each has his enthusiastic partisans, but their talents are entirely different; and there is no reason why these writers, or their friends, should suppose that the success of one is incompatible with the reputation of the other. The first drama which M. Victor Hugo brought on the stage (for he had written "Cromwell," a clever but cold performance some years before) was "Hernani ;"* and as it has been already translated, it would be useless to enter here into any lengthened criticism upon its merits. Among M. V. Hugo's plays, however, Hernani stands alone. No other of his dramas has the same tenderness, the same gentleness, the same grace, the same nature; for Hernani was written by M. Hugo before he laid down for himself the extraordinary rules which I shall presently have to speak of.

In Hernani, then, you find the characters of Spaintruly Spanish--in Hernani you find the old Spaniard, jealous and vindictive, and the young Spanish noble, high-minded, adventurous and romantic, and the Spanish maiden ardent, fond, with all the love and all the enthusiasm which the warm sun of her country begets, and which the dark convent, and the keen-eyed duenna have been invented to check.

tune, the Chamber and the Theatre before him on one side, the Morgue and the Seine on the other, M. Dumas was placed, through the interest of General Foy, in one of the bureaux of the Duke of Orléans, where he improved his education, and first received his dramatic inspirations.

More fortunate than many of his predecessors, his career was from the commencement a series of theatrical triumphs, and he almost immediately quitted the desk for the stage.

The play turns on the love of Dona Sol, a young Spanish lady, for Hernani, first known to her as a bandit, but who afterward proves to be a grandee of Spain. Dona Sol, however, is also beloved by her uncle, Don Gomez de Silva, whom she was originally engaged to marry. Don Gomez saves Hernani, in the early part of his career, from the vengeance of Charles V., and Hernani promises the old Spanish noble to give him the life he has saved whenever he shall ask for it. At the end of the play Charles pardons Hernani, on discovering his birth, and gives him Dona Sol in marriage. It is on the wedding-night of the young couple that the old uncle comes and claims Hernani's promise. This last scene is the best part of the play, which finishes by Hernani and his bride both taking the poison that Don Gomez brings, and the lovers die in each other's arms. Charles V. character, particularly in his wild and early days, is painted with a very masterly hand.

Better go seek to rob the fiercest tigress
Of her fond young-than rob me of my love.
Oh! know you Dona Sol, and what she is?
Long time, in pity for thy sicklied age
And sixty years-I was all tenderness-
All innocence, the soft and timid maiden.
But see you now this eye? it weeps with rage;
And see you not this poniard? foolish old man!
Not fear the steel, when menaced by the eye?
Don Ruy beware! I am thy blood, my uncle!
Ay, list thee well!-were I thy only daughter,
"Twere ill with thee wert thou to harm my husband.
And yet forgive me!

Pity me! Pardon me! See, I am at your feet!
Pity, alas! my lord! I'm but a woman-
I'm weak, my force miscarries in my soul.
I feel my feebleness, I fall before you-
I beg your pity!-and you know, my lord-
You know we Spanish women have a grief
That measures not its wording.

Such is the heroine of the piece-such is the passion which she feels--a passion for the chosen of her heart--for her husband whom she marries when a noble-but whom she loved, whom she selected, whom she would have followed when a bandit. With such a heroine, and with such a passion, we can sympathize.

But I will preface what I shall have to say of M. V. Hugo, and the observations I shall subsequently venture to submit on the present state of the French drama, by translating certain parts of one of the most popular and recent pieces that this author has brought upon the stage.

LUCRECE BORGIA.

LUCRECE BORGIA is only in three acts. It begins at Venice. You are at Venice-it is Venice's gay time, and you see her carnival, her masked revelsand there, on the terrace of the Barbarigo palace, are some young nobles—and at the bottom of this terrace flows the canal De la Zueca, on which, through the "darkness visible" of a Venetian night, you see pass the gondola, and the masquerade, and the musicians.

Twenty years have gone by since the death of Jean Borgia. The young nobles speak of that awful assassination, and of the body plunged into the Tiber, and perceived by a boatman, involuntary witness of the crime-and Comte de Belverana, supposed to be a Spanish seigneur, joins in the conversation, and seems indeed, to the surprise of the Venetians, better acquainted than any of them with the history of Italy. One young cavalier alone is inattentive, and even sleeps, while the rest pass their conjectures on the fate of the young boy, son of Lucrèce Borgia, by Jean Borgia--the Jean Borgia who had perished in the manner described--victim, as it was said, of the wrath and jealousy of his brother and his rival, Cæsar.

At last the Comte Belverana is left alone upon the stage with the young man who is still sleeping, and whose indifference to the conversation that had been going on has already been accounted for by his companions on the ground that, ignorant alike of his father and mother, he could not feel an interest in those

family stories which then agitated Italy, and had more or less affected every one of themselves.

A masked lady enters and addresses the Spaniard by the name of "Gubetta." He reminds her of his disguise, and warns her also to be cautious

'If they don't know me," says the lady, "caution is of little consequence-if they do, it is they who have cause to fear." It is easy to see that Gubetta, or Comte Belverana, is an Italian bravo in the service of this dame, who now says that for the future she means to be all virtue and clemency, and that her only desire is to obtain the affections of the young man who is sleeping. Gubetta shrugs up his shoulders at what he seems to consider a very startling change of disposition, and thinks it better, under these circumstances, to leave his mistress and the sleeper together. Lucrèce, for the lady is no other, takes off her mask, and kisses the forehead of the youth; but in doing so she has been seen by two strangers who had been watching her-one her husband,* the other a gentleman attached to his service, and of the same honourable profession as Gubetta. Gennaro (this is the name of the personage hitherto so quiescent) now awakes. He tells Lucrèce that he is a soldier of fortune, an orphan ignorant of his parents, and that he only lives to discover his mother, and to make himself worthy of her.

"I mean my sword to be pure and holy as of an emperor. I've been offered any thing to enter the service of that infamous Lucrèce. I refused."

"Gennaro! Gennaro!" says the lady, "you should pity the wicked; you know not their hearts."

It is at this moment that the young nobles, with whose conversation the play commenced, come again on the scene.

*The Duke of Ferrara.

ACT I.

SCENE V.

The same. Maffio Orsini, Jeppo Liveretto, Ascanio Petrucci, Oloferno Vitellozzo, Don Apostolo Gazella. Nobles, ladies, pages carrying torches.

MAFFIO (a torch in his hand).

Gennaro, dost thou wish to know the woman to whom thou art talking love?

DONA LUCRECE (aside, under her mask).

Just Heaven!

GENNARO.

You are my friends-but I swear before God, that whoever touches the mask of this lady is a bold fellow! -The mask of a woman is as sacred as the face of a man.

MAFFIO.

not

But first the woman must be a woman, Gennaro ; that we wish to insult this lady-we only wish to tell her our names. (Making a step towards Dona Lucrèce.) Madam, I am Maffio Orsini, brother to the Duke of Gravina, whom your bravoes strangled during the night while he was sleeping.

JEPPO.

Madam, I am Jeppo Liveretto, nephew of Liveretto Vitelli, poniarded by your orders in the caves of the Vatican.

ASCANIO.

Madam, I am Ascanio Petrucci, cousin of Pandolfo Petrucci, Lord of Sienna, whom you had assassinated in order to rob him more easily of his town.

OLOFERNO.

Madam, my name is Oloferno Vitellozzo, nephew of Jago d'Appiani, whom you had poisoned at a fête, after having treacherously despoiled him of his good and lordly citadel of Piombino,