CLASSIC MODELS.

FULL and complete justice being rendered to suavities of pencilling and harmony, I must say that the works of the romantic era gain much in being quoted by extracts. A few pages fertile in beauty are generally interspersed through a mass of barrenness. To read Shakspeare from beginning to end is to fulfil a pious but wearisome duty to departed genius. The cantos of Dante form a rhymed chronicle in which beauty of diction does not always compensate for dulness. The merit of the monuments of classic literature is of a contrary kind. It consists in the perfection of the whole and the just proportion of parts.

There is another truth which must likewise be acknowledged. All Shakspeare's young female

characters are formed on one model.

They are all mere girls, and, setting apart the shades of difference between the characters of daughter, lover, and wife, they all resemble each other as closely as twin sisters; nay, have the same smile, the same look, the same tone of voice. If we could forget their names and close our eyes, we should not know which of them was speaking-their language is more elegiac than dramatic. These charming sketches are like the outlines traced by Raphael, when a figure of celestial beauty suggested itself to his genius: but Raphael converted the sketch into a picture, whilst Shakspeare contented himself with his first unfinished pencillings, and did not always take time to paint.

We must not compare the Ossianic shadows of the English stage-those victims so full of tenderness and fortitude, who allowed themselves to be sacrificed like courageous lambswe must not compare the Delias of Tibullus, the Charicleas of Heliodorus with the heroines of the Greek and French drama, who of themselves sustain the whole weight of a tragedy. Happy situations, striking effects, and touches of beauty scattered here and there, are widely different from parts sustained from begining to end with equal superiority, and strongly drawn

characters, occupying their proper places in the picture. The Desdemonas, Juliets, Ophelias, Perditas, Cordelias, Mirandas, are not like Antigone, Electra, Iphigenia Phædra, Andromache, Chimene, Roxana, Monimia, Berenice, or Esther, nor can they be compared even with Zaire or Amenaide. A few phrases of deep passion, more or less beautifully expressed in poetic prose, cannot be pronounced equal to the same sentiments clothed in the pure language of the Gods. Let us take for example, Iphigenia's appeal to her father :

Peut-être assez d'honneurs environnaient ma vie,
Pour ne pas souhaiter qu'elle me fût ravie,

Ni qu'en me l'arrachant un sévère destin

Si près de ma naissance en eût marqué la fin.
Fille d'Agamemnon, c'est moi qui la première,
Seigneur, vous appelai de ce doux nom de père.

Hélas! avec plaisir je me faisais conter
Tous les noms des pays que vous allez dompter;
Et déjà d'Ilion présageant la conquête,

D'un triomphe si beau je préparais la fête.

And the beautiful lines delivered by Monimia :

Si tu m'aimais, Phœdime, il fallait me pleurer,
Quand d'un titre funeste on me vint honorer,
Et lorsque m'arrachant du doux sein de la Grèce
Dans ce climat barbare on traîna ta maîtresse.

Retourne maintenant chez les peuples heureux ;
Et si mon nom encor s'est conservé chez eux,
Dis-leur ce que tu vois, et de toute ma gloire,
Phœdime, conte-leur la malheureuse histoire.

Can the ballad of the Willow compete with this complaint, issuing from the sweet bosom of Greece?

If we wish to compare the more violent conflicts of the soul with the love of Juliet and Desdemona, we may select the following passage in which Paulina replies to Polyeucte who advises her to return to Severus.

Que t'ai-je fait, cruel, pour être ainsi traitée,
Et pour me reprocher, au mépris de ma foi,
Un amour si puissant que j'ai vaincu pour toi?

Souffre que de toi-même elle obtienne ta vie,
Pour vivre sous tes lois à jamais asservie.

Polyeucte is gone to death, to glory, and Paulina says to Felix

Mon époux, en mourant, m'a laissé ses lumières ;
Son sang, dont tes bourreaux viennent de me couvrir,
M'a dessillé les yeux, et me les vient d'ouvrir.
Je vois, je sais, je crois, je suis désabusée,
De ce bienheureux sang tu me vois baptisée ;
Je suis chrétienne !

Can any thing be finer than this conflict of all the affections of human nature, in the midst of which the Deity intervenes, to create miraculously a new passion, religious enthusiasm in the heart of Paulina ? On reading this we feel ourselves raised to a region loftier than the earth in which Desdemona and Juliet dwelt. Paulina's Je suis chrétienne is like a declaration of love in heaven!

Then again Chimene! But it would be requisite to quote the whole part to afford any idea of its beauty. Corneille compounded the characters of the Cid and Chimene of a union of honour, filial piety, and love.

J'aimais, j'étais aimée, et nos pères d'accord;
Et je vous en contais la première nouvelle

Au malheureux moment que naissait leur querelle.

The passion, the excitement, and the dramatic interest kindle and encrease from scene to scene to the famous line,

Sors vainqueur d'un combat dont Chimène est le prix !

which precedes that exclamation of exultation, courage, pride, and glory,

Paraissez, Navarrois, Maures et Castillans!