous les crimes
Etre tombé plus bas que l'enfer ne descend
Prêtre, à minuit, dans l'ombre épier une femme,

Et songer dans l'état où se trouve mon âme
Que Dieu me regarde á present!

Eh bien oui! q'importe !

Le destin m'emporte,
Se chaîne est trop forte
Je cède à sa loi!

Mon sort recommence?
Le prêtre en démence
N'a plus d'espérance
Et n'a plus d'effroi."

"Claude Frollo.

"O heaven!

To have plunged in these dark depths my venturous thought,
The blackest deeds of magic to have wrought,
Fallen, thus fallen, than hell itself more low.

A priest! at midnight hour to dare

To gaze on one so pure and fair,
And feel amidst this dark despair
That God beholds me now!
Be it so! stern fate

Directs my course;
It is too late,

I yield to its force.

'Tis destiny that spurs me on,
There is nought to be lost,
There is nought to be won."

The remainder of this is positively impious. Why bring such pictures on the stage? Why shun for such horrors the drama's legitimate and fertile path?

The patrol approaches--passes by, and the priest and his minion await breathlessly the coming of the Esmeralda-a light footstep is heard--the following couplets are sung sotta voce by Claude and by Quasimodo:

"Quasimodo et Claude.

L'amour conseille
L'espoir rend fort
Celui que veille
Lorsque tout dort
Je la devine,
Je l'entrevois,

Fille divine

Quasi. Viens sans effroi,

Claude. Elle est à moi.

} ensemble.

Love directs

And hope empowers
Him who wakes
In these sleeping hours,
I read unseen
Thy destiny,
Maiden, approach,
And fearlessly, &c. &c.

She comes, is seized by them, and almost instantly, at her cries, the long-passed patrol returns to rescue her from the hands of her ravishers. The priest escapes, but Quasimodo is arrested. La Esmeralda falls in love with Phoebus, the handsome captain of the watch. We quote the ridiculous dialogue of their first interview. It is untranslatable.

She glides away from the handsome soldier-the patrol disappear with Quasimodo, and the curtain drops.

The first scene of the second act exhibits the Place de Grève. Quasimodo is on the pillory. The populace are making all manner of abuse of him. The hunchback asks for water-all laugh at his request-when the Esmeralda emerges from the crowd and presents a gourd of water to his parched lips. The exhibition is over.

The second scene of this act represents a ball-room in the house of Madame Aloise de Gondelaurier, the intended mother

in-law of Phœbus de Chateaupers; a brilliant company is fast assembling; in the mean while, Phœbus, who loves the Esmeralda, is parrying the attacks of his fiancée, who suspects him of infidelity.

"Phœbus.-(Avec passion à Fleur-de-Lys, qui boude encore.) Je vous jure que je vous aime

Plus qu'on n'aimerait Venus même.

"Fleur-de-Lys.-Pas de serment! pas de serment!

On ne jure que lorsq'on ment."

The Esmeralda is seen dancing in the streets, and at a signal from Phœbus ascends to exhibit her graceful feats in the saloon. Imagine Fleur-de-Lys's surprise when she sees around the neck of the Bohemian the very scarf that she herself had embroidered for her lover! There is an éclat, and the company disperse.

The first scene of the third act must be indeed beautiful. The exterior lawn of a cabaret. The tavern on the right. Trees on the other side. At the bottom a door and a very low wall which encloses the lawn. In the back-ground the roof of Notre-Dame, with its two towers and its spire, and an outline of the ancient Paris thrown in relief upon the golden sky of the setting sun. The Seine runs at the bottom of the picture.

Phœbus is seated with several of his friends around divers tables. Their occupation is sufficiently explained by the opening bacchanalian.

"Chorus.

"Sois propice et salutaire
Notre-dame de Saint Lo
Au soudard qui sur la terre
N'a de haine que pour l'eau."

The handsome captain is in the seventh heaven of anticipation; he has a rendezvous with the Esmeralda, and, to his shame be it said, makes a boast of it to his gay comrades. The concluding chorus is characteristic :—

"C'est le bonheur suprême
En quelque tems qu'on soit
De boire à ce qu'on aime
Et d'aimer ce qu'on boit."

Brief exultation. The priest is there, and with his hand upon his poniard he mutters imprecations and threats. The hour approaches, his companions retire and leave Phoebus. As this latter is wending his way to the scene of adventure, he is accosted by an unknown. The stranger enquires the name of her who awaits the officer, and, singular dramatic improbability! he replies,

"Eh, pardieu! c'est mon amoreuse
Celle que m'aime et me plait fort;
C'est ma chanteuse, ma danseuse,
C'est Esmeralda.

"Claude Frollo.-C'est la mort."

This contrast is happy. The gay indifference and reckless impulse of the young soldier, and the ominous warning of the infamous priest, are strikingly true to the nature of these two personages. The counsels of the priest are unheeded, and Phoebus hastens to the rendezvous.

The next scene is the room described in the romance of M. Hugo. But, in order to dramatise (which means to abbreviate) the incidents of the plot, various false witnesses are concealed in a neighbouring closet, and Claude Frollo takes his station amongst them. Phœbus and the Esmeralda enter the apartment—their interchange of love and admiration, and the jealous ire of the priest, are perhaps the finest and at the same time most untranslatable verses in this libretto.

The rage of the priest becomes uncontrollable he rushes forth from his hiding-place-buries his stiletto in the bosom of Phœbus, and disappears; at the same moment the concealed men enter the room-accuse the Esmeralda of assassination, and carry her off to justice.

At the opening of the fourth act the Esmeralda is in prison-in the midst of her chains and misery she sings a romance of some beauty and of great resignation. The priest enters, and his proffers of life and liberty-their sole condition being that she will accept his heart-are rejected with scorn. The Egyptian is firm to her purpose, and true to her love as to her hate. Still it is easy to produce such characters-villany and crime, when allied to the power of doing evil, are suceptible of an infinite variety of complications. The reason of this is that the catalogue of sins and of their divers phases is infinite,-while virtue and the more beautiful attributes of our nature are of exquisite simplicity-like light, or the colourless white, they are enumerated in a word, while language fails in describing the shades of darkness or of colour.

The prison walls receding, disclose the square before Notre