CHAPTER III.

CONTINUATION OF THE PRECEDING SUBJECT.

The Phædra of Racine.

WE might be content with opposing to Dido the Phædra of Racine. More impassioned than the queen of Carthage, she is a Christian wife. The fear of the avenging flames and the awful eternity of hell is manifest throughout the whole part of this guilty woman,' and particularly in the celebrated scene of jealousy, which, as everybody knows, is the invention of the modern poet. Incest was not so rare and monstrous a crime among the ancients as to excite such apprehensions in the heart of the culprit. Sophocles, it is true, represents Jocasta as expiring the moment she is made acquainted with her guilt, but Euripides makes her live a considerable time afterward. If we may believe Tertullian, the sorrows of Edipus excited nothing but the ridicule of the spectators in Macedonia. Virgil has not placed Phædra in the infernal regions, but only in those myrtle groves, "those mournful regions" where wander lovers "whom death itself has not relieved from their pains.'

Thus the Phædra of Euripides, as well as the Phædra of Seneca, is more afraid of Theseus than of Tartarus. Neither the one nor the other expresses herself like the Phædra of Racine :

What! Phædra jealous! and doth she implore
Thy pity, Theseus? and while Theseus lives
Doth her lewd breast burn with unballowed fire?
And ah! whose love doth she aspire to gain?
At that dread thought what horrors rend my soul!

The measure of my crimes is surely full,
Swelled as it is with incest and imposture;
My murderous hands, athirst with vengeance, burn

To bathe them in the blood of innocence.

Still, miscreant, canst thou live? canst thou support
The light of his pure beams from whom thou'rt sprung?

This fear of Tartarus is slightly alluded to in Euripides. 2 Tertul., Apolog.

3 Eneid, lib. vi. 444.

Where shall I hide? The awful sire and sovereign
Of all the gods is my forefather too,

And heaven and earth teem with my ancestors.

What if I hasten to the realms of night

Infernal, there my father holds the urn,
Which Fate, 'tis said, gave to his rigid hands;
There Minos sits in judgment on mankind.
How will his venerable shade, aghast,
Behold his daughter, when at his tribunal
Constrained to avow her manifold misdeeds
And crimes perhaps unbeard-of even in hell?
How, O my parent, how wilt thou endure
This racking spectacle? Methinks I see
The fateful urn drop from thy trembling hand;
Methinks, with brow austere, I see thee sit,
Devising some new penalty for guilt
Without a parallel. But ah! relent!
Have mercy on thine offspring, whom the rage

Of an incensed deity hath plunged

In nameless woes. Alas! my tortured heart
Hath reaped no harvest from the damning crime
That steeps my name in lasting infamy!

This incomparable passage exhibits a gradation of feeling, a knowledge of the sorrows, the anguish, and the transports of the soul, which the ancients never approached. Among them we meet with fragments, as it were, of sentiments, but rarely with a complete sentiment; here, on the contrary, the whole heart is poured forth. The most energetic exclamation, perhaps, that passion ever dictated, is contained in the concluding lines:

Alas! my tortured heart

Hath reaped no harvest from the damning crime
That steeps my name in lasting infamy.

In this there is a mixture of sensuality and soul, of despair and amorous fury, that surpasses all expression. This woman who would console herself for an eternity of pain had she but enjoyed a single moment of happiness-this woman is not represented in the antique character; she is the reprobate Christian; the sinner fallen alive into the hands of God; her words are the words of the self-condemned to everlasting tortures.

CHAPTER IV.

CONTINUATION OF THE PRECEDING SUBJECT.

Julia d'Etange-Clementina.

BUT now the scene will change: we shall hear that impassioned love, so terrible in the Christian Phædra, eliciting only tender sighs from the bosom of the pious Julia; hers is the voice of melancholy, issuing from the sanctuary of peace. Hers are the accents of love, softened and prolonged by the religious echo of the holy place.

"The region of chimeras is the only one in this world that is worth living in; and such is the vanity of all human things, that, except the Supreme Being, there is nothing excellent but what has no existence. A secret languor steals through the recesses of my heart; it feels empty and unsatisfied, as you told me yours formerly did; my attachment to whatever is dear to me is not sufficient to engage it; a useless strength is left which it knows not what to do with. This pain is extraordinary, I allow, but it is not the less real. My friend, I am too happy; I am weary of felicity. . . .

"Finding, therefore, nothing here below to satisfy its craving, my eager soul elsewhere seeks wherewith to fill itself. Soaring aloft to the source of feeling and existence, it there recovers from its languor and its apathy. It is there regenerated and revived. It there receives new vigor and new life. It acquires a new existence which is independent of the passions of the body; or rather, it is no longer attached to the latter, but is wholly absorbed in the immense Being whom it contemplates; and, released for a moment from its shackles, it returns to them with the less regret after this experience of a more sublime state which it hopes at some future period to enjoy. . .

blessings of Providence, I am

"When reflecting on all the ashamed of taking to heart such petty troubles and forgetting such important favors.

When, in spite of myself, my

melancholy pursues me, a few tears shed before Him who can dispense comfort instantly soothe my heart. My reflections are never bitter or painful. My repentance itself is devoid of apprehensions. My faults excite in me less fear than shame. I am acquainted with regret, but not with remorse.

"The God whom I serve is a God of clemency, a Father of mercies. What most deeply affects me is his goodness, which, in my eyes, eclipses all his other attributes. It is the only one of which I have a conception. His power astonishes; his immensity confounds; his justice . . . . . He has made man feeble, and he is merciful because he is just. The God of vengeance is the God of the wicked. I can neither fear him for myself nor invoke him against another. Oh, God of peace! God of goodness! thee I adore! Thy work, full well I know it, I am; and I hope at the day of judgment to find thee such as thou speakest in this life to my troubled heart."

How happily are love and religion blended in this picture! This style, these sentiments, have no parallel in antiquity.1 What folly to reject a religion which dictates to the heart such tender accents, and which has added, as it were, new powers to the soul!

Would you have another example of this new language of the passions, unknown under the system of polytheism? Listen to Clementina. Her expressions are still more unaffected, more pathetic, and more sublimely natural, than Julia's:

"This one thing I have to say-but turn your face another way; I find my blushes come already. Why, Chevalier, I did intend to say-but stay; I have wrote it down somewhere-[She pulled out her pocket-book]-Here it is. [She read:] 'Let me beseech you, sir, I was very earnest, you see,-to hate, to despise, to detest-now don't look this way-the unhappy Clementina with all your heart; but, for the sake of your immortal soul, let me conjure you to be reconciled to our Holy Mother Church!' Will you, sir? [following my averted face with her sweet face; for I could not look toward her.] Say you will. Tender-hearted man! I always thought you had sensibility. Say you will,-not for my

1 The mixture, however, of metaphysical and natural language in this extract is not in good taste. The Almighty, the Lord, would be better than source of existence, &c.

sake. I told you that I would content myself to be still despised. It shall not be said that you did this for a wife! No, sir; your conscience shall have all the merit of it!—and, I'll tell you what, I will lay me down in peace, [She stood up with a dignity that was augmented by her piety;] and I will say, 'Now do thou, O beckoning angel!'-for an angel will be on the other side of the river; the river shall be death, sir,-'now do thou reach out thy divine hand, O minister of peace! I will wade through these separating waters, and I will bespeak a place for the man who, many, many years hence, may fill it!' and I will sit next you forever and ever;-and this, sir, shall satisfy the poor Clementina, who will then be richer than the richest."1

Christianity proves a real balm for our wounds, particularly at those times when the passions, after furiously raging in our bosoms, begin to subside, either from misfortune or from the length of their duration. It lulls our woes, it strengthens our

1 It would have been much to our author's purpose to have expatiated more at large upon the works of Richardson, as he has founded the excellence of his good characters entirely upon a Christian basis. He has exemplified the beautiful ideal of human nature. The characters of Clementina, Sir Charles Grandison, and Clarissa Harlowe, are the most virtuous, amiable, accomplished, and noble that can well be imagined. They are supported with strict propriety, are elevated by uncommon dignity, and charm the reader while they command his admiration. They show that mankind are truly happy only in proportion as they listen to the dictates of conscience and follow the path of duty. Where could Richardson, a bookseller and a printer, immersed in the occupation of his shop and his press, acquire such a correct acquaintance with high life and refined society,-such exalted sentiments of religion, honor, love, friendship, and philanthropy, -as he has displayed in his works? Where did he acquire such a command over our feelings,-such a power "to ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears"?

The best answer to these questions is that he derived these treasures from the rich resources of his own mind, from the study of the BIBLE, and a quick insight into human nature and human character. He has been justly styled "the great master of the human heart," "the Shakspeare of Romance." Clarissa Harlowe and Sir Charles Grandison are long works, because they are designed to develop the springs of human action, and to give a distinct view of the progressive, various, and complex movements of the human mind. Prolixity is made the pretext of the frivolous novel-readers of the present age to neglect these invaluable works; although, if they be weighed in the balance of literary justice, they will be found to comprise as much, if not more, sterling excellence than half the novels that have been written since their publication.