The cascades, as the guide-book calls them, form one of the chief sights of Mortain. These are made by a little rivulet which purls down the hill among the trees; the lowest of these cascades falls into a little pool in a nook perfectly celestial. While we were looking at it, however, a very mundane idea seized us, which we immediately carried out by stripping off our clothes and getting under the fall. Luckily no sight seers cane during the operation, and we went off much refreshed and drank hugely of beer.

But joking apart this was without doubt the cleanest wash we had had since we came to France, for the washing apparatus supplied in the hotels consists of a basin alone, which is about the size of a pint pot. The towels and dinner napkins go by the same name, and are veritably the same article; and above all there is no soap allowed.

We finished the walking part of our tour by going to Flers, where we again lost our bag, and again slept in nature's garb.

When we got to Caen we found a letter for my friend from his people. They were getting alarmed at the aspect affairs were beginning to wear, and insisted on leaving the country at once. And so ended a most enjoyable fortnight.

A FRENCH NEW YEAR.

O YE that sit round cheerful fires
And watch the ruddy embers glow,
Ye talk the talk that never tires-

Sweet whispered words of long ago—
And as ye muse on days gone by,
(Such reveries are seldom glad,)
I pray you sigh in sympathy

With one whose memories are sad.

Tell me, O thou that by the fire

Dost watch the ruddy embers glow,
Hast felt the light of hope expire
Extinguished by the drifting snow?
Hast ever known what 'tis to drag
Thy frozen feet along the stones,
While little ones behind thee lag

To hide from mother's ear their moans?

O ye that sit by cheerful fires

And watch the ruddy embers glow, The homes ye dwell in were your sires', And (ah! the bitter tears will flow) The home I dwelt in was my sires', Each nook and corner knew I well, But now the German's cruel fires

Have left no nook wherein to dwell.

O ye that gather round the fire
And watch the embers as they glow,
Primeval ages swept the lyre,

And harped the hymn we harp e'en now.

I loved; I wedded; and I bore

Four babes that prattled at his knee-
Four did I say? Alas! not four:
Two only follow after me.

O thou that bendest o'er the fire

To weave fond memories in its glow,
Say, are those flickering groups entire
Without one spectral shade of woe?
The shadows flitting o'er the walls
Laugh and exult in fiendish glee:
They know their revelry recalls
The wailings of the past to me.

O ye that sit by cheerful fires,
Watching the ruddy embers glow,
The fabric of my hopes, desires,

Lay crushed and crumbled at a blow.
He fell he bravely fell-in fight;
My tears I mingled with his blood

The while they burned our home that night,
And welcomed thus my widowhood.

O ye that sit round cheerful fires

And watch the ruddy embers glow,
Your converse with the flame expires,
Your charity I pray bestow.
Nay! lengthen not my life forlorn,
Only let tears the eye bedim ;—

Ah me! my babes that I have borne

Would God that we had died with him.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

In this brief review we shall seek rather to evolve the plot by considering the characters of the principal personages, than to hint at the characters by a close adhesion to the narrative. It seems to us palpable that the latter course would only produce a miserable parody of the words of Shakspeare. Even Charles Lamb, with all his undoubted talent, has in our opinion been unsuccessful in the attempt. His tales are only a washy reproduction of the ideas of Shakspeare without any of the magnificent wording and life touches of the great dramatist. As we should probably fall as far below him as he has fallen below Shakspeare, we will not even make the attempt, but confine ourselves to a brief delineation of the characters.

The plot is divided into two portions, of which the one centres round Shylock, the other round Portia. I prefer to say that the one portion centres round Shylock rather than Antonio, because I hold the latter to be but little more than a back ground upon which the character of Shylock may stand out more clearly.

From the very beginning of the play Antonio appears as a man of morbid, stern, almost sullen, aspect. He is troubled with forbodings, the cause of which he cannot explain. He is haughty and stern to his inferiors. Even when reduced to borrowing money of Shylock he treats him as the very dirt beneath his feet. Antonio-I am as like to call thee so again,

To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.
If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not

As to thy friends: (for when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?)
But lend it rather to thine enemy;

Who if he break, thou mayst with better face
Exact the penalty.

Even when the Jew seems to prove more tractable than he expected there is a touch of sarcastic contempt in his words

Hie thee, gentle Jew.

This Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind.

VOL II.

G

But like most morbid men, he has a soft place in his heart. He has chosen one friend in the world, and that friend he is ready to serve with his heart's blood. We see the same constantly in the world. It is not your popular generally beloved men who prove the most affectionate, but it is the misanthrope, the sullen solitary man who suddenly unveils his heart and displays a flood of affection such as you would never have suspected from such a source.

So it is with Antonio. His love for Bassanio surpasses the love of women, but like everything else it is expressed in his own peculiar fashion.

Antonio-I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;

And, it it stand, as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honour, be assur'd

My purse, my person, my extremest means,
Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.

This is not the expression of pure unadulterated friendship. There is still the snarl of cynicism heard in it. "If it stand within the eye of honour" is a sentence of which even he is ashamed, for he adds immediately (as if remembering himself) as you still do." It appears strange- the overwhelming love displayed by the man who cannot help at the same time uttering a sneer against the world in general-but it is perfectly consonant with nature. The world was nothing to Antonio, save only for Bassanio's sake. And this is true of him in a tenfold degree when he hears of the utter collapse of his fortune, and of the cruel penalty impending upon his devoted body

Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit; and since, in paying it, it is impossible I should live, all debts are cleared between you and I, if I might but see you at my death; notwithstanding use your pleasure; if your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.

These are not the words of a man in utter despair, they are rather the language of a fatalist, of a man who is careless of his ultimate destiny, of a man who is inclined in his cynicism to doubt even the truth of his friend's affection; nor does he allow one grain of hope to penetrate within his breast. Death stares him in the face and he accepts it as an inevitable necessity.

Salanio

I am sure the duke
Will never grant this forfeiture to hold.
Antonio-The duke cannot deny the course of law;

Well, gaoler, on :-Pray God, Bassanio come
To see me pay my debt, and then I care not!

His cynicism almost rises to sublimity, in the last great death struggle, when he has been told that there is no hope for him in this world, save only in Jew's clemency.

I pray you, think you question with the Jew:
You may as well go stand upon the beach,
And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
You may as well use question with the wolf
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;

You may as well do anything most hard
As seek to soften that (than which what's harder?)
His Jewish heart: therefore, I do beseech you,

Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.

And then again when the brief hope of his friends seems to be rudely shattered by Portia's sentence, he rises to the occasion, and bids farewell to life in an almost triumphant

tone.

Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare you well!
Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you;
For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
Than is her custom: it is still her use

To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,

To view with hollow eye, and wrinkled brow,
An age of poverty; from which lingering penance
Of such a misery doth she cut me off.

And to the end he maintains the cynical spirit. We cannot attribute his forgiveness of Shylock to anything but the scorn and contempt in which he held his opponent. Perhaps the sudden reversion to life may have softened his heart, but we scarcely think it consistent with his character. Poor Shylock! to his many grievous misfortunes was added one more-that of having his fortune tossed to him in a contemptuous sentence by the man whom he had hated, and still hated, most bitterly.

Perhaps we were wrong in saying that Antonio was only a back ground to set off Shylock's character, but we must still affirm that the latter is by far the most carefully depicted personage in the whole play. He seems not to have been born with a revengeful disposition. His reverence towards his deceased wife Leah, his genuine affection for his daughter Jessica, all point to a different character. But sprung from a despised race, born to insult, contempt and contumely, the iron had entered deep into his very soul, all tender feeling had been seared, and he could live for nought else than for gold and revenge. The cruel