her voice ever soft, gentle, and low," this voice which had driven from his ear the importunate tingling of madness his daughters, Regan and Goneril, "had fore-done themselves, and desperately were dead;" and the poor fool, who had never quitted him, is also dead.

O see, see-and my poor fool is hanged. No, no, no, life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,

And thou, no breath at all?

Thou'lt come no more!

Never, never, never, never, never-

Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there—

and he himself falls down dead!

This is certainly a horrible and melancholy death. Let us come now to the death of Father Goriot. He is stricken with apoplexy. A violent dispute between his two daughters, the news of the disaster of their fortunes, the idea of their future misery, have created an excitement, which terminated in a fit of apoplexy. In the agony of death, the old man, acknowledging the ingratitude of his daughters, sometimes rebukes them, with anger and curses, and then, repenting of it, he prays heaven not to punish them; for it is he who has been the cause of all the evil, it is he who has spoiled them by his indulgence and kindness. This agony is melancholy and touching. What is wanting, then, to render him truly pathetic; and how comes it that the tears which we are disposed to shed over the death of this abandoned father, are restrained by an indescribable feeling of involuntary repugnance? As he has lived by instinct, Goriot dies the same; and what the author seems to wish to show us in this agony, is not the last struggle of the soul, but the last effort of an instinct which is about to be exhausted. In this idea, he introduces, from time to time, near the bed of the ill man, a young medical student, a great advocate of phrenological doctrines, who curiously notes the progress of the serum in the brain. If Father Goriot at first becomes, for a moment, overcome by illness, he soon recovers his speech, and calls his daughters to his death-bed; if he makes use of words, full of anger and grief, which affect us, the author takes care to explain, that the lobe of the brain, which responds to the paternal instinct, has, by a kind of native energy, resisted the invasion of the serum: it is there that life takes refuge, the

*

last triumph of this paternal instinct, which has controlled all the thoughts and all the actions of Father Goriot. It is this which restrains our pity, or rather, it is this which counteracts it. In seeing this father abandoned by his daughters, and who blesses them, in spite of their abandonment, we are inclined to think of the inexhaustible indulgence of the paternal heart, which is, in that respect, the image of the Divine heart; but the idea of instinct checks us, and, in spite of ourselves, we think of the dog, which dies licking the hand of the very master who has killed him.

Lear is still half crazy when he dies; but see how, at this last moment, reason controls madness, as the heart of man recovers itself, and as madness is effaced at the approach of death; for Shakspeare wishes that we should witness the death of a man, and not that of a madman; the agony of a father who has recognized his daughter, and has lost her at the same time, and not that of a poor madman, who is taken from the hospital to the grave. Shakspeare well knows that it is only on this condition that the death of Lear will affect us. Edipus dies with a dignity almost divine; Lear, although crazy, dies with all the dignity of a man. This manly dignity is wanting in the death of Father Goriot. Sophocles and Shakspeare have both removed from the death of their heroes all the circumstances of material death. They have spiritualized it as much as they were able; Sophocles has made it divine; Shakspeare took care to purify it from the mixture of madness, both being persuaded that, in the death of a man, there is nothing touching but what is truly human, that is to say, the departure and adieu of the soul. The modern romancer, on the contrary, has taken care to materialize death as much as he could, not only by the aid of the melancholy details which mark the dissolution of the body, but what is still more material, in showing, in Father Goriot, the last convulsions of expiring instinct. He has, if we may so speak, taken away the soul from man; but, at the same time, and as if by way of punishment, he has detracted from the interest of his romance.

XI.

OF PATERNAL CLEMENCY--THE HEAUTONTIMORUMENOS OF TERENCETHE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON-THE PRODIGAL SON OF

VOLTAIRE.

THERE is a trait in the paternal character for which we would reproach ourselves not to notice, especially after having pointed out the sickly sentimentality of Father Goriot: we mean this feeling of forgiveness which a father always entertains for the faults of his children. Although this sentiment be natural to man, it has not, until recently, been represented upon the stage. The heroes of the ancient Greek drama did not even pardon their sons; Orestes did not spare his mother; and Edipus is inexorable to the prayers of Polynice. A justice as inexorable as vengeance, reigned in the Greek drama, as it did in the old Greek mythology. Neither defeat, captivity nor suffering, deprived the unfortunate of their zeal for justice, or their thirst for revenge. In Eschylus, Prometheus, enchained on Caucasus, refused to pardon Jupiter the injury which he received. "We must injure those who injure us," said he: and he prefers rather to be taken captive and tortured, than to renounce the power and the right which he has to avenge himself.

In antiquity, the Achilles of Homer is the only hero who permits himself to be moved by the tears of his enemy. He only restores to Priam, it is true, the body of his son; yet, this scene of pity is, in ancient literature, a scene apart; and there, as elsewhere, Homer has not only preceded Greek literature and civilization, but he has also anticipated and directed their progress in what they contain most pure and refined; he seems to have wished in his Achilles, who is the model of a hero such as he has conceived him, to show the

germ of this feeling of clemency, which is one of the most beautiful attributes of the human heart. When Achilles restores to Priam the body of his son, he yields to the respect which the ancients entertained for the rites of burial. Yet he weeps also over the misfortunes of Priam, his enemy ; and in the heroes of antiquity, this sentiment is entirely new. It is moreover to Homer that we are indebted for this beautiful allegory of the lame and timid virgins, although daughters of Jupiter, who follow at slow paces, Vengeance running before them, and alleviating the pains which their cruel predecessor has caused. Happy is the man who salutes them with respect when they approach him: for they listen to him, and propitiate the favor of their father; but they demand of Jupiter, to send winged Vengeance on the footsteps of the wretch who dares to repel and disdain them.

If we consult the history of Rome, the fathers did not pardon their sons any more than the heroes of the Greek tragedy. In Roman society, paternity was rather a magistracy than a relation of affection. By degrees, however, their manners and sentiments became more refined. Philosophy in Greece, and more recently at Rome, endeavored to correct the gods of paganism; it moderated the inflexible power of the ancient Nemesis: goodness became one of the attributes of divinity, and for man, one of the degrees which enables him to approximate nearer to the Deity. “Do you wish then," said Seneca, the last interpreter of the pagan philosophy, "do you wish then to have the gods inexorable to the faults and errors of mortals, the gods who pursue the guilty, even to their ruin ?"

Thus, the ancient severity of the gods was by degrees mitigated. It was the same with men. There is in this respect a singular difference, that may be observed between the ancient and modern drama. Already in Euripides, who had introduced philosophical ideas on the stage, the heroes preached clemency and pardon, (mercy and forgiveness.) "Fools," exclaimed Theseus in The Suppliants, “do you know the calamities of human destiny? Life is a struggle: one is victorious to-day, another to-morrow. Destiny alone is always triumphant, implored by the unfortunate who demand happiness, adored by the rich who fear a reverse. It is for this reason that we should learn to pardon whoever does us an injustice, and not to seek a revenge which may be fatal

to our country." Certainly in thinking thus, Theseus is rather a disciple of Socrates than the companion of Hercules, and these sentiments of mutual indulgence are not of the

heroic times.

In the new comedy of Menander, and in his imitators, whom we know by the imitations of Plautus and Terence, the improvement in morals became every day more apparent, and the paternal character especially partakes of this indul gence. We find in the fragments of Menander, and the comic writers of his school, many sentences which, far from agreeing with the antique severity of sententious poetry, express already all the tenderness which the father should feel for his son. "A good father," said Menander, "ought not to be angry with his son." But if the son is a spendthrift and a prodigal, should not the father be angry with him? "No:" says Menander, "give with a good grace to your son, whatever he wants, if you wish that he would take care of you in your old age, instead of desiring its end." Thus already in Menander, the fathers scold their sons, and become pacified, being overcome by their paternal tenderness; their anger, as he himself said, does not last longer than the quarrels of lovers.

When Plautus and Terence introduced the Greek comedy at Rome, they at the same time introduced those kind and indulgent fathers who seemed scarcely suited to the severity of Roman manners. But at this epoch Rome was prepared for the mildness of the new maxims which the two poets taught on the stage. It was the time of Scipio, when the old Latin barbarity was softened by the imitation of Greek civilization. Of the ancient Roman virtues, courage alone survived; but the chiefs began to avail themselves of the courage of the soldiery: the most virtuous, like Scipio, for their glory; the bravest, like Marius and Sylla, for their ambition.

A play of Terence portrays the revolution which was accomplished at this time in Roman manners; it is the comedy, or rather the drama, of Héautontimorumenos, or the Selfexecutioner. Menedemus, the hero of this drama, wished to be severe with his son; he has driven him to desperation by his severities, and his son quits him and flies to Asia. From this moment Menedemus becomes miserable. He retires into the country, overwhelmed with sorrow and remorse. He lives there, all day working like a hireling to punish