Ils sont sourds et muets, et n'ont plus autre soin,
Que de haster le pas, et s'enfuir bien loin.
J'empoigne mon espieu, dont le fer qui flamboye
Devant mon estomach, me découvre la voye ;
Je descens jusqu'au bord, où soudain j'appercoy
Le grand lion patu, qui decoche vers moy,
Dégorgeant un tel cri de sa gorge beante
Que toute la forest en resonne tremblante,
Qu' Hymette en retentist, et que les rocs, qui sont
Au bord Thriasien, en sourcillent le front.
Ferme je me roidis, adossé d'une souche,
Avancé d'une jambe, et à deux bras je couche
Droit à luy mon espieu, prest de luy traverser
La gorge où l'estomach, s'il se cuide avancer.
Mais las peu me servit cette brave asseurance!
Car luy sans faire cas du fer que je luy lance,
Non plus que d'un festu que j'eusse eu dans la main,
Me l'arrache de force, et le rompt tout soudain ;
Me renverse sous luy, me trainace et me coule,
Aussi facilement qu'il eust fait d'une boule.

Jà ses griffes fondoient dans mon estomac nu,
L'escartelant sous luy comme un poulet menu
Qu'un milan a ravi sous l'aisle de sa mere,
Et le va déchirant de sa griffe meurtriere;
Quand, vaincu du tourment, je jette un cri si haut,
Que j'en laisse mon songe, et m'éveille en sursaut,
Si froid et si tremblant, si glacé par la face,
Par les bras, par le corps, que je n'estoy que glace.
Je fu long temps ainsi dans mon lict estendu,
Regardant çà et là comme un homme esperdu,
Que l'esprit, la memoire, et le sens abandonne,
Qui ne sçait ce qu'il est, ne cognoist plus personne,
Immobile, insensible, etourdé, qui n'a plus
De pensement en luy qui ne soit tout confus.

Mais las! ce n'est encor tout ce qui m'espouvante,
Tout ce qui me chagrine, et mon ame tourmente;
Ce n'est pas cela seul qui me fait tellement
Craindre je ne sçay quoy de triste evenement!
J'ay le coeur trop hardy pour estre fait la proye
D'un songe deceveur; cela seul ne m'effroye;
Le songe ne doit pas estre cause d'ennuy,

Tant foible est son pouvoir quand il n'y a que luy :

Ce n'est qu'un vain semblant, qu'un fantosme, une image,
Qui nous trompe en dormant, et non pas un presage.
Depuis quatre ou cinq nuicts le hibou n'a jamais
Cessé de lamenter au haut de ce palais,

Et mes chiens aussitost qu'ils sont en leurs estables
Comme loups par les bois heurlent espouvantables;
Les tours de ce chasteau noircissent de corbeaux ;
Jour et nuict aperchez sepulcraliers oiseaux,
Et n'en veulent partir, ores qu'on les dechasse,
Si ce n'est quand je sors pour aller à la chasse;
Car alors tous ensemble ils decampent des tours,
Et croassant sur moy m'accompagnent tousiours,
Bavolant çà et là, comme une espesse nuë
Qui vogue parmi l'aïr, du Soleil soustenue. (P. 247.

Already doth the goddess of the dawn
Peer forth, and ruddy Phoebus following

Makes the night torches flare; his pawing coursers
Scatter down light on all earth's animals
That do but wait them, and the beetling cliffs
Grow amber with the chariot of the God
Whom they spy coming. O fair beaming Sun!
Bright Planet, that dost push thy subtle beams
Through the dun night! great golden-tressed God,
Who with thy luminous wand mine eyes uncharming,

Extinguishest the errour of vain dreams,
That all this troublous night have haunted me;
Hail to thee, Father! and again all hail
To thee, thy car and steeds, and beams of gold.
Methought in sleep I wander'd all alone
Through a deep forest, where I oft resort,
Into a valley, which a thousand trees,
With their tall antlers girdling, shut from day.
I stood in darkness, yet not darkness such
As in full night by slumber companied;
But as when late at evening, after Sol
Has quite withdrawn his visage, and yet leaves
A light, that seemeth neither night nor day,
But both conjoin'd. And in that shadowy vale,
Upon my right methought there was a cave,
Moss-lined, and mantled with a shaggy vine.
Four of my dogs at random enter'd it,
Four stout Molossians of right warlike breed;
But scarcely had they dived into its jaws,
When a fierce lion met them. Such a beast,
So large, so massive, and so full of dread,
Amid the wilds of Taurus never stabled.
His eyes of fire glared like two beacon torches
In a dim sky. His big and fleshy neck,

And his wide brawny chest, were swoln and bristled
With a rough matted fell: his throat was horrible,
And horrible his teeth, within the maw

Ranged like to monstrous spikes. My dogs, alert
And hardy as they were, no sooner spy'd him,
Than they sprang out in terrour, and did run
Up to me, quaking, out of breath, and yelping
With a shrill feeble wail. Soon as I see them
Thus cow'd, I strive to hearten them again;
But their slack courage rallies not a jot;
And by how much the more I tarre them on,
They, more afear'd, recoil. As a brave leader,
That sees his people routed, and the enemy
Dogging their heels, cries out, exhorts, persuades,
Entreats them to return and face the foe:
But bootless all; in vain he promises,

In vain he threatens; they have lost their daring,
Are deaf, and mute, and dream but of their flight.
I grasp my pike, whose iron tip advanced

Glistens before me, and informs my path.
Then, on the brink arriving, I perceive

The mighty lion, that with out-stretch'd paws
Darts on me, uttering from open throat
So dread a roar, that all the forest shook,
And from Hymettus the redoubled cry
Echoed, and on Thriasian shores the rocks

Arch'd their steep brows in wonder. Firm I stand,
Stiffen each nerve, against a trunk my back

Prop, and, one leg outstretch'd, on either arm

Right towards him couch my pike, ready to pierce
His gorge or entrails, if he dared advance.

But he no more account had of my spear
Than if I had been armed with a straw;

Seized it and snapp'd in twain; then suddenly
Upset me under him, drags on, and rolls me

As easily as he had done a ball.

Already were his clutches in my breast, Ripping me up like to a tiny bird,

That from its mother's wing a kite hath ravish'd,
And rends in pieces with his murderous claws;
When by the torment vanquish'd, I so loud :
Shriek'd out, that I broke off my dream, and waking,
Leap'd up, so chill, so trembling, and so frozen,
My face, and arms, and body, were but ice.

Thus on my bed long time I lay extended
Gazing around me like a man distract,
Who, reft of thought, and memory, and sense,
Wots neither what he is, nor better knows
Other beside himself; a motionless clod,
And heap of mere confusedness within.

Nor this, alas! the whole of what I fear,
Or that doth fill my spirit with strange boding
Of some unknown event. I have a heart
Too stout to be the prey of a false dream.
This is not all that frays me; for a dream
Should not itself be cause of our annoy;
Since 'tis no more than a vain empty shadow,
And no presagement of the thing to come.
These four or five nights past, the owlet ne'er
Hath ceased lamenting on our palace roof;
And, soon as in their kennel stall'd, my hounds
Howl like to forest wolves. Our castle towers
Are black with ravens, perched night and day;
Sepulchral birds, that will not quit their seat,
Though driven, save when I go forth to hunt;
And then it seems as all took wing at once
From the steep battlements, and, croaking round me,
Accompanied my steps this way and that,
Flapping their dismal pennons in mid air,
Self-balanced, like a thick and low-hung cloud.

The lively song of the attendant sportsmen tends to dispel these horrors. It must be owned, that there is something in all this more to our English taste; in short, that it has more of character and of picturesque effect, than the opening of Racine's Phedre, in which the tutor of Hippolytus is trying to extort from his pupil a confession of his being enamoured of Aricia, which a little prudery alone restrains him from avowing.

Il n'en faut point douter, vous aimez, vous
brûlez,

Vous périssez d'un mal que vous dissimulez.
La charmante Aricie a-t-elle sû vous plaire?
Hippolyte. Théramene, je pars, et vais

chercher mon pere.

The young prince, though a votary of Diana herself, if he had not had a mistress would have appeared more savage than any of the wild beasts he hunted, in the eyes of that court, where, as Voltaire tells us, the prime minister himself could not be without one. In the next scene the judgment of Racine led him to follow Euripides, though he has done it

most timidly, and with a sacred horror of the bold and passionate imagery of the Greek. In his preface,' acknowledging his obligations to that writer for the conception of Phedra's character, he tells us, that he believes he had never exhibited any thing so reasonable on the stage. "Quand je ne lui devrois que la seule idée du caractere de Phedre, je pourrois dire que je lui dois ce que j'ai peut-être mis de plus raisonnable sur le théatre." And to her reason indeed it must be allowed he has brought her in the straitwaistcoat of his alexandrines; for the poor queen raves no more, as she had formerly done in her palace at Athens, about dewy fountains, pure waters, poplars, tufted meadows, pinetrees, beast-slaughtering hounds, spotted stags, and Thessalian spears; about Diana mistress of the sea-lake, and Venetian horses; but talks as a lady might be supposed to talk, who had lived the greater part of her life at Paris, and was subject to be at times a little flighty.

O fontaine Dircee! & fleuve Ismene! ô prez!
O forests! ô costaux! ô bords de sang pourprez!
O soleil jaunissant lumiere de ce monde !

O Thebes, mon pays, d'hommes guerriers feconde,
Et maintenant fertile en dure cruauté,
Contrainte je vous laisse et votre royauté !

Hà, je sçay que bientost sortant de ma caverne,
Je vous verray, mon pere, au profond de l'Averne!

Je vous verray, ma mere, esclandreuse Iocaste,
Je verray Eteocle, et le gendre d'Adraste,
N'agueres devalez sur le noir Acheron,

Et ne passez encor par le nocher Charon.

"The master-piece of Seneca," says Dryden, in his treatise on Dramatic Poesy, "I hold to be that scene in the Troades, where Ulysses is seeking for Astyanax to kill him. There you see the tenderness of a mother represented in Andromache."

Adieu, brigade armée; adieu, cheres compagnes,
Je m'en vay lamenter sous les sombres campagnes :
J'entre vive en ma tombe, où languira mon corps

Mort et vif, esloigné des vivans et des morts. (P. 478.)

Instead of a translation of these lines, I will add an attempt which I once made to compress the original into a few Latin elegiacs.

Hos viva Antigone, jamjam subitura sepulchrum,
Thebas respiciens, fudit ab ore sonos.

Sancta vale sedes, comitesque valete puellæ,
Et tu Dircæi fluminis unda vale.

Nunc licet extremûm patrias insistere terras;
Nunc licet extremo munere luce frui.
Intereo misera, amplexûs ignara mariti:
Turbavit pompas mors, Hymenæe, tuas.
At nec poeniteat vitales luminis oras

Linquere, et inferni visere regna Dei;
Sic cari potero vultus agnoscere fratris,

Sic umbræ occurrent ora paterna meæ.
Adsum, clamabo; generisque miserrima nostri,
Fato Labdacidæ stirpe creata probor.

The subject of the next tragedy, entitled, Les Juiffes, the Jewish women, is taken from the Bible (II Kings, xxiv. xxv.) Act 1. The prophet deplores the defeat of the Jews. The chorus sing a hymn on the fall of man and on the deluge. Act 2. Nebuchadnezzar, after an arrogant speech, equalling himself to the Almighty, declares to Nebuzara

dan, captain of the guard, his inten-
tion to punish with death the rebel-
lion of the king of the Jews, from
which that officer in vain endeavours
to dissuade him. A chorus on the
mischiefs resulting from the Jewish
connection with Egypt. Hamutal,
mother of Zedekiah, bewailing her
desolate condition, with the Jewish
women.

Ne viendra point le jour que mes langeurs je noye
Dans un sombre tombeau, faite des vers la proye?
Helas! je croy que non, il y a trop long temps
Qu'en vain je le reclame, et qu'en vain je l'attens.
Non, il ne viendra point, ma peine est perdurable,
La mort prompte au secours ne m'est point secourable:
Elle me fuit peureuse, et n'ose m'approcher,
Son dard, qui ne craint rien, a peur de me toucher.
Elle craint les malheurs où je languis confite,
Ou pense qu'immortelle en ce monde j'habite,
Que j'y erre à jamais, m'ayant l'ire de Dieu,
Comme dans un enfer, confinee en ce lieu. (P. 517.)
Will there not come a day, when I may whelm
In the dark tomb my sorrows, made the prey
For worms? Alas! I think, 'twill never come
Long time it is since I call for't in vain,
In vain expect it. Oh! my pains are lasting.
E'en death, the general helper, helps not me.
Trembling he flees away, nor ventures near me:
His dart, that knows no terror, dares not touch me.
He fears the evils that enclose me round;
Or thinks I dwell immortal in this world,
Sent by God's wrath to wander up and down
Within this place of torment, as my hell.
The Assyrian Queen commise-
rates her misfortunes, and tries with
much delicacy and tenderness to
comfort her. The chorus sing a fare
well to their native country.-Act 3.
While the Queen is interceding with
Nebuchadnezzar for the Jews, Ha-

a

mutal and the wives of Zedekiah enter; and at their supplications, the Assyrian king at length makes treacherous promise of mercy. The chorus sing a hymn from the psalm By the Waters of Babylon, &c."Act 4. Seraiah, the chief priest, re

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