r, so vital and intense the movement, so
resistless, the "internal evidence," if we may call it thus, penetrating
its very substance and form, that we are swept along as by a wave of
human sympathy and grief. In contrast with "The Spagnoletto," how large
is the theme and how all-embracing the catastrophe! In place of the
personal we have the drama of the universal. Love is only a flash
now,--a dream caught sight of and at once renounced at a higher claim.

"Have you no smile to welcome love with, Liebhaid?
Why should you tremble?
Prince, I am afraid!
Afraid of my own heart, my unfathomed joy,
A blasphemy against my father's grief,
My people's agony!

"What good shall come, forswearing kith and God,
To follow the allurements of the heart?"

asks the distracted maiden, torn between her love for he princely wooer
and her devotion to the people among whom her lot has been cast.

"O God!
How shall I pray for strength to love him less
Than mine own soul!
No more of that,
I am all Israel's now. Till this cloud pass,
I have no thought, no passion, no desire,
Save for my people."

Individuals perish, but great ideas survive,--fortitude and courage,
and that exalted loyalty and devotion to principle which alone are worth
living and dying for.

The Jews pass by in procession--men, women, and children--on their way
to the flames, to the sound of music, and in festal array, carrying the
gold and silver vessels, the roll of the law, the perpetual lamp and the
seven branched silver candle-stick of the synagogue. The crowd hoot and
jeer at them.

"The misers! they will take their gems and gold
Down to the grave!"

"Let us rejoice"

sing the Jewish youths in chorus; and the maidens:--

"Our feet stand within thy gates, O Zion!
Within thy portals, O Jerusalem!"

The flames rise and dart among them; their garments wave, their jewels
flash, as they dance and sing in the crimson blaze. The music ceases, a
sound of crashing boards is heard and a great cry,--"Hallelujah!" What
a glory and consecration of the martyrdom! Where shall we find a more
triumphant vindication and supreme victory of spirit over matter?