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present in the green-room, both as regards rank, literature, and art.

He was, however, in no way dismayed; the overture was played, and the curtain rose upon the "MERCHANT OF VENICE." As soon as he entered, it was evident, at a glance, why he had selected the character of Shylock, the Jew, for his inaugural representation. The long robes concealed all the defects of stature, and it was left alone to countenance and voice to depict one of Shakespeare's nicest and most subtle of conceptions. But the first act passed over without exciting much attention; the little man having been listened to, which was all that he desired. In the second act, his originality began to be observed, and critics discovered that a new Shylock was appearing before them. In the third act, the perfection of the conception, and the truth of the delineation, were made more and more apparent, and long before it was finished, the whole house was wrapt in breathless suspense. It was by this time evident that a great master of histrionic art was placing before his audience, in its true light, one of the most exquisite creations of Shakespeare's genius. In the fourth act, the fall of a pin might have been heard, save when thunders of applause deafened the ear, as the little man made each point more telling than its predecessor. Towards the conclusion of the play, the audience rose, as if with one accord, and, amidst such a tumult of acclamation as had never before been heard within the walls of Drury Lane Theatre, the curtain fell upon the Shylock of Edmund Kean! When he returned to his dressing-room, it was full of the grand, the gay, and the great; but he who had been despised but a few hours previously, disdaining their proffered courtesies, hurried off to his humble home, and, for the moment, forgot his triumph in the endearments of his wife and the caresses of his child!

In the eighteenth century, the profession of literature was established upon a secure and permanent basis. We cannot, however, do more than glance at the great names which shed glory and lustre upon the history of their country. Ramsay, Pope, Addison, Swift, Fielding,

Johnson, Goldsmith, and Burns, rendered the literature of England classical, while Watt, Stewart, and Smith made discoveries in science, philosophy, and political economy, which have since revolutionised the world. In logic, induction was rendered more subtle, analysis more searching, and combination more complete. Discoveries in chemistry revealed to us new elements, new gases, new acids, new alkalies, new earths, and new metals. Geology disclosed to us new rocks, new strata, and new periods of change-all tending to the elevation of the reasoning powers, and to a higher appreciation of the wondrous works of Nature.

In the realms of literature, Burns excited the greatest degree of attention. He was a peasant poet, and he burst upon the world brilliant and erratic as a comet. He came with a soul brimming over with nature, and an eye that looked straight into the heart of truth. came with his merry song, and rich ringing laugh-a great-hearted ploughman, in his natural kingliness, with his dark, flashing eyes, brawny frame, and wealthy nature. He came to give

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us intense and direct earnestness for maudlin sentimentality, and fresh and vigorous life, with its yearnings and aspirations, its doubts and fears, its sorrows and delights, its healthy play of muscles, strain of nerves, and fine flesh and bloodfulness, in the place of debility, indolence, and decay. He came to set up simple, noble manhood in the throne so long usurped by shams and hypocrites. And, like a king of nature's own grand crowning, he took his way right on through the crowd of pigmies and upstarts, the pretensions and apologies of men that thronged his century, to ascend the sphere of song, which had so long swung dark and empty, awaiting his coming. came with a heart welling over with tenderness and love for the suffering and sorrowing poor, and opened his generous nature to them, like a land flowing with milk and honey. He loved our loves, hoped our hopes, wept our tears, enjoyed our joys, and lived our round of experiences. He came, large of soul, and affluent, scattering his treasures over the world broadcast, singing his songs and thick-coming strains of

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music as though he would never be able to give the world one-half of what was stirring within him, before he should be hurried away. He sang; and the genuine feelings of the human heartthe primary emotions of the human soul, came gushing out of that warm rich nature of his, with all the freshness of water from a crystal spring, and all the beauty of a rainbow.

Although his memory has been abused, and his faults laid bare, yet we cannot perceive that he was a greater sinner than his neighbours. His vices were those of a man, and his virtues those of an angel. The age in which he lived was neither remarkable for its virtue nor its sobriety, and in his case, we are of opinion that if there had been no temptation, his faults and follies would have been fewer than they were. To the detractors of Burns, however, we can only recommend the perusal of his own magnificent lines, in which, without offering any excuse for vice, he asks mankind to judge kindly of each other:

"Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human.

One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving why they do it:
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.
Who made the heart? 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;

He knows each chord-its various tone,
Each spring-its various bias.
Then at the balance let's be mute,

We never can adjust it;

What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted."

Although he died in poverty and in misery, yet his genius shone bright to the last; he entertained no fears regarding his future fame. "A hundred years hence, Jean," he said to his wife, "people will do me justice"; and the centenary of his birth-day verified the prediction. It has been urged by his calumniators that he was a bad husband, but the testimony of his widow proved the contrary; he was accused of having been an indifferent parent, but his sons removed the slander which defaced their father's tomb ; and, finally, he was denounced as having been a deist and a free-thinker—a reproach which the piety of his greatest poems belied, and

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Burns was to the eighteenth, what Byron was to the nineteenth, century; and the history of their lives is nearly similar. They were both the slaves of pride and passion, and they both died, wearied with existence, in the flower of their age, the one at Dumfries, and the other at Missilonghi. Like Burns, Byron was grossly maligned in life, and only appreciated in death. His sister Augusta seems to have been the only one who thoroughly understood the greatest poet England ever produced, with the exception of William Shakespeare and John Milton; and in the touching lines he addressed to her, he shows how terribly his heart was lacerated, not only by the insults of the world, but by the severance of dear and holy ties, which eventually broke his heart, and precipitated his death. In the following lines we have the key to the whole of Byron's misanthropy :

"THOUGH the day of my destiny's over,

And the star of my fate hath declined, Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted,
It never hath found but in thee.

Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,

It is that they bear me from thee.

Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:"
They may crush, but they shall not con-

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Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one;
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
"Twas folly not sooner to shun :
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd,

Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd Deserved to be dearest of all :

In the desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee."

There is probably nothing more mournfully and desolately beautiful in the whole range of Byron's poetry than these verses. Posterity will, however, do justice to Byron, as they have done to Burns, and the genius of both well be cherished in the hearts of unborn millions, when their faults and follies will have disappeared,

"Like the snow-flake in the riverA moment seen, then lost for ever!" Upon the genius of Scott, and the numerous other brilliant contemporaries of Lord Byron, it is unnecessary to dwell. Their names are familiar as household words, and their works are to be found in the book-case of the peasant as well as in the library of the peer. Neither need we linger amongst the noble band of living writers, who are not only dignifying the order of thought, but elevating still higher the profession of literature. We think that in tracing the rise and progress of literature from the midnight darkness of the Past to the meridian splendour of the Present, we have sufficiently proved that the profession of the public writer is as noble and exalted as any other in the world..

The profession of literature has not only materially assisted to advance the intelligence of Man, but it has effected revolutions in the physie cal, the moral, and the political worlds. Old things have passed away, and all things have become new. Subduing nature to his sway, Man has well-nigh realised the fabled feats of the heathen mythology. Distance is a physical fact he cannot altogether annihilate ; but it

is one which he has condensed and modified till he would seem to have in reality begun the process of its annihilation. Not only does he make the lightning his messenger, carrying his thoughts to the most distant corners of a continent, almost as rapidly as he utters them; but this captive element he compels to print the very messages it is enforced to convey. Nor does he limit his demands on this mysterious agency to the execution of such behests. He orders it to diffuse through his cities, at midnight, the subdued light of a milder noon. Already has electricity been successfully applied to the production of steam; and already has it been made to supply the motive power for the development of which steam was once held to be indispensable. The artisan has summoned it to his workshop, and compelled it to perform processes which were wont to be inimical to health, and life; the artist drags it into his studio, and orders it to multiply without end the productions of genius. The horologist, too, claims it for a familiar spirit, and bids it note, and record to man, the fleeting hours as they pass.

But we need not proceed with our enumeration of the triumphs of the present age, nor dwell on the discoveries of science, which-jostling each other so fast that the scribe can with difficulty record them-are so overwhelming in their nature as to inspire us with awe, while they fire us with admiration. Neither need we expatiate on the progress of art, so marvellous as well nigh to create incredulity in those to whom it is narrated; nor speak of the Lethean Vase, which has divested human life of one of its most dreaded calamities. We have said enough to show that the triumphs of human genius, in industry, science, and art, have been mainly, if not entirely, achieved by members of the profession of literature, who, in the midst of difficulties, dangers, privations, and miseries, still struggled on, toiled on, and hoped on, for the advent of the day when their order would not only be recognised, but honoured by a sovereign for whom, as the dramatist has said, a Milton might have sung, and a Hampden have died!

The Pilgrim of St. Just.

[From the German of PLATEN.]

"'Tis night, and loud and fierce the storm doth roar :
Ye Monks of Spain, pray open me the door.

Here let me rest, till roused by Matin bell,
Then for the Church I leave my narrow cell.
Prepare for me what is to all allowed,

A coffin, bed, and serge robe for a shroud.

Grudge me not my request-a little room :

Half the world once from me received its doom!

`This head, which 'neath the scissors now bows down,
Has been adorned with many a royal crown;

These shoulders, which now cope and hood would bear,
Did once a purple robe and ermine wear.

Now, before death, I myself dead may call,

And, like the ancient realm, in ruin fall!

S.

These lines, literally translated from the German of Aug. Von Platen, refer to Charles V., who laid aside the crowns of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Milan, Naples, and the West Indies, and retired to the Monastery of St. Just, in Estremadura, in the North of Spain, where he died in 1558, after a residence of two years.

THE TWO INDIANS.*

[From the German of SCHUBERT.] AT the southern part of Arabia Petræa is a peninsula formed by the two branches into which the Red Sea is divided. In this district Horeb extends its lofty chain of mountains, the highest of which is called Sinai. In the side of this sacred mountain, a cave is shown at the present day, in which two friends,

who remained faithful to each other till death, formerly dwelt. In the garden of the Convent of St. Catharine, on Horeb, beneath the shade of cypresses, the bones of these two men repose, in the common burying-vault of the monks. Here also are preserved the remains of a coat of mail, and the iron fetters which they wore, until they obtained inward peace and freedom as well as outward liberty. I will relate the history of the two friends, as I heard it from the Arabs who frequent Mount Horeb,

A story translated from the German of G. Schubert, a Prussian writer little known in England.

whose account agreed in all respects with that preserved in the convent.

Nanna and Vipasa, for so were the two men named before they received in Christian baptism the names of Timoborn and accustomed to the yoke of theus and Basileus, were by no means slavery, but to the station of princes. They were sons of two Indian kings. Nanna's ancestors had zealously pronoble race from which Vipasa sprang pagated Islamism by the sword; the dwelt in the lofty mountains, and had never been subject to a foreign yoke. Vipasa, with his countrymen, lived in the worship of the Hindoos.

In no country has the crime of shedding innocent blood been spread so widely as in India-it will have to give a fearful account at the great day of reckoning.

Hindoos, beyond all other nations, to It seems to be the destiny of the mild tation of a better to come. Frequently suffer patiently in this world, in expecan attempt is made, by the remnants of a crushed and destroyed princely race, to resist the foreign destroyer. This was

the case when Nanna and Vipasa first became acquainted with each other: a treaty was made by several of the petty Indian princes in the mountainous regions, with those of the plain country, to stop in their career a mighty hostile power rushing from the north-west.

The two young princes fought, in that day of bloody slaughter, in the foremost ranks. When their forces were obliged to yield to the vigorous attacks of the enemy, they were the first to suffer imprisonment. Vipasa was severely wounded. The Mahomedan, Nanna, was lifted from beneath his horse, which was slain in the battle. The wounds inflicted by the hands of their foes were scarcely healed, when a much harder fate than the loss of a battle awaited the two prisoners they were chained on board one of the vessels which were to convey the chiefs of the victorious host, with a troop of warriors, on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

One small consolation only remained to the two Indians—that one and the same chain bound them to their work at the oars. Their condition was one in which it was impossible for the heart not to long earnestly after the quiet of the grave, and not to wish each morning and evening that it might be the last of life.

Nanna's lot was still harder than that of Vipasa, for this latter bore his inevitable fate with patience and resignation, while the former aggravated his misery by impatience and despair. "You Hindoos," said he to his companion-" from whom everything has been taken which can render life joyful and honorable, appear to me to lead a life of imagination rather than of reality. In the midst of scorn and insult, heaped upon you by others, you dream that you are sharing the joys of Paradise!"

"I have indeed a subject of joy," answered Vipasa," the hope of a Paradise such as thy Islamism has never described to thee, nor the instructions of the Brahmins to me. I have also other expectations than those held out to either of us by the teachers of our youth: Nanna! here, in the fetters of a slave, and in danger of death, do I dare to confess that, if not yet by outward

confession, still in the faith of my heart, I am a Christian!"

The brow of the young Mahomedan prince was clouded with wrath. "Silence!" cried he-" thou contemptible one ! Wouldst those exchange the venerable faith of thy ancestors, which formerly was our own, for that of a sect named after a crucified malefactor? Thank my generosity, that I do not make known to our foes, in their language, what thou hast made known to me in our native tongue, which is unintelligible to them then indeed would punishment await thee for thy crime !"

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The master of the slaves had remarked the high tone of the indignant man, without understanding the meaning of his words. He punished the companions in slavery with strokes of a whip, on account of their supposed quarrel, and Nanna was silent, with illsuppressed fury.

From this day Vipasa lost the favour of his formerly so friendly countryman. Nanna considered his companion scarcely worthy of a word, and even took every opportunity of showing the hatred which he, from a child, had felt against all Christians, by ill-natured actions. In order that his patient companion might be removed from him by death, if no other means would suffice, he wounded himself with a nail, which he found at the bottom of the boat, and then complained that the innocent Vipasa had injured him; but he, when his quiet denial was not believed, bore all the ill-treatment he received with silent patience. Nanna's wish was not fulfilled, for he was again fastened with the same chain as his heavily injured companion.

This passion glowing in his heart, together with the grievances and privations of slavery, moved the young Mahomedan so deeply, that he fell into a serious illness. Then the spirit which was in Vipasa showed itself in full force. He nursed and attended upon the sick man with unwearied tenderness in order that his friend might have a comfortable place, he himself slept at night in a cramped position at his feet; he listened to every breath of his patient; he endured himself, all day, the pain of thirst, in

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