"While thinking not of harm "- whilst innocently, without forethought, like a poor sheep, "I watch my fair" that is to say, I amuse myself by considering, observing, contemplating you, "Your lurking eye" what do you think of this word "lurking"? - Do you not think it well chosen? CATHOS. Perfectly well. MASCARILLE. "Lurking," hiding: you would say, a cat just going to catch a mouse —“ lurking." 1 MADELON. Nothing could be better. MASCARILLE. "My heart doth steal away"-snatch it away; carries it off from me. "Stop thief! stop thief! stop thief!" Would you not imagine it to be a man shouting and running after a robber? "Stop thief! stop thief! stop thief!" MADELON. It must be acknowledged that it is witty and gallant. MASCARILLE. I must sing you the tune I made to it. MASCARILLE. Not a bit of it! CATHOS. Then how can you have it set to music? MASCARILLE. People of my position know everything without ever having learnt. MADELON. Of course it is so, my dear. MASCARILLE. Just listen, and see if the tune is to your taste: hem, hem, la, la, la, la, la. The brutality of the season has greatly injured the delicacy of my voice; but it is of no consequence; permit me, without ceremony [he sings]:· Oh! oh! I was not taking care. While thinking not of harm, I watch my fair. CATHOS. What soul-subduing music! One would willingly die while listening. MADELON. What soft languor creeps over one's heart. MASCARILLE. Do you not find the thought clearly expressed in the song? "Stop thief! stop thief!" And then as if one suddenly cried out, "Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop thief!" Then all at once, like a person out of breath - Stop thief!" MADELON. It shows a knowledge of perfect beauty; every part is inimitable; both the words and the air enchant me. CATHOS. I never yet met with anything worthy of being compared to it. MASCARILLE. All I do comes naturally to me. without study. I do it MADELON. Nature has treated you like a fond mother: you are her spoiled child. MASCARILLE. How do you spend your time, ladies? MADELON. Until now, we have been in a dreadful dearth of amusements. MASCARILLE. I should be happy to take you to the play one of these days, if you would permit me; the more so as there is a new piece going to be acted which I should be glad to sec in your company. MADELON. There is no refusing such an offer. MASCARILLE. But I must beg of you to applaud it well when we are there, for I have promised my help to praise up the piece; and the author came to me again this morning to beg my assistance. It is the custom for authors to come and read their new plays to us people of rank, so that they may persuade us to approve their work, and to give them a reputation. I leave you to imagine if, when we say anything, the pit dare contradict us. As for me, I am most scrupulous; and when once I have promised my assistance to a poet, I always call out "Splendid! beautiful!" even before the candles are lighted. MADELON. Do not speak of it: Paris is a most wonderful place; a hundred things happen every day there of which country people, however clever they may be, have no idea. CATHOS. It is sufficient: now we understand this, we shall consider ourselves under the obligation of praising all that is said. MASCARILLE. I do not know whether I am mistaken; but you seem to me to have written some play yourselves. MADELON. Ah! there may be some truth in what you say. MASCARILLE. Upon my word, we must see it. Between ourselves, I have composed one which I intend shortly to bring out. it? CATHOS. Indeed! and to what actors do you mean to give who MASCARILLE. What a question! Why, to the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, of course: they alone can give a proper value to a piece. The others are a pack of ignoramuses, recite their parts just as one speaks every day of one's life; they have no idea of thundering out verses, or of pausing at a fine passage. How can one make out where the fine lines are, if the actor does not stop at them and thus tell you when you are to applaud? CATHOS. Certainly, there is always a way of making an audience feel the beauties of a play; and things are valued according to the way they are put before you. MASCARILLE. How do you like my lace, feathers, and etceteras? Do you find any incongruity between them and my coat? CATHOS. Not the slightest. MASCARILLE. The ribbon is well chosen, you think? MADELON. They look very fashionable. MASCARILLE. I can at least boast that they are a whole quarter of a yard wider than those usually worn. MADELON. I must acknowledge that I have never yet seen the elegance of the adjustment carried to such perfection. MASCARILLE. May I beg of you to direct your olfactory senses to these gloves? MADELON. They smell terribly sweet. CATHOS. I never inhaled a better-made perfume. MASCARILLE. And this? [He bends forward for them to smell his powdered wig.] MADELON. It has the true aristocratic odor. One's finest senses are exquisitely affected by it. MASCARILLE. You say nothing of my plumes. What do you think of them? CATHOS. Astonishingly beautiful! MASCARILLE. Do you know that every tip cost me a louis d'or? It is my way to prefer indiscriminately everything of the best. MADELON. I assure you that I greatly sympathize with you. I am furiously delicate about everything I wear, and even my socks must come from the best hands. MASCARILLE [crying out suddenly]. Oh, oh, oh! gently, ladies; ladies, this is unkind: I have good reason to complain of your behavior; it is not fair. CATHOS. What is it? What is the matter? MASCARILLE. Matter? What, both of you against my heart, and at the same time too! attacking me right and left! Ah! it is contrary to fair play; I shall cry out murder. THEODOR MOMMSEN. MOMMSEN, THEODOR, a famous German archæologist and historian; born at Garding, Schleswig, November 30, 1817. He studied at the University of Kiel; travelled from 1844 to 1847, and upon his return conducted the "Schleswig-Holstein Journal" until he was made Professor of Law at Leipsic. He was made Professor of Law at Zurich in 1852, at Breslau in 1854, and at Berlin in 1858; and in 1875 was appointed Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Leipsic. Professor Mommsen has written several learned archæological works, among which are one on "Latin Inscriptions" and one on "Roman Coins." He has also written an account of "The Earliest Inhabitants of Italy," which was, in 1858, translated into English by Robertson. His great historical work is the "History of Rome." The "History of Rome" has been translated by William P. Dickson (1863-67). THE BATTLE OF PHARSALUS. (From the "History of Rome.") CESAR lay to the south of Larissa, in the plain which extends between the hill-country of Cynocephalæ and the chain of Orthrys, and is intersected by the Enipeus (a tributary of the Peneus), on the left bank of the Enipeus, near the town of Pharsalus, in Thessaly. Pompeius had pitched his camp opposite to Cæsar on the right bank of the Enipeus, along the slope of the heights. of Cynocephalæ. The entire army of Pompeius was assembled. Cæsar, on the other hand, had expected the corps of nearly two legions formerly detached to Ætolia and Thessaly, now stationed in Greece, and the two legions which were sent after him by the land route from Italy, and had already arrived in Illyria. The army of Pompeius, numbering eleven legions, or about 47,000 men, and 7000 horses, was more than double that of Cæsar in infantry, and seven times as numerous in cavalry. Fatigue and conflicts had so reduced Cæsar's troops that his eight legions did not number more than 22,000 men under arms, consequently not nearly half their normal amount. The victorious army of Pompeius, provided with a countless cavalry and good magazines, had provisions in abundance; while the troops of Cæsar had difficulty in keeping themselves alive, and only hoped for better supplies from the corn-harvest, not far distant. The Pompeian soldiers, who had learned in the last campaign. to know war and trust their leader, were in the best of humor. All the military reasons on the side of Pompeius favored the view that the decisive battle should not long be delayed, seeing that they now confronted Cæsar in Thessaly; and the impatience of the many noble officers, and others accompanying the army, doubtless had more weight than even such reasons in the council of war. Since the event of Dyrrhachium these nobles regarded the triumph of their party as an ascertained fact. When Pompeius hesitated as to his crossing the rivulet which separated the two armies and which Cæsar, with his much weakened army, did not venture to pass this excited great indignation. Pompeius, it was alleged, delayed the battle only in order to rule somewhat longer over so many consulars and prætorians, and to perpetrate the part of Agamemnon. Pompeius. yielded; and Cæsar, who, under an impression that matters would not come to a battle, had just projected a mode of turning the enemy's army and for that purpose was on the point of setting out toward Scotussa-likewise arranged his legions for battle when he saw the Pompeians preparing to offer it to him on his bank. Thus the battle of Pharsalus was fought on August 9, 706, A. U. C. (B. C. 48) almost on the same field where, a hundred and fifty years years before, the Romans had laid the foundation of their dominion in the East. Pompeius rested his right wing on the Enipeus. Cæsar, opposite to him, rested his left on the broken ground stretching in front of the Enipeus. The two other wings were stationed out in the plain, covered in each case by the cavalry and the light troops. The intention of Pompeius was to keep his infantry on the defensive, but with his cavalry to scatter the weak band of horsemen which, mixed after the German fashion with light infantry, confronted him, and then to take Cæsar's right wing in the rear. His infantry courageously sustained the first charge of that of the enemy, and the engagement there came to a stand. Labienus likewise dispersed the enemy's cavalry, after a brave but short resistance, and deployed his forces to the left with the view of turning the infantry. |