Cressida watched secretly from her window, is the ideal of a young knight as seen through ladies' eyes.

noît makes his heroine's faithlessness the point of his story, and her character is quite consistent; Boccaccio concentrates his attention on Troilo,

in slightly and coarsely; Chaucer cannot so easily part with his heroine. It is noticeable that in this part of his poem he takes his incidents more directly from the old French poem. His Cressida, like her mediæval ancestress, realizes plaintively that henceforth unto the world's end no man will speak well of her. But if she stands self-judged before the tribunal of Time, Chaucer will add no syllable to her condemnation.

Nor me ne list this silly woman chide
Further than the story will devise.

For she so sorry was for her untruth
I wis I would excuse her yet for ruth.
Though Chaucer could not find it in his
heart to condemn this fair, frail crea-

ture of his own invention she was to fall into more rigorous hands than his. In the years when the Chaucerian tradition had become worn and languid in England, in Scotland it was full of original life and beauty. None of his English followers have caught the music of the master's verse so perfectly as James the First; Dunbar alone approaches him in the humor and originality of his pictures from life; it was a third Scottish poet, Robert Henryson, who had the temerity to continue the tale of Cressida.

Winter and the special comforts of

That well she felt he was to her a wall
Of steel, and shield from every displea-

sance.

The tale needs but a happy ending to be one of the most charming lovestories in the language.

Every one with a tale to tell is apt to be hampered by a foregone conclusion, and it is so with Chaucer. Be

up fire within, the furred gown, the modest cup to comfort the spirits, the old books to shorten the winter nights, all these have been a constant theme of Scottish poets from Gavin Douglas at Saint Andrews to Walter Scott at Ashestiel. It was under such cheerful conditions that Henryson, reading the old tale late into the night, became dissatisfied with Chaucer's dulgence to his heroine and determined to give the story a more sternly retributive close. He has succeeded in making one of the most pathetic situa

in

tions in literature. When death overtakes the young and fair and proud it melts the heart with pity and ruth; but when, not death, but some dark taint in the blood suddenly wrecks beauty and gentle nurture and the pride of life, reducing them below the coarseness of the common lot, the heart sickens and the mind recoils with shuddering pity.

and

In many towns of Scotland in the fifteenth century might have been found a lazar-house, silent shunned, set apart for those afflicted with the awful curse of leprosy; on all roads they might be seen begging, fearful figures in long mantles and beaver hats, with cup and clapper. To this last humiliation of the flesh does Henryson reduce Chaucer's bright, delicate lady.

Lying alone in a dark corner of the lazar-house, sleepless, loathing food, seeking no comfort, Cressida thus bemoans her state:

every passer-by. As she sits by the wayside a company of young knights ride by towards Troy. One of them draws up beside her for an instant, but disease has so dimmed her sight that though she casts her eyes on him she fails to recognize Troilus. He, looking down on the poor seamed face, sees no trait of Cressida, and yet some strange, swift memory of his lost lady drives all the blood back to his heart.

Yet then her look into his mind it brought The sweet visage and amorous blenking1 Of fair Cresseid sometimes his own darling.

gay,

Where thou wast wont full merrily in May

To walk and take the dew ere it was day, And hear the merle and mavis, many a one,

With ladies fair in carolling to go
And see the royal folk in their array
In garments gay garnished on every
grane?

Lo, fair ladies, Cressied of Troy Town, Sometime counted the flower of woman

hood.

Beneath this stone, late leper, lieth dead.

This austere and touching conclusion remained a beautiful digression in the history of the tale of Cressida. It was indeed printed along with Chaucer's poem, but does not seem to have affected the popular form in which the

bower,

And for thy bed take now a bunch

straw.

hadst then

Take mouldy bread, perry and cider sour. Save cup and clapper all is now agone.

With the dreadful common sense born of long acquaintance with misery a sister in misfortune counsels her to make a virtue of her need:

To learn to clap thy clapper to and fro And live after the law of leper-folk.

With that woeful crew Cresseid goes forth next day to clamor for alms to

lectual as it is one of the most puzzling of his plays.

It is most improbable that Shakespeare knew the old French poem, but by the intuition of genius he has restored the story to the dramatic consistency from which it was wrested by the sentiment of Boccaccio and Chaucer. In his play, as in Benoît's poem, the loves of Troilus and Cressida are but an incident in the larger drama of

1 Glances.

But if the original Breseida is more akin to Shakespeare's heroine than either of the intervening ladies, it is only in the same way as the vanity and fickleness of a village beauty may be said to resemble the deep dissimulation, the splendid sensuousness, and the keen wits of some corrupt and brilliant woman of the world. Shakespeare's Cressida is drawn with the stinging perspicacity of experience and disillusionment. Early in the play she gives the key to her own character when, in reply to her uncle's perplexed exclamation, "One knows not at what ward you lie," she answers, "Upon my wit to defend my wiles, upon my secrecy to defend mine honesty." And this creature of infinite re

mouth lest in her rapture she speaks what she shall repent; and when her lover does so in the one obvious way, she is overcome with maiden shame. She is no vulgar player, parsimoniously acting only when she would deceive another; she employs her finest eloquence to deceive herself. Only Pandarus is present when she learns and Troilus. It is not to impress that that fate is hurrying her from Troy corrupt and despicable servant of her pleasures, but to delude her own heart, that she declares with all the energy of real passion:

Time, force, and death

Do to this body what extremity you can; But the strong base and building of my love

Is as the very centre of the earth,
Drawing all things to it.

It is to Ulysses that Troilus confides his loyal and simple belief in his love; but Ulysses has watched Cressida's deportment among the free gallantries of the Grecian camp and has read her aright.

Fie, fie upon her!

There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,

describes himself

As true as truth's simplicity

And simpler than the infancy of truth. At the very time he complains of it, she, with clear intellectual grasp and deliberation, is calculating the effect of her reserve. Though throughout she acts with that composure which gives a woman who only plays at love such an advantage over the man who is overmastered by it, she can at will abandon herself to the passionate emotion of the hour. In the love-scene in the orchard she deludes and fascinates author and reader as well as lover; she even deceives herself. She is in turn reserved and innocently frank. With a seeming sudden impulse she confesses how she was won at the first glance, how maiden dignity alone kept her aloof; then, half fearful, half confident. she falters, bids him stop her

look out

At every joint and motive of her body.

It is in the company of Ulysses, whose cold sagacity has sounded human weakness, and of Thersites, whose cynicism delights in human corruption, that Troilus is witness of his lady's perfidy. On this, her first night away from Troy, Diomede has come by appointment to visit her. He is not the Diomede of Benoît, distracted and speechless with love; he is only indifferent and petulant. It is Cressida who, with broken sentences, faltering allusions, and timid caresses, woos her unknightly suitor, while, standing in the shadow of the tent, her true lover looks on with burning eyes. When convictions can no more be held at bay, and Ulysses sums up the tale, "All's done, my lord," Troilus has no other answer but, "It is."

had

One could be glad if all were indeed done and if the world-old story ended here; but before the close of her long literary history Cressida was to suffer a last humiliation. Chaucer pleaded extenuation for her perfidy; Henryson had visited it with retribution; Shakespeare had dropped the curtain upon it in silence; it remained for Dryden to explain it away. His fastidious taste having taken umbrage at much in Shakespeare's play, he set himself, not only to correct words and phrases that were "ungrammatical, coarse, and scarce intelligible," but he also undertook "to remove the heap of rubbish under which many excellent thoughts lay wholly buried," including in the rubbish the passages of lordliest eloquence and phrases of most golden

content!

From Travel.

A RIDE TO BAALBEC.

A slight difference of opinion with the government had caused me to be deposited, bag and baggage, at the door of the Hotel Victoria in Damascus, so very much the worse for wear that some doubt was expressed by the porter of my respectability.

An invitation I received from the

vail (late) next day, however, convinced him that his trust in my rags and sun-blistered face had not been misplaced, and ensured for me an extra amount of attention during the remainder of my stay.

There is a secret charm about Esh

If the age of the Restoration was facile in the matter of morals, it was

sentiment.

Oh, what a blessing is a virtuous child,

fervently exclaims old Calchas when his daughter consents to pretend love for Diomede in order to forward their return to Troy. In the interests of virtue Cressida incurs her lover's wrath, and only convinces him of her innocence when she stabs herself and dies with the noblest sentiments on her lips. Troilus pays a tribute to her virtue and is on the point of following her example, when he remembers that various other characters must die be fore the tragedy is complete. Dryden had complained of Shakespeare's play that, "The chief persons who give the name to the tragedy are left alive; Cressida is false and is not punished." These defects he has been careful to remedy.

And thus Cressida, born to the sound of arms amid the rude chivalry of a Norman camp, closes her long career amid the periwigs, the fustian sentiment, and stilted artifice of the stage of Charles the Second.

time of luxurious enjoyment. I had no thought of going to Baalbec-his Excellency the governor suggested the visit, and offered me a letter of introduction to the Kaimakam, with permission to photograph the ruins-a sop for the trouble I had found in Bashan through travelling in a quiet way without the sanction of the local governor-the Mutasserif of El Hauran, who perambulates the province from his headquarters at Sheik Sáad.

Very reluctantly I turned my back on Esh Sham, with its teeming bazaars and streets of jostling, many colored crowds, and rode along the coach road to Damma. From thence, with a boy as guide from the village, we turned up the bare hills that separated us from the beautiful Wady Barada. Down the rocky side we rode, then up the valley-passing village after village with their gardens of pomegranate, fig, walnut, apple, quince, peach, and apricot trees-under tall poplars, along the winding paths of the hillsides to the fountain of Ain Fijeh. Here even towards the end of summer the waters rushed with torrent force

from beneath the massive stones of a ruined temple; hissing and spitting as huge blocks of masonry barred the progress of this fountain of the Barada, one of the sources of the river of Damascus, the Abana.

Sometimes the valley was wide, affording space for gardens, then it narrowed to form a gorge; again it changed for forest growth, as if nature hal desired to satisfy the wants of all. We pushed on, after a rest beside the foaming stream, as the sun seemed inclined to disappear, and as yet we had no particular place to sleep. It did not matter very much, as my companion and I carried all our baggage with us (our small guide left us when we first entered the Wady), and we were in no danger of being pulled up for "sleeping out." We had spent many a night together under the deep blue sky.

At last we reached a khan, a roadside inn, where one finds no beverage stronger than coffee, and very poor accommodation. There we put up our horses for the night; the company in an Eastern caravanserai being varied, and of a character too much inclined for intimate acquaintance to suit the comfort of sensitive people who do not care for much attention of that sort. Fleas are nothing in the singular, but tribes and nations can occupy a good deal of space. Being tired, we ate a hearty supper and slept comfortably in the open air, with saddle-bags for pillows, under the shadow of the hill on which is built the traditional tomb of Abel.

warded, for as soon as one black combatant rolled on its back, the other commenced to scratch up the earth until there was a hole big enough to hide its enemy and its crime. Cain no longer sighed in sad despair, but set to work in haste to put beneath the ground the burden that had become so heavy, while he had grown so weary with his load.

We rode off before breakfast, with our hands full of a pennyworth of grapes that had been purchased the night before, past Suk el Wady Barada, ancient Abila, through a narrow gorge with beetling crags jutting from a precipitous side. One of the two life-giving streams of Damascus was still in company with us, flowing in the opposite direction to the road we were taking. We watched it on our left hand, saw it falling down the side of a hill from its source in the basin above. This river that, strengthened by the fountain of Ain Fijeh, transforms a desert into a smiling garden, early begins its useful career, turning a cornmill by its descending water before it runs to give new life along its course. After taking a permanent picture of it with a camera, we rode through some green lanes with English-looking hedgerows filled with blackberries, to Zebdany and break

fast.

The course of our journey led us along some very pleasant valleys to Yafoofeh. From thence we ascended the mountains to the Beka'a, the plain that separates the Lebanon from the Anti Lebanon, which, according to local names and the information of the natives, seems to have been the happy hunting-ground of ancient Nimrod and the residence of other primeval men.

lage of old Seth, the son of our common ancestor Adam. There could be no doubt, of course, as his tomb was shown to us.

We now began to feel tired and longed for the night, which was evi