SERVILLACA. defile, a horse by land, a boat by water, a snake in motion, and a rock in stability? In hovering about I compete with the king of birds, and in an eye to the ground, am keener than the hare. Am I not like a wolf in seiz RADANIKÁ. [Enter. These invocations are irresistible: take it I must. Softly: the light will betray me. I have the fire-flapping insect to put it out. I must cast it into the lamp. [Takes out the insect.] Place and time requiring, let this insecting, and like a lion in strength? fly. It hovers round the wick-with the wind of its wings the flame is extinguished. Shame on this total darkness or rather shame on the darkness with which I have obscured the lustre of my race: how well it suits, that Servillaca, a Brahman, the son of a Brahman, learned in the four védas and above receiving donations from others, should now be engaged in such unworthy course. And why? For the sake of a harlot, for the sake of Madaniká. Ah well, I must even go on, and acknowledge the courtesy of this Brahman. Bless me, what has become of Verdhamána? he was asleep at the hall door, but is there no longer. I must wake Maitreya [approaches]. MAITREYA. [Half awake. Eh, my good friend, how cold your hand is! Sleep, illustrious Brahman, may you sleep a hundred years. Fie on this love, for whose dear sake I thus bring trouble on a Brahman's dwelling-nay, rather call down shame upon myself; and fie, and fie, upon this unmanning poverty, that urges me to acts which I must needs condemn. Now to Vasantaséná to redeem my beloved Madaniká with this night's booty. I hear footsteps; should it be the watch, what then? shall I stand here like a post? no, let Servillaca be his own protection. Am I not a cat in climbing, a deer in running, a snake in twisting, a hawk in darting upon the prey, a dog in baying man, whether asleep or awake? In assuming various forms am I not Maya herself and Saraswati in the gift of tongues? A lamp in the night, a mule in a SERVILLACA. [Going to stab her. Ha! a woman; she is safe and I may depart. [Exit. RADANIKÁ. Oh, dear me, a thief has broken into the house, and there he goes out at the door. Why, Maitreya, Maitréya; up, up, I say. A thief has broken into the house, and has just made his escape! MAITREYA. Eh, what do you say, you foolish toad; a thief made his escape? RADANIKÁ. What say you, hey, the outer door opened! This is not an hour to jest. MAITREYA. It is true enough, as you may satisfy your- Where did he get in? Look here [discovers the breach]. CHÁRUDATTA. Upon my word, a not unseemly fissure; the bricks are taken out above and below, the head is small, the body large: there is really talent in this thief. MAITREYA. The opening must have been made by one of two persons; by a novice, merely to try his hand, or by a stranger to this city; for who in Ujayin is ignorant of the poverty of our mansion? CHÁRUDATTA. No doubt by a stranger, one who did not know the condition of my affairs, and forgot that those only sleep soundly who have little | Cold poverty is doomed to wake suspicion. to lose. Trusting to the external semblance Alas! till now, my fortune only felt of this mansion, erected in more prosperous The enmity of fate, but now its venom times, he entered full of hope, and has gone Sheds a foul blight upon my dearer fame. away disappointed. What will the poor felMAITREYA. low have to tell his comrades? I have broken into the house of the son of the chief of a corporation, and found nothing. MAITREYA. Really, I am very much concerned for the luckless rogue. Ah, ha, thought he, here is a fine house; now for jewels, for caskets. [Recollecting.] By the bye, where is the casket? Oh yes, I remember. Ha, ha, my friend, you are apt to say of me, that blockhead Maitreya, that dunderhead Maitréya; but it was a wise trick of mine to give the casket to you: had I not done so, the villain would have walked off with it. I tell you what. I will maintain that the casket was never intrusted to us. Who gave it pray; who took it; where are your witnesses? CHÁRUDATTA. Think you I can sanction thus a falsity? RADANIKÁ. I will go and tell my mistress what has happened. [Exit. SCENE.-Another Room. Enter the WIFE of CHÁRUDATTA and RAD- WIFE. But indeed is my lord unhurt; is he safe, and his friend Maitreya? RADANIKÁ. Both safe, madam, I assure you, but the ornaments left by the courtesan are stolen. WIFE. Alas, girl, what say you! My husband's person is unharmed-that glads me. Yet better had his person come to harm than his fair fame incur disparagement. The people of Ujayin will now be ready to suspect that indigence has impelled him to an unworthy act. Destiny, thou potent deity, thou sportest with the fortunes of mankind, and renderest them as tremulous as the watery drop that quivers on That the poor rogue has not gone away the lotus leaves. This string of jewels was empty-handed. given me in my maternal mansion: it is all RADANIKÁ returns with MAITREYA. Health to you, respected lady. WIFE. I salute you, sir. Oblige me by facing the east. Is this the kindness of the Brahman's wife? By opulence: the poor man helpless grows, MAITREYA. I will do no such thing. What, are we to VOL. X. part with these gems, the quintessence of the four oceans, for a thing carried off by thieves, and which we have neither eaten nor drank, nor touched a penny for? CHÁRUDATTA. Not so; to me, confiding in my care And honesty, the casket was intrusted; And for that faith, which cannot be o'ervalued, A price of high amount must be repaid. Touching my breast, I therefore supplicate, You will not hence, this charge not under taken. You, Verdhamána, gather up these bricks How can a pauper be a niggard? he has nothing to part with. CHÁRUDATTA. I am not poor, I tell thee, but retain Treasures I prize beyond whate'er is lost. Go then, discharge this office, and meanwhile I hail the dawn with its accustomed rites. [Exit. ESOP'S FABLES. [Æsop, an ancient Greek writer, whose name is attached to the most popular of the existing collections of fables. His history is very uncertain, and some critics have even denied his existence. First among these is Luther, in his preface to the German Æsop, 1530. We are told, however, on the authority of Herodotus (ii. 134), Diog. Lærtius (i. 72), and Plutarch (Sept. Sap. Conviv. and De Sera Num. Vind.), that Æsop lived in the latter half of the sixth century before Christ; that he was a slave at Samos; that, on receiving his freedom, he visited Croesus and Pisistratus, by the former of whom he was commissioned to distribute some money among the citizens of Delphi, and that on his refusal to pay it, in consequence of a dispute, he was thrown over a precipice by the infuriated mob. We are further informed that the Athenians erected a statue to him from the chisel of Lysippus. Whether this person was the author of the existing Esopean collection or not, we know, from Aristophanes, and other authorities, that fables bearing his name were popular in the most brilliant period of Athenian literature. The conjecture of Bentley, however, seems well founded, that these fables were transmitted entirely through oral tradition. Socrates (Phædo, p. 61) turned such of them as he could remember into verse, of which Diog. Lærtius has preserved a specimen; and the same was done 239 by Demetrius Phalereus, 320 B. C. version, however, of which any entire fables remain, and which, as shown by Bentley, has furnished materi The only Greek | Hare. The Dog having not long since made a good meal, was not at all hungry, and in consequence in no hurry to put an end to the sport. He would at times, as they ran, snap at the Hare, and at others lick him with his tongue. Pray," cried the persecuted and bewildered Hare, are you a friend or an enemy? If a friend, work of Planudes, till it was found in the earlier MS.) why do you bite me so? and if an enemy, als to subsequent collections, is that of Augustus. Of the fables now bearing the name of Esop, there are three sets, the first from a MS. of the thirteenth century, published at Florence in 1809; the second a collection by Maximus Plauudes, a monk of the fourteenth century, containing a life (supposed to have been the of Esop, full of fabulous particulars; and the third a collection published in 1610, from MSS. found at Heidelberg. All these are contained in the edition of Schneider, Breslau, 1810. The resemblance between some of the fables and the personal peculiarities attributed in common to Æsop and to the Arabian fabulist Lokman, have led some persons to conclude that the two men were identical; and others, that the fables attributed to them in common belong to the same eastern source.] THE MERRY-ANDREW AND THE COUNTRYMAN. On the occasion of some festivities that were given by a Roman nobleman, a droll fellow of a Merry-andrew caused much laughter by his tricks upon the stage, and, more than all, by his imitation of the squeaking of a Pig. It seemed to the hearers so real, that they called for it again and again. One man, however, in the audience, thought the imitation was not perfect; and he made his way to the stage, and said that if he were permitted, he to-morrow would enter the lists, and squeak against the Merry-andrew for a wager. The mob, anticipating great fun, shouted their consent, and accordingly, when the next day came, the two rival Jokers were in their place. The hero of the previous day went first, and the hearers, more pleased than ever, fairly roared with delight. Then came the turn of the Countryman, who, having a Pig carefully concealed under his cloak, so that no one would have suspected its existence, vigorously pinched its ear with his thumb-nail, and made it squeak with a vengeance. Not half as good-not half as good!" cried the audience, and many among them even began to hiss. "Fine judges you!" replied the Countryman, rushing to the front of the stage, drawing the Pig from under his cloak, and holding the animal upon high. “Behold the performer that you condemn!” THE HARE AND THE DOG. why caress me?" THE OLD MAN, HIS SON, AND THE ASS. An Old Man and his little Boy were once driving an Ass before them to the next market town, where it was to be sold. Have you no more wit," said a passerby, “than for you and your Son to trudge on foot, and let your Ass go light?" So the man put his Boy on the Ass, and they went on again. "You lazy young rascal!"' said the next person they met ; are you not ashamed to ride, and let your poor old Father go on foot?" The Man lifted off the Boy, and got up himself. Two women passed soon after, and one said to the other, "Look at that selfish old fellow, riding on, while his little Son follows after on foot!" The Old Man thereupon took up the Boy behind him. The next traveller they met asked the Old Man whether or not the Ass was his own. Being answered that it was: No one would think So, said he, "from the way in which you use it. Why, you are better able to carry the poor animal, than he is to carry both of you.' So the Old Man tied the Ass's legs to a long pole, and he and his son shouldered the pole, and staggered along under the weight. In that fashion they entered the town, and their appearance caused so much laughter, that the Old Man, mad with vexation at the result of his endeavors to give satisfaction to everybody, threw the Ass into the river, and seizing his Son by the arm, went his way home again. 66 THE OLD LION. A Lion, worn-out with age, lay drawing his last breath, and several of the beasts who had formerly been sufferers by him came The Boar, with his powerful tusks, ripped his A Dog once gave a long chase to a into the Lion's face. poor old expiring tyrant, with his dying groan, uttered these words: "How much worse than a thousand deaths it is to be spurned by so base a creature! shawl-patterns that adorned the fair forms of the heroines of Jami and of Hafiz, are imitated in the looms of England and the United States to-day. In architecture and the fine arts, as in decorative art, the Persians of the Middle Their CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSIAN Ages achieved a notable success. POETRY. BY A. R. SPOFFORD. It was in a country conspicuous for its natural advantages that Persian poetry had its birth: a country distinguished for the mildness of its air, the serenity of its climate, the clearness of its streams and the perpetual verdure of its plains; a country of lofty mountains, inland seas and rolling rivers; the land of the gazelle, the camel and the caravan; a land abounding in fruits and flowers, full of pleasant gardens and enlivened with the songs of innumerable birds; a land where millions of butterflies of the richest colors were wafted through the summer air, as the soft zephyrs scatter rose leaves abroad. In this land of the olive, the date, the pomegranate and the fig, of trees laden with balm and distilling precious gums, where the lofty palms of the South met and gave place to the stately pines of the North, there was reared a race of men combining in a rare degree ingenuity, vivacity, intellectual force, subtlety and refinement of manners. The Persians early acquired repute as a people of taste, of invention and of artistic skill. The finest silks, the richest velvets, the costliest brocades, the softest and the rarest carpets, and the most splendid tissues were of Persian origin. The newly-discovered art, to America and Europe, how to combine great variety of colors with perfect harmony, and to delight the eye with soft and pleasing gradations producing a rich composite effect from the simplest elements, was original with the Persians centuries ago. What has been termed the Oriental craze," causing the shawls of Cashmir, the carpets of Sagestan and the oldest rugs of Daghestan to be sought for at the highest prices, is an involuntary testimony at once to the refinement of taste of the Persians and to the truth of the hackneyed adage that there is nothing new under the sun. The very patterns of floor-cloth on which the Shah Mahmoud walked in the tenth century, the self-same chief cities contained splendid palaces filled with exquisite gems of art and sparkling with jewels of the rarest lustre, while their stately mosques of dazzling white or bluest azure reared their glittering domes against the sky. The fortunate classes, and notably those allied to royalty, dressed in a style of magnificence befitting their rank and fortune. The costliest stuffs, harmonized and adapted by the cunning hand of taste, were worn with that flowing grace peculiar to the costume of the Orient, but to which our colder clime and severer modes are strangers. The most delicious perfumes, the refined musk, the scented ambergris and the exquisite civet were indigenous in Persia. Nor was it an effeminate race, steeped in pleasure and enervated by luxury, which enjoyed all these advantages of nature and of art. Their bodies were strong and supple, while strikingly handsome in form and countenance. The Persians were adepts in archery and horsemanship from time immemorial. They were distinguished by courtesy and high breeding, their minds were lively, thoughtful, refined, and with a poetic tendency fostered by everything around them. Even the common people, destitute of literary culture, were keen admirers of poetry, and were continually calling upon their favorite bards to recite their verses. What wonder that with all these incentives to literary art the writers of Persia in this favored age produced a literature richer "than all Bokhara's vaunted gold, Than all the gems of Samarcand." Persia, the Iran of the ancients, though its boundaries have varied in different centuries, has occupied substantially that portion of Central Asia extending from the 25th to the 45th degree of latitude. Its climate, like that of the United States, includes every zone, from the semi-tropical almost to the frigid. In the north, mountains covered with snow are visible from smiling valleys basking in the sunlight and adorned with flowers. Washed on the |