so, Arrived in the garden, Henin took Alain to a window, and bade him look in. He did s and starting back, he exclaimed: "What do I see?" Alain had seen Jean-Marie on a couch, and sickness. The hunter fell on his knees, and thanked his Creator. was giving way to his fate. His senses were also becoming obtuse-almost indifferent to what was passing around him. But within him an inward life had become unusually active. All the scenes of his childhood passed in rapid succession before his con- his kind, good mother tending him in his sciousness-La Cochardière, his good old father, his innocent enjoyments, his corrupted youth, the vices of Paris, his duels, the Gabion, the wreck, all came and went, and seemed to die away in the pale face of the expiring boy and the ineffable grief of the broken-hearted mother. One sound alone recalled him for a moment to a sense of the outward world. It was a deep howl from the dog. It, too, was giving a last farewell to the world. The next morning Master Henin was taking his customary pipe in his garden, when a great noise was heard in the village. Soon his wife brought him word that Langot and the solicitor Richard had had a quarrel: the latter had resolved to expose the usurer's misdeeds, and the former had hung himself. "The old crocodile!" said the quarter-master; "he is gone as he deserved." "And how has all this come to pass?" he said, when he had recovered himself, and could turn round to speak to Henin. "If you were not a stupid fellow, always poking along the shore, wading in marshes, or creeping along sand-banks, you would know," said the old quartermaster. "The strongest current off the coast sets by that bank where you and Jean stood so helpless last evening. I had to double it in order to fetch you off, but you had not patience to wait. You took to the sea, and I had to bring off the boy alone. As to you, we thought you were drowned." Alain pressed the hand of the old sailor, and hastened to embrace the mother and her devoted son. But the quarter-master was far more seri- Three months had not expired after the ous than usual that morning. His thoughts death of the usurer Langot before Monsieur had been distracted for a moment by the mis- and Madame Montplet, with their son Jeanadventure that had befallen the usurer, but Marie, took possession of La Cochardière, they were not with him. He threw away his where a splendid feast was given in honor of pipe, for which he manifestly no appetite that Henin, his wife, and his eleven children. morning, and strolled down to the beach. The facts exposed by the solicitor were, that Lo, in the distance he beheld an object such for every bill for a thousand drawn by Alain as he least expected to see. Looking and the usurer had substituted three, four, and looking again, he became satisfied at last that even five thousand, just as he had been in the it was the wild-fowl hunter, in propriâ per- humor. The result was, that in reality only sona-Alain Montplet-whom he believed to 37,500 francs had been borrowed. 60,000 be lying very uncomfortably at the bottom of francs had to be accounted for, and as Jeannethe sea. Hastening towards him, explana- Marie was heiress to Langot, she had the tions soon ensued. Carried along by the remainder-about 40,000 francs, and the farm current, just as he was losing all conscious- La Cochardière. The marriage acquitted ness and ignorant himself as to where he was, Alain had been thrown up upon the beach. All he regretted was poor little Jean-Marie. "Come to the cottage," said Henin, whose spirits seemed to have experienced wonderful relief since he had met with the hunter. "Come along!" And Alain followed almost mechanically. the debt. Alain Montplet is now one of From The Saturday Review. the highest triumph of law is in a contemptiTHE MERCHANT OF VENICE. ble petifogging quibble. We fairly believe We shall of course lose all caste with the that Shakspeare had no moral idea at all in extreme school of Shakspearolatrists if we this play. He got hold of a very silly Italian confess to an inability to follow the transcen- novel, and a wild and improbable story about dental critics, Ulrici and Tieck, in their inter- a Jew, and in his earliest and worst manner pretation of the Merchant of Venice. They he put the two stories together without any affect-Ulrici especially-to find in the three artistic purpose and with little skill. The parallel intrigues of this play a common play is a transitional one. The characters, moral purpose. Shakspeare's object was, we with the exception of Shylock, are not are told, to show that an entire and resolute strongly marked. The Shakspearian chroconsistency always leads to wrong. Sum-nology is difficult enough; but we believe that mum jus summa injuria. Had the letter of Romeo and Juliet, in its present shape, is the law been carried out with an iron and more recent than the Merchant of Venice. unflinching severity, the greatest evil would The question, however, is unimportant, and it have been the result. Law must have a con- matters but little whether the Merchant of science, and must occasionally be strained-| Venice in its characterization anticipates or otherwise Shylock's claim for his bond would repeats the Romeo and Juliet. It is enough be impregnable. The parental relation is not to remark that Jessica is but Juliet-andto be stretched too tight, and therefore water; Gratiano is but a poor edition of MerJessica was right in eloping. A dead father's cutio; Antonio is literally a nobody, whose will, if carried out strictly, requires the imme-character is marked rather by epithets-the diate interposition of the god of love inspir-princely Antonio, the noble Antonio-than by ing Bassanio to choose the lucky casket. any thing noble or princely that he says or The fair and witty Portia might have been does; and Portia, faintly—and, dare we say Princess of Morocco had it not been for it, unpleasantly-recalls Beatrice. chance-a better arbiter of right and wrong The Merchant of Venice is, then, in our practically than a father's will. This is as poor judgment, a much over-rated play. It ingenious as it is nonsensical. If Shaks- contains two or three wonderful passages— peare meant to teach the great moral lesson the speech about mercy, the whole moral that slavish submission to the letter killeth, force of which, however, is utterly destroyed he has vindicated eternal morality by means by the vulgar persecuting spirit in which Porabsolutely immoral. Inhuman as is Shylock's tia announces the compulsory conversion of cruelty, technical and unjust as was the Vene- Shylock-and the lines about the harmony tian reverence for the written law, either of of the spheres, which are utterly out of these faults is as nothing in its immorality place in a nonentity so contemptible as Locompared with the triumphant and insolent renzo. The absolute impossibility of any quibble by which Portia vindicates the high sane person entering into Antonio's revolting morality. Jessica's unnatural and immodest contract is so outrageous, that its monstrous elopement is something worse than her fath- extravagance prevents all real dramatic iner's rigid rule; and shocking to all sense as terest in the play. Its sublime is always totis Shylock's savage inhumanity, it is a virtue tering on the verge of farce. It is curious as contrasted with the compulsory baptism that when Shylock produces the scales, a and unrighteous forfeiture of his goods which laugh from the audience proves that the paare enacted by the righteous laws of Venice. thos has degenerated into the ridiculous. Ulrici is right in saying that summum jus may There can be no human sympathy for such a result in summa injuria, but he finds it in- fool as Antonio, and Shylock himself so convenient to notice that Shakspeare remedies coarsely outrages the possible, that pity and the moral chaos by injuria summissima. If terror, the chief objects of tragedy, are never the Merchant of Venice has a moral, it is fairly appealed to. In Shakspeare's highest the very unsatisfactory one that young ladies works there is not a line or a character which may rob their father, and change their reli- can be eliminated. But Gobbo might be gion, and jump out of a window to the first spared-Nerissa and her lover might be man about town who ogles them, and that spared-and the connexion between the two stories is coarse and inartificial. The truest | prets Shakspeare by nature. The mixed criticism on Shakspeare is that which con- emotions could never be more finely rendered ceives him to be at least fallible, and which than in the extant Shylock of the Princess's recognizes the mental growth of the myriadminded poet. Theatre. The scene with Tubal, the alternating passions of wild, fierce revenge, and the Mr. Kean deserves unqualified praise for bursts of fiendish joy at the successive anthe care and reverential spirit in which he nouncements of Antonio's losses, and of selfhas placed the Merchant of Venice on the ish rage at the details of Jessica's petulant stage. The cycle of his great restorations extravagance, are not to be excelled. When would have been incomplete without this no- a work of art is perfect, it is useless to go on ble effort. Considering the capabilities of his multiplying formal phrases of eulogium. It restricted stage, the fact that he has gained is not Mr. Kean's finest effort, because Shyso complete a scenic success is perhaps a lock is not Shakspeare's masterpiece; but all more substantial triumph than any of his that can be done is done. If we were to former revivals. Of course Venice demands single out points for commendation, we should a larger canvas. As far as the Princess's say that the forced bonhommie of the early Theatre can go, we have the real Queen of scene with Antonio, and the utter prostration, the Seas; but it is through the inverted end physical and intellectual, which follows the of the telescope. The Place of St. Mark-sentence, are even better than the more pasthe long lines of canal-the stately gondolas sionate bursts. Mr. Kean sustains his repu-are somewhat, however necessarily, out of tation. That reputation being at the highest, scale. The rough, and so thoroughly Eng- he has not added to it by his Shylock, belish, part-song, "It was a lover and his lass," cause the best did not admit of better. Mrs. is out of keeping with the stately pleasure- Kean's conception of Portia has long been house of Belmont and the refined Italian admired, and her representation of the part mind. We regard this interpolation as in is a great success of art. For true artistic questionable taste. The mise-en-scène-as rendering of the character, especially in the the slang is--of the trial, however, is per- coquettish sparkling fun of the last act, the fectly faultless. In costume, strict artistic grouping, in the delicate by-play of the assessors, there is nothing to desire-nothing in which the most carping criticism could detect a fault. It only shows to what straits we are driven, if, even in spite of Vecellio, we beg to doubt whether a Doctor of Law should not be, in full court, in scarlet. The transformation of Nerissa, "the waiting maid," from a pert soubrette to a graceful dame d'honneur, we pronounce to be a very commendable in novation. It is now superfluous and unnecessary to vindicate Mr. Kean's claims to the highest station among the living professors of the histrionic art. We do not pretend to know all the traditions of the stage. Very likely the points in Shakspeare are, like the Oxford interpretation of Aristotle, traditional. We do not detract from Mr. Kean's merits by saying that he carefully preserves and hands on the accredited Shylock. But he is a conscientious and independent artist. He inter part exhibits her very highest gifts. Mr. Harley's Gobbo is first-rate; and the debutante, Miss Chapman, in a worthless character, exhibits a skill and a docile appreciation of her duties which render her a valuable addition to Mr. Kean's company. The balletbut our judgment on this point is probably good for little-struck us as being very ungraceful. By the way, that queer word "tranect," which occurs in this play, we think might possibly be "traject "-the same as in Ultraject, Utrecht. And Mr. Kean's annotator is wrong in stigmatizing Shakspeare's accentua tion of Barabbas as "the pronunciation of the name usual to the theatre in his time," as though Bar'abbas were more correct. The modern pronunciation, Barabbas, is certainly wrong-it is Bar-Abbas. We do not say that Shakspeare knew Hebrew; but the clergy of his time did, and they were quite right in saying Bár abbas, and Shakspeare followed them. 6 From The Saturday Review. : It is needless to do more than to announce Signora Ristori's re-appearance in her famous part of Lady Macbeth. The very highest triumphs of the histrionic art do not admit of analysis or description. A work of art is to be felt rather than talked about. To those who have not seen this great actress, powers higher than our own in the way of description would be inadequate while to those who have witnessed this sublime effort, the attempt would be quite superfluous. We thought that we detected a slight unsteadiness in the opening scene; but before the first speech was over, we were convinced that, if possible, Signora Ristori was excelling-at any rate, was equalling-herself. It is quite a mistake to suppose that the excellence of an actor is in being simply natural. The sculptures of a Greek frieze or pediment are no mere reproduction of common life. Tragedy is not common life, and first-rate acting exhibits many of the characteristics of the highest ideal art. The Italian artists, we believe, have somehow preserved the original and highest notion of the stage. The formal rhythmical intonation, so strange to English ears, at once elevates the drama to a higher conception than our actors take. The end of the drama is not to produce nature, but to idealize it. Because Signora Ristori is above nature, she vindicates her highest place as a dramatic artist. the combination of spiritual despair and of human affection which the actress aims at suggesting, and all this is told by action only. Then, again, in the sleep-walking scene, nothing can exceed the mimetic power with which the whole detail of the murder is reproduced. She starts into half life as the great event presents itself to her shattered mind, and yet all the time her eyes are fixed in catalepsy. So, in the first act, the open mouth and gloating, almost sensual, anticipation of success with which she pictures her certain triumph in Duncan's murder-revelling almost in the murder before it was committed-is another effort, which, if not finer than, is in its way equal to, the famous gesture in which she plucks the infant from her bosom. Ristori's visit is a rare opportunity of knowing what acting alone can do. A play put on the stage with the meanness and anachronisms of the St. James's Theatre enables us to judge what Burbage and even Garrick might have been. Here, all the interest centres in the acting; and with such acting as Signora Ristori's, we are quite independent of scene proprieties. The banquet scene would be improved by omitting the visible prescntment of Banquo's ghost-a burly ghost in the flesh is as ridiculous às Elliston's dagger; and the Macbeth of the St. James's, by no means a contemptible actor, is quite equal to playing this scene, if the Ghost is -as Shakspeare certainly intended it to be-only present to the eye of the conscience. Last year we ventured to point out some of As we have confined ourselves to a single the finest points of Signora Ristori's Lady aspect of Signora Ristori's powers, we cannot Macbeth. Perhaps from familiarity with her pass over her representation of Lady Macbeth general conception of the character we are without adverting to one more triumph of the enabled, on a second representation, to con- pantomime. It is in the scene in which Maccentrate our attention on the varied points of beth describes the state in which the murdered Duncan was discovered. Lady Macbeth's afher exquisite by-play; and we desire espe- fected horror and fainting at the details, her cially to remark her delicate apprehension of simulated shrinking and shuddering at the the dramatic situation after the guests are di- thought of blood-apparently so true to naminished from the banquet scene. The over-ture, and yet its insincerity displayed by a sinwrought and complex emotions which were gle lightning gleam of suspicion and doubt necessary during the banquet are subsiding. whether her irresolute husband might not be She is left alone with the partner and victim tray himself-all this, without a single word of her crime; and for his sake she speaks acting into something akin to a function of spoken to convey its significance, elevates common words, hopeful and comforting. But the plastic art. The results are, as we have the avenging Furies already possess her-the said, those so seldom attained in their perfecstrong and terrible will begins to break down. tion by painter or sculptor. And as Signora The first stony gaze into the future opens; Ristori really does address lovers and crítics she resigns herself passively to the coming of art, her series of representations ought to retribution; and with a loving and convulsive be studied by others than the common run of grasp she staggers off the stage to court that play-goers. It is a disgrace to us to have to say that the theatre on Wednesday night was sleep which will never be granted to her. It by no means crowded. is From The Saturday Review. MR. DICKENS' READINGS. reading. He dwelt on the separate syllables, and rolled out the r's as if this little art of repeating the man's name with variations was sure to be gratifying to every one. Richard is reclaimed by the man with the eyes, and ON Thursday night, Mr. Dickens gave a reading which presented a favorable opportunity for judging of the very remarkable powers with which he brings before an audi- Mr. Dickens took every pains to make us feel ence the creations of his own genius. Perhaps his success was not so great as on former evenings, when the continuity of a single story enabled him to work more strongly on the feelings of his hearers. But as on Thursday evening he read three distinct pieces of very different characters, the range of his efforts was much wider, and brought before the mind a greater variety of the classes of personages which he has depicted, and of the kinds of excellence at which he has aimed. that the eyes were coming, and that they ought to go through us as they did through Doubledick. Nothing could be more characteristic of Mr. Dickens' style of writing than the way in which he made use of these eyes; nor could any thing have more forcibly recalled to the mind of the hearer the numberless instances in which he has, as we think, thrown away the genuine success he might have achieved, by having recourse to the paltry artifices of stage effect. Any one who has seen Mr. Dickens act, The piece that followed, The Boots at the must know that he has great physical capa- Holly-Tree Inn, was much the best of the bilities and high mental qualifications for the three. It is in itself a touching, pretty, wellart of representing dramatic characters. conceived, and well-written production; and, When, therefore, we criticise his reading, we as it merely required good reading, with a must take it as perfectly understood that it vein of comic gaiety, but without any thing was throughout so effective and interesting as like real comic representation, it was exactly to give him a perfect right to exhibit himself suited to Mr. Dickens as a reader. As the as a public reader, if this way of making Boots relates the history of the little couple money out of his works is agreeable to him. and their elopement, he talks a mixture of The first piece that he read on Thursday was the language of a Boots and of a novelist, The Poor Traveller, one of the most purely which is certainly very effective; and when melo-dramatic things he ever wrote. It is Mr. Dickens read the story, no one converssentimental, but not so purely sentimental as ant with his works could fail to be reminded Dombey or David Copperfield. The senti- of the many characters of this class which he mentalism is confined within the bounds and has drawn, and which have done more to moulded into the form of the melo-dramatic make his name familiar and his stories popu -that is, there are a series of little turns or lar than any other. Sam Weller is the great tricks adopted by which an idea is continually type of this class; and it may be said of him, brought round and round, and forced upon as of his fellow-boots of the Holly-Tree, that the attention of the reader or hearer. In one of the great charms about them is that The Poor Traveller these tricks are of a we cannot tell whether they are really like or rather puerile kind, and Mr. Dickens, to unlike what living Boots could be. The picwhose fancy they are evidently peculiarly ture is full of those traits of keen personal dear, threw out the whole strength of his observation, of minute inspection, of trifling powers of reading to make them tell. Stated eccentricities and peculiarities, which have in simple language, these melo-dramatic tricks lent so much life and vigor to Mr. Dickens' sound rather simple. They principally consist in perpetually bringing in the name "Richard Doubledick," and in speaking of the "deep dark eyes "of an officer. Enter ing the service as a dissipated private, Doubledick cuts his way up to the rank of captain. This gives occasion to the writer to read a series of paragraphs with Sergeant Richard Doubledick, Sergeant-Major Richard Doubledick, Ensign Richard Doubledick, and so on. Mr. Dickens made this a great point in his writing. The language, too, and the charac teristic expressions, smack of the trade and of the life to which the Boots are supposed to belong. But all this is only a clothing under which the novelist conceals himself. There are no Sam Wellers in real life. The Boots of a real Holly-Tree Inn, if he uses the phrases that his imaginary representative adopts, uses them sparingly, occasionally, and accidentally. The Boots of the tale is all Boots, and talks his language from begin |