and
follows, I am constrained to say, a very well-conceived scene,--'tis
another appeal to filial love. The Jew would own his son, but he
remembers that it would injure the son, and so he keeps silent. I
declare, there is something eminently beautiful in the idea of making
the Jew yield his wealth up to Andronic, and saying he will wander from
Venice,--his staff his only wealth. And when, as he stoops to kiss his
son's hand, Ginevra (who of course has come on with the rest) makes a
gesture as though she feared treachery, the few words put into the Jew's
mouth are full of pathos and poetry.

And so down comes the curtain,--the piece meeting with the full approval
of Chorus, who applauded till I thought he would snap his hands off at
the wrists.

"A very moral play," said a stout gentleman behind me,--who had done
little else all night but break into the fiercest of apples and
pears,--"a very moral play,"--meaning thereby, probably, that it was
very moral that a Jew's child should remain a Christian.

Now there were some good points in that play; but, oh, thou M. Ferdinand
Dugue, thou,--why didst thou challenge comparison with a man who wrote
for all theatres for all times?

* * * * *

THE POET'S SINGING.

In heat and in cold, in sunshine and rain,
Bewailing its loss and boasting its gain,
Blessing its pleasure and cursing its pain,
The hurrying world goes up and down:
Every avenue and street
Of city and town
Are veins that throb with the restless beat
Of the eager multitude's trampling feet.
Men wrangle together to get and hold
A sceptre of power or a crock of gold;
Blaspheming God's name with the breath He gave,
And plotting revenge on the brink of the grave!
And Fashion's followers, flitting after,
O'ertake and pass the funeral train,
Thoughtlessly scattering jests and laughter,
Like sharp, quick showers of hail and rain,
To beat on the hearts that are bleeding with pain!
And many who stare at the close-shut hearse
Envy the dead within,--or, worse,
Turn away with a keener zest
To grapple and revel and sin with the rest!
While far apart in a bower of green,
Unheeded, unseen,
A warbling bird on the topmost bough
Merrily pipes to the Poet below,
Asking an answer as gay, I trow!
But he hears the surging waves without,--
The heartless jeer, and the wild, wild shout:
The ceaseless clamor, the cruel strife
Mak