them has a theory of her own, and of course reads all the tokens of evidence in her own light. Each one appeals to the servant who is in constant attendance on the club-room. He is a sharp-witted fellow, and tells to each one of them a different story, suited to the several prevailing impressions which their leading questions have enabled him to detect. Every one of them is thus led on a wrong track. There is no end of fun in the way of comic scenes between lover and maiden, and husband and wife: the women driving the men to desperation by their obstinate strivings to come at the truth, and their perverse wresting meanwhile of every trivial incident to the confirming of their own suspicions. At last the ladies, each acting separately, and each following out her own particular hypothesis, manage, each for herself, to get hold of the keys of the house where the club has its session. The scenes in which these stratagems are carried out are wonderfully rich. The men are all solemnly bound not to part with their keys to any uninitiated person, but, as might be expected, come off second best in the contest, and are every one of them overreached or overwhelmed by the women. At last, and after no end of misses and narrow escapes, the women, separately, and each thinking to steal a march on the others, make their way into the house, and get into the antechamber of the saloon of reunion. Here, standing betrayed one to the other, they make a virtue of necessity, and agree to act in concert. They find a peephole, but none will believe what they see, because none see what they expect. At last, in scrambling for turns at the keyhole, they make a noise, and are discovered. The mystery is then solved, and general reconciliation follows. The curtain falls; the community is restored to happiness, and convinced of the folly of unreasonable curiosity, of which they profess themselves determined never again to admit the disquieting intrusion.
This plot is admirably worked out by Goldoni,—especially in the scene in which one of the wives, aided by a cunning waiting-maid, manages to steal her husband's keys, though he never will part with them off his person.
"La Guerra," or, as it might be rendered, "Life in the Camp," is a stirring military episode, very much in the spirit of "Wallenstein's Lager." It gives you everything of war except the actual conflict of troops. It is a lively, bustling piece, of which the action never flags, and where the interest is sustained from beginning to end. These four plays comprise the contents of a single volume of Goldoni's works, taken at random. Are they not enough to indicate a richness of deposit that might reward a farther research and utilisation? We venture to predict that the man who first tries his skill in this direction will achieve a great success. W.
THE EARTH TO THE SEA.
From his rock pillow and his bed of sand
Old Neptuue rose just as the blushing Sun
Came forth the eastern gate dispensing smiles
O'er earth and sea. Old ocean's surface smooth,
With azure tint of sky, like mirror shone,
And scarce a ripple on its face appear'd,
Save by the zephyrs in pellucid rays
Disporting in their joy at dawn. Anon
A solemn voice was heard upon the shore:
'Twas Earth complaining of the havoc made
Upon her sons who travel o'er the deep.
"Behold," she said, "though now so hush'd and calm
All nature seems, the shore is overstrewn
With lifeless men and wreck of argosies,
Caused by the tempest which but lately raged.
O puissant god! it cannot be that thou
Shouldst pleasure take in vengeance on a race
Who for a time, and for a purpose wise,
Probative here abide, sustaining life
By store of food abundantly supplied
By teeming earth and sea. I pray thee, then,
Consider their sad case, thy fury stay,
And let them peacefully pursue their way."
The Seagod thus replied—"Deem not that I,
If ever vengeful, war with mortal foe.
'Tis true that my domain is oft, like yours,
The battlefield where spirits of the air,
Æolus-led, in elemental war
Disturb both earth and sea; 'tis also true
That creatures of the earth and sea and air
In these dire conflicts ofttimes meet their doom.
But 'mongst all living things the strong the weak
Subdue; and man o'er all lord paramount
Holds sway; and, though with reason sole endow'd,
In deadly feud against his fellow-man,
In one short moon more of his race are slain
Than in an age by elemental strife.
We know these things have ever been; but then,
Their cause and purpose are beyond our ken."
Old Earth thus saw how needless 'twere to roam—
That all reform must first commence at home.
END OF VOLUME THE TENTH.
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS, LONDON.
