ng the preparation of
_Esther_,

giving advice full of sense and taste on the manner
of reciting his verses, never breaking their harmony
by a vulgar diction, nor hurting the sense by a wrong
emphasis. What a charm must the verses where
Esther recounts the history of her triumph over her
rivals have had in the mouth of Mademoiselle de
Veillanne, the prettiest and most graceful of the
pupils of St. Cyr! How grand he must have been,
when, with that noble figure which Louis XIV. admired,
he taught Mademoiselle de Glapion, whose
voice went to the heart, to declaim the beautiful
verses of the part of Mordecai!

The genius of Racine glows finely in _Esther._ In the choruses,
the inspirations of the Hebrew prophets, framed as it were in a Greek
mould, give impressive relief to the dialogue, as in Sophocles and
Aeschylus. It was played several times, and no favour was more envied
at the Court than an invitation to the representations. The literature
of the time has many allusions to them. The splendid world, in all its
lace and powder, crowded to the quiet convent. The great soldiers,
the wits, the beautiful women were all there. The king and Madame de
Maintenon sat in stiff dignity in the foreground. The appliances were
worthy of the magnificent Court. In Oriental attire of silk sweeping
to their feet, set off with pearl and gold, the loveliest girls of
France declaimed and sang the sonorous verse. It is really one of the
most innocent and charming pictures that has come down to us of this
age, when so much was hollow, pompous, and cruel.

Hamlet says to Polonius, "My lord, you played once in the university,
you say." To which Polonius replies, "That I did, my lord, and was
accounted a good actor. I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed in the
Capitol." Do not suppose, Fastidiosus, that the playing of Polonius
was any such light affair as you and I used to be concerned in up in
the fourth story of "Stoughton," when we were members of the Hasty
Pudding. In the Middle Ages, in convents and churches, flourished the
mysteries; but, says Warton, in the _History of English Poetry_,
as learning increased, the practice of acting plays went over to the
schools and universities. Before the sixteenth century we may find
traces of dramatic vitality among the great English seminaries; but if
the supposition of Huber, in his account of English universities,
is correct, the real founder of the college drama in E