uded to "the _Block-head_
service."

JAMES SILVESTER.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

* * * * *

SCENE FROM A FRENCH DRAMA.

No. XVII. of the _Foreign Quarterly Review_, contains a paper of
much interest to the playgoer as well as to the lover of dramatic
literature--on two French dramas of great celebrity--_La Marechale
d'Ancre_, by de Vigny; and _Marion Delorme_, by Victor Hugo. We quote
a scene from the former. Concini, the principal character, is a
favourite of Louis XIII.; the Marechale, his wife, has a first love,
Borgia, a Corsican, who, disappointed in his early suit by the
stratagems of Concini, has married the beautiful but uncultivated
Isabella Monti. On the conflicting feelings of this strange personage,
his hatred to the husband, and his relenting towards the wife; and the
licentious plans of Concini for the seduction of Isabella, whom he
has seen without knowing her to be the wife of his deadly enemy, the
interest of the piece is made to turn. The jealous Isabella is at last
persuaded that the Marechale has robbed her of the attachment of her
husband, and appears as a witness against her on the pretended charge
of witchcraft and sorcery.

While the Marechal, even in the dungeon of the Bastile, is awing
her oppressors into silence, bands of murderers are seeking Concini
through the streets of Paris. As he issues from the house of the
Jew which contains Isabella, he hears through the obscurity of the
tempestuous night the cries of the populace, but he thinks they are
but the indications of some passing tumult. He rests for a moment
against a pillar on the pavement, but recoils again, as from a
serpent, for he perceives it is the stone on which Ravaillac had
planted his foot when he assassinated Henry, and in that murder it is
darkly insinuated he had a share. Through the darkness of the Rue de
la Ferronnerie, Michael Borgia is seen advancing, conducting the two
children of his rival. He has promised to the Marechale to save them
from the dangers of the night, and has brought them in safety to his
own threshold. But his promise of safety extended not to Concini. The
wild ferocity of the following scene has many parallels in the actual
duels of the time, as delineated in Froissart and Brantome.

_Borgia (with the children.)_--Poor children! come in; you will be
safer here than in the houses to which they have pursued u