should be at least two sentiments placed in contrast with each other, so as to keep the soul in a state of excitement which would not be oppressive. We are willing that horror should strike and penetrate the soul, on condition that pity comes to alleviate the pain and pour its healing balm into the wound. Then, in succeeding, the two emotions temper each other; they lose what they have, the one too much harshness, the other too much tenderness.

We have so far only considered the subject of art. There remains the subject of morality, which is intimately connected with the former, and on which we will now make a few observations.

The author intended, he says in the preface of his drama, to repair the moral deformity of Lucrece Borgia by the beauty of the maternal sentiment; to use his own forcible expression, he intended to put the mother in the monster. We should here draw a distinction. We admire the tenderness which the most ferocious animals have for their young; and when the dying lioness covers her whelps with her body, wounded and bleeding, we are struck with admiration and the most touching emotions. But the woman who is a mother ought, in her tenderness for her children, to have more intelligence. Instinct does not suffice for her: she must have sentiment— the sentiment which does not exclude instinct, but which perfects and purifies it. Thus, when, at Florence, a mother threw herself in despair before the lion who had taken her child, and the animal, astonished at this despair, or comprehending it, deposited the child at the feet of its mother, it was instinct which urged on this mother; and it was, perhaps, also the instinct of the lion which responded to it. But these good instincts, whatever noble actions they may cause at certain moments, are only the germ and beginning of human virtues; and even that which distinguishes, in the most decided manner, the instincts from those virtues which are purely human, is that the former are barren and unfruitful, although strong. A good instinct lives near the side of a bad one without changing or purifying it, and without suffering itself to be infected or perverted. A single virtue in a vicious soul can convert it entirely to good; so a single vice in a virtuous soul can also entirely corrupt it. But instinct, even when it is good, supports without disquiet the presence of evil; and it is thus that, in Lucrece Borgia, the mother and the

monster are placed side by side, without, if we may so speak, either touching or combatting each other. But there is nothing less natural, and above all, less dramatic, than this mutual tolerance. Those characters, which are a mixture of good and evil, are only dramatic because in their soul the contrary sentiments struggle with each other before the eyes of the spectator. But, in Lucrece, where is the struggle between good and evil? At what moment is it that maternal virtue suddenly enlightens and purifies this soul lost in darkness? When is this marvellous and yet natural transfiguration made? And do you not believe that this moment of conversion will be the moment the least dramatic? Ah! if Lucrece Borgia dared for a moment to say to Gennaro, my son, do you not think that at this sacred word, which touches so many good sentiments, that all these sentiments, until then suppressed in the soul of Lucrece, would be aroused, and, as if by a sudden effort, drive away the impure passions which besieged it? Show us, then, this regeneration of a criminal soul accomplished in the sacred embraces of mother and son; show us how, at this sacred word, I am your mother, all the vices were put to flight which tormented this wretched heart. Then we would at once feel ourselves elevated and melted into pity, which is the most noble pleasure which the arts can give

to man.

This is an extraordinary indication of the change which has been made in our moral ideas. Formerly the poets gave to their characters a single vice or a single passion, taking great care in other respects to make them virtuous, so that they may be considered worthy of interest; in our days the poets give to their heroes innumerable passions and vices with a single virtue as a counterpoise. Yet this weak and solitary virtue, is not charged with purifying the perverted soul where it is by chance preserved; it carefully respects the independence of the vices which are willing to suffer it near them; it is not even intrusted with inspiring the interest of the spectators, for it is vice which nowadays inspires interest, because they invest it with a certain noble and captivating air, which is taken from the heroes of Lord Byron, and which becomes so seductive to the public. Even vice is often sentimental and melancholy; it becomes interesting and affecting under the pretext that it preserves in its abasement something great and good. It seems, in fact,

that we have a taste for ruins in morals as in architecture, and that we love what is fallen, better than that which remains standing upright. Let us love what is still good. and pure in perverted souls, as a testimony of human dignity, which can never be entirely destroyed; but let us admire the ruin only in memory of the edifice, let us not value the rags more than the cloth; in a word, let us take in crime what remains of virtue as an excuse, and let us not push the pity which inspires the excuse so far as to respect and even to admire it. The lesson which was inculcated by the ancient tragedy, such as Racine has conceived in his Phedra, was that one bad passion was alone sufficient to destroy the soul; a severe and hard lesson, which makes man tremble at his frailty and which inspires him with a scrupulous and perpetual vigilance; a lesson worthy of a Christian and of a pupil of Port Royal, as Racine was. The moral lesson which is taught by our modern dramas is, that only one good quality is sufficient to excuse many vices; an indulgent lesson, and one which puts the heart of man very much at its ease.

XVII.

OF MATERNAL LOVE. THE ORPHAN OF CHINA.

VOLTAIRE, in his Orphan of China, desired to place paternal and maternal love in opposition to each other, and to show the difference between the tenderness of a mother, always ready to sacrifice every thing to the life of her child, and that of the father who sacrifices his son to the duties which honor and the law impose upon him. This contrast is interesting. We only regret that, in Voltaire, this contrast is rather a discussion than a dramatic action..

The subject of the Orphan of China, is taken from a Chinese play, translated by father Premare, and published in 1735. In our days, this piece has been translated anew by Stanislas Julien. It is curious to compare the Chinese drama with the tragedy of Voltaire.

The Chinese drama is the entire life of the Orphan. "It is a barbarous rough-sketch," says Voltaire in the preface of his tragedy . . "We might believe that we were reading the Thousand and one Nights in acts and scenes. But notwithstanding the incredible, it is full of interest, and notwithstanding the multitude of incidents, all is perspicuous." Voltaire did not say enough. There prevails in the Chinese drama an admirable unity of interest, and the author had the merit of knowing how to make the dangers of the Orphan interesting. The interest of the drama turns entirely upon a poor child whom it is necessary to save from death; and this interest suffices, without those romantic passions which Voltaire knew so well how to ridicule, when he does not employ them.

The cruel Tou-an-Kou has caused three hundred members of the family of Tchao to be exterminated. Tchao and his wife, who is pregnant, alone remain. Very soon Tchao receives an order from the Emperor to put himself to death.

He kills himself; but before dying, he enjoins it upon his wife, if she bears a son, to name him Tchao-chi-Kou-eul, that is the Orphan of the family of Tchao, and so to manage it that he may escape from the persecutors of his race; for it is he who will finally revenge them all. The princess Tchao is delivered of a son, to whom she gives the name prescribed by her husband. But Tou-an-Kou, the enemy of Tchao, wishes to destroy the Orphan, and orders a proclamation to be issued, which punished with death whoever would rescue the Orphan from the prison in which the mother was confined. How can the escape of this child be effected, who was brought forth with pain and already threatened with death? An old secretary of the house of Tchao, the physician Tching-Ing, comes to visit the princess in her prison. She begs him to carry off her son. "If I succeed in carrying off your son secretly," says Tching-Ing," and Tou-an-Kou comes to know it, he will ask you where is the little Orphan of the family of Tchao. You will answer: I have given him to TchingIng. I would die with all my family, it matters little to me; but do you believe that he will permit this tender infant to live?" Then in order to quiet the fears of TchingIng with regard to the secret, the princess kills herself. Thus Tching-Ing becomes the only prop of the house of Tchao, and he therefore alone will know the secret of the retreat in which the last scion of the family will be concealed. But he must leave the prison. The soldiers watch at the door, and Tching-Ing despairs of being able to elude their vigilance. Fortunately the General Han-Kioué, who commands them, is a generous and tender-hearted man and an old friend of the family of Tchao. This brave man, seeing Tching-Ing go from the prison with a basket full of herbs, at the bottom of which is concealed the little child, tells him to approach; and then ordering the soldier to retire, he takes the basket, removes the herbs, and discovers the child. This sight affects him and moves him to pity. "The forehead of the young child," he exclaims, "is bathed with perspiration. The corners of his mouth are still white with maternal milk. How frail and delicate are his limbs! He opens his little eyes and seems to recognize me. Although sad and suffering at the bottom of this basket, we might say that he endeavored to restrain his cries. This narrow prison in which he is inclosed, those little bands which tie him