Père, et quel châtiment m’attend donc?
Ghost. Tu vivra!
One can see that Dumas snatches a grace beyond the reach of the usual drama. The ghost acts the part of the Lord’s messenger, and pronounces sentence on each culprit. The queen is “a woman here,” and “an angel there;” because she loved much—the king is too well served in going to the devil, Laertes dies with some hope of salvation; but Hamlet lives to repent of his sins; having by his cowardice killed four persons instead of one! This is French stage logic. As to the language it is the most trite and commonplace, that one can hear in front of the theatre from the hackmen; and the tragic muse is certainly not that one of the hallowed nine which particularly favors the author of Monte Christo.
F. J. G.
THE GLEANER.
She stands, as radiant as the morn
When rosy splendors fill the air:
Her white arms hold the golden corn,