is. I'll see if he understands fighting as well as he does Italian.-(Goes up to him, and aside) Sir, you are a jackanapes!-Can you construe that? MELNOTTE. No, Sir; I never construe affronts in the presence of ladies; by-and-by I shall be happy to take a lesson -or give one. Let us after, and pacify him; he evidently suspects something. GLAVIS. Yes! but my diamond ring! BEAUSEANT. And my box!-We are over-taxed, fellow-subject! -we must stop the supplies, and dethrone the Prince! GLAVIS. Prince! he ought to be heir-apparent to King Stork ! [Exeunt. D MADAME DESCHAP. Dare I ask your Highness to forgive my cousin's insufferable vulgarity? PAULINE. Oh, yes! you will forgive his manner for the sake of his heart. MELNOTTE. And the sake of his cousin.-Ah, Madame, there is one comfort in rank,-we are so sure of our posiBesides, tion that we are not easily affronted. M. Damas has bought the right of indulgence from his friends, by never showing it to his enemies. PAULINE. Ah! he is, indeed, as brave in action as he is rude in speech. He rose from the ranks to his present grade,—and in two years! MELNOTTE. In two years!-two years, did you say? MADAME DESCHAP. (aside). I don't like leaving girls alone with their lovers; but, with a prince, it would be so ill-bred to be prudish. MELNOTTE. [Exit. You can be proud of your connexion with one who owes his position to merit,-not birth. PAULINE. Why, yes; but still— MELNOTTE. Still what, Pauline? PAULINE. There is something glorious in the Heritage of Command. A man who has ancestors is like a Representative of the Past. MELNOTTE. True; but, like other representatives, nine times out of ten he is a silent member. Ah, Pauline! not to the Past, but to the Future, looks true nobility, and finds its blazon in posterity. PAULINE. You say this to please me, who have no ancestors; but you, Prince, must be proud of so illustrious a race! MELNOTTE. No, no! I would not, were I fifty times a prince, be a pensioner on the Dead! I honour birth and ancestry when they are regarded as the incentives to exertion, not the title-deeds to sloth! I honour the laurels that overshadow the graves of our fathers;it is our fathers I emulate, when I desire that beneath the evergreen I myself have planted my own ashes may repose! Dearest! could'st thou but see with my eyes! D 2 PAULINE. I cannot forego pride when I look on thee, and think that thou lovest me. Sweet Prince, tell me again of thy palace by the Lake of Como; it is so pleasant to hear of thy splendours since thou didst swear to me that they would be desolate without Pauline; and when thou describest them, it is with a mocking lip and a noble scorn, as if custom had made thee disdain greatness. MELNOTTE. Nay, dearest, nay, if thou would'st have me paint * The reader will observe that Melnotte evades the request of Pauline. He proceeds to describe a home, which he does not say he possesses, but to which he would lead her, "could Love fulfil its prayers." This caution is intended as a reply to a sagacious critic who censures the description, because it is not an exact and prosaic inventory of the characteristics of the Lake of Como!When Melnotte, for instance, talks of birds "that syllable the name of Pauline," (by the way a literal translation from an Italian poet,) he is not thinking of ornithology, but probably of the Arabian Nights. He is venting the extravagant, but natural enthusiasm, of the Poet and the Lover. PAULINE. My own dear love! MELNOTTE. A palace lifting to eternal summer Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower Whose songs should syllable thy name! At noon To excel them all in love; we'd read no books Translates the poetry of hearts like ours' And when night came, amidst the breathless Heavens We'd guess what star should be our home when love Stole through the mists of alabaster lamps, PAULINE. Oh! as the bee upon the flower, I hang |