shall not say a word about that as long as I live,” says I.

Fra. There you were very right. Did you carry him much money.

Pet. I don't know; I didn't count it. It was in a bit of a green purse. Mayhap it may be some little matter that she has scraped together in the last fortnight.

Fra. And why just in the last fortnight?

Pet. Because, about a fortnight since, I carried him some money before.

Fra. From Mrs. Haller?

1

Pet. Ay, sure; who else, think you? Father's not such a fool. He says it is our bounden duty, as Christians, to take care of our money, and not give any thing away, especially in summer; for then, says he, there's herbs and roots enough in conscience to satisfy all the reasonable hungry poor. But I say father's wrong, and Mrs. Haller right.

Fra. Yes, yes.-But this Mrs. Haller seems a strange woman, Peter ?

Pet. Ay, at times she is plaguy odd. Why she'll sit and cry you a whole day through, without any one's knowing why. Ay, and yet, somehow or other, whenever she cries I always cry too-without knowing why.

Fra. [To the STRANGER.] Are you satisfied?
Stra. Rid me of that babbler.

Fra. Good day, Master Peter.

Pet. You're not going yet, are you?

Fra. Mrs. Haller will be waiting for an answer. Pet. So she will. And I have another place or two to call at. [Takes off his hat to STRANGER.] Servant, sir!

Stra. Pshaw!

Pet. Pshaw! What-he's angry? [PETER turns to FRANCIS in a half whisper.] He's angry, I suppose, because he can get nothing out of me.

Fra. It almost seems so.

Pet. Ay, I'd have him to know I'm no blab.

Fra. Now, sir?

Stra. What do you want?

Fra. Were you not wrong, sir?

Stra. Hem! wrong!

Fra. Can you still doubt?

[Exit.

Stua. I'll hear no more! Who is this Mrs. Haller? Why do I always follow her path? Go where I will, whenever I try to do good, she has always been before me.

Fra. You should rejoice at that.

Stra. Rejoice!

Fra. Surely! That there are other good and charitable people in the world beside yourself.

Stra. Oh, yes!

Fra. Why not seek to be acquainted with her? I saw her yesterday in the garden up at the Castle. Mr. Solomon, the steward, says she has been unwell, and confined to her room almost ever since we have been here. But one would not think it to look at her; for a more beautiful creature I never saw.

Stra. So much the worse. Beauty is a mask.

Fra. In her it seems a mirror of the soul. Her charities

Stra. Talk not to me of her charities. All women wish to be conspicuous :-in town by their wit; in the country by their heart.

Fra. 'Tis immaterial in what way good is done. Stra. No; 'tis not immaterial.

Fra. To this poor old man at least

Stra. He needs no assistance of mine.

Fra. His most urgent wants, indeed, Mrs. Haller has relieved; but whether she has or could have given as much as would purchase liberty for the son, the prop of his age

Stra. Silence! I will not give him a doit! [In a

peepish tone.] in his behalf.

gift.

You interest yourself very warmly Perhaps you are to be a sharer in the

Fra. Sir, sir, that did not come from your heart. Stra. [Recollecting himself.] Forgive me!

Fra. Poor master! How must the world have used you before it could have instilled this hatred of mankind, this constant doubt of honesty and virtue !

Stra. Leave me to myself!

[Throws himself on a seat; takes from his

pocket "Zimmerman on Solitude," and reads. Fra. [Aside, surveying him.] Again reading! Thus it is from morn to night. To him nature has no beauty; life no charm. For three years I have never seen him smile. What will be his fate at last? Nothing diverts him. Oh, if he would but attach himself to any living thing! Were it an animalfor something man must love.

Enter TOBIAS from the Hut.

Tob. Oh! how refreshing, after seven long weeks, to feel these warm sun-beams once again! Thanks! thanks! bounteous Heaven, for the joy I taste. [Presses his cap between his hands, looks up and prays.-The STRANGER observes him attentively.

Fra. [To the STRANGER.] This old man's share of earthly happiness can be but little; yet mark how grateful he is for his portion of it.

Stra. Because, though old, he is but a child in the leading-strings of Hope.

Fra. Hope is the nurse of life.

Stra. And her cradle is the grave.

[TOBIAS replaces his cap.

Fra. I wish you joy. I am glad to see you are so

much recovered.

Tob. Thank you.

Heaven, and the assistance of

B

4

where all was before secure, and infidelity sown where it was meant to be extirpated.

In this general failure of human perfection, the German author of this play has compassionated-and with a high, a sublime example before him—an adultress. But Kotzebue's pity, vitiated by his imperfect nature, has, it is said, deviated into vice; by restoring this woman to her former rank in life, under the roof of her injured husband.

To reconcile to the virtuous spectator this indecofum, most calamitous woes are first depicted as the consequence of illicit love. The deserted husband and the guilty wife are both presented to the audience as voluntary exiles from society: the one through poignant sense of sorrow for the connubial happiness he has lost-the other, from deep contrition for the guilt she has incurred.

The language, as well as the plot and incidents of this play, describe, with effect, those multiplied miseries which the dishonour of a wife spreads around; but draws more especially upon herself, her husband, and her children.

Kemble's emaciated frame, sunken eye, drooping head, and death-like paleness; his heart-piercing lamentation, that he trusted a friend who repaid his hospitality, by alluring from him all that his soul' held dear,"-are potent warnings to the modern

husband.

Mrs. Siddons, in Mrs. Haller, (the just martyr to

her own crimes) speaks in her turn to every married woman; and, in pathetic bursts of grief-in looks of overwhelming shame-in words of deep reproach against herself and her seducer-" conjures each wife to revere the marriage bond."

Notwithstanding all these distressful and repentant testimonies, preparatory to the reunion of this husband and wife, a delicate spectator feels a certain shudder when the catastrophe takes place,-but there is another spectator more delicate still, who never conceives, that from an agonizing, though an affectionate embrace, (the only proof of reconciliation given, for the play ends here,) any farther endearments will ensue than those of participated sadness, mutual care of their joint offspring, and to smooth each other's passage to the grave.

But should the worst suspicion of the scrupulous critic be true, and this man should actually have taken his wife "for better or for worse," as on the bridal day-can this be holding out temptation, as alleged, for women to be false to their husbands? Sure it would rather act as a preservative. What woman of common understanding and-common cowardice, would dare to dishonour and forsake her husband, if she foresaw she was ever likely to live with him again ?