pass over my very dreams; so neither night nor day shall be spent unprofitably; the night shall teach me what I am, the day what I should be; for Sleep is Death's younger brother, and so like him that I never dare trust him without my prayers." There is indeed a very serious thought connected with this subject of dreaming in sleep;

than the laws of the Medes and Persians, in which Memory may have to play its part.

". . . . To die—to sleep

To sleep-perchance to dream ;—ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil!"

Temple Bar.

IT

T was not until more than two centuries after the famous 5th of November that the idea of employing a fulminating process against the chief of the state was adopted in France, where, twice within two months, an attempt was made to blow up Napoleon, at that time First Consul. It was, in each instance, on the occasion of his visiting the opera that Napoleon, according to the designs of his enemies, was to be blown to pieces. The Paris Opera-House has, in fact, been the chosen scene for carrying out a large number of murderous projects directed against the ruler of the country. In addition to the two attempts made upon the life of Napoleon I., it was in front of the opera that the Orsini shells were thrown which so nearly disposed of Napoleon III. in the year 1857. It was beneath the portico, too, of the old opera in the Rue Richelieu that the Duc de Berri was assassinated; but it would be too long a story to give even the briefest account of attacks made upon sovereigns by ordinary means.

It was intended to employ against Napoleon I. a destructive method of a mixed kind. Rockets and grenades were to be hurled from various parts of the theatre into his box. But, to insure his death, conspirators armed with daggers and pistols were stationed in the corridor into which the box opened, with orders to shoot and stab him if, escaping the missiles, he attempted to make his way to the outer doors. The conspiracy, according to Napoleon himself, who told the story at St. Helena, was revealed by a captain in the line. "What limit is there," said Napoleon, "to the combinations of folly and stupidity? This officer had a horror of me as consul, but adored me as general. He was anxious that I should be torn from my post, but he would have been very sorry that my life should be taken. I ought to be made prisoner, he said, in no way injured, and sent to the army to continue to defeat the enemies of France. The other conspirators laughed in his face, and, when he saw them distribute daggers and that they were going be

yond his intentions, he proceeded at once to denounce the whole affair." The informer having been brought before him, Napoleon at first suggested to the Prefect of Police that he should not be allowed to go to the opera that evening. It was decided, however, that his absence would awaken the suspicions of the other conspirators; and everything was allowed to go on as though the plot had not been discovered. The sentinels outside Napoleon's box were ordered to let no one approach who had not the password, issued immediately before the Consul's departure for the opera; for it was known that a certain number of conspirators had taken up their position in the corridor to extinguish the lights at the moment when the rockets were to be fired and the shells thrown. The opera of the evening was Les Horaces," a work composed by Porta to a libretto founded on Corneille's tragedy; and the signal for action was to be the delivery of a passage in which the Horatii swear to conquer or die. Then all the lights were to be put out, and, apart from the shells intended specially for the Emperor, fireworks were to be cast indiscriminately about the theatre, while the general confusion was to be increased by cries of "Fire!" The leaders of the plot, like the claqueurs of the present day, had attended the rehearsal of the opera so as to note the cue given to them for their grand demonstration and attack. But, at the performance, the Prefecture of Police was also largely represented, and there were, altogether, upward of two hundred persons in the theatre who were paying no attention to the music except with a view to a particular quartet, in which the old Horatius opened the piece by calling upon his sons to swear que le dernier de vous sera mort ou vainqueur." The instrumental introduction to the quartet was, however, the signal for action chosen by the police; and before the singing began the conspirators were all in custody in one of the vestibules of the theatre.

The second attempt, on a grand scale, against the life of Napoleon was executed two months later, on the 24th of December, when on his way to the opera he was made the mark of an "infernal machine." Haydn's "Creation" was to be given, and the performance had already commenced, when, during the soft adagio of the introduction, the dull report of an explosion was heard. Immediately afterward Napoleon entered his box, attended by the principal members of his staff. Josephine's love of dress had saved him. As she was getting into the carriage she thought of making some change in her toilet, and, going back to her apartments for a few minutes, caused a delay but for which Bonaparte and herself would, following the other carriages, have passed before the infernal machine at the moment of its explosion.

To pass to Louis Philippe's reign, the most remarkable thing in connection with Fieschi's crime was the entire absence of political, or, indeed, any other apparent motive. Fieschi was neither a Republican nor a Legitimist; nor had he any personal grievance against the King, whose life he had resolved to take. Nothing but an insane love of notoriety seems to have impelled him toward the commission of the crime. A Genoese by birth, he had served in the French army under Napoleon, and had made the campaign of 1812 in Russia. He left the army in 1818 with the grade of sergeant. Afterward joining Murat's expedition, he went to Calabria, where he was taken prisoner, but, being regarded by the Neapolitan Government as a Frenchman, was allowed to go free. During a portion of the year 1816 Fieschi occupied himself with horse-stealing, forgery, and similar pursuits—a course of life which brought him, without much delay, to a penitentiary, where he was confined for ten years. On his liberation he was engaged as a workman at some factory near Paris; but, honest labor not being congenial to his disposition, he entered the police as a spy. With his functions as mouchard he combined other duties; and the opportunity being afforded him of misappropriating a large sum of money intended for the payment of workmen he gladly availed himself of it. In 1835, finding himself at liberty and without employment, he devoted himself to the construction of a so-called "infernal machine”—a sort of mitrailleuse, with no fewer than twenty-five barrels. Fieschi mounted this species of battery in the third floor of a house which overlooked that portion of the boulevards along which Louis Philippe was to pass after holding a review in commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the events which had placed him on the throne. What Fieschi proposed to gain by his project for destroying the King was never made known. The man was VOL. VIII.-36

morbidly vain, but it is difficult to believe that a mere passion for notoriety could alone have dictated such an act. The construction of the machine must have cost a considerable amount of money; and it appeared from the trial that he had been supplied with funds by several workmen, his accomplices. It was, however, found impossible to connect with the attempt any, even the remotest, political design. On June 28, 1836, as the King, or rather the King's staff, passed in front of the machine, it was exploded and with terrible results; for Mortier, chief of the staff, and several officers fell mortally wounded. The King, however, escaped with but slight injuries occasioned by the rearing and plunging of his horse. Fieschi immediately after the explosion took to flight, and, wounded as he was by the bursting of one of the barrels, escaped into an adjoining courtyard, where he was arrested and taken first to prison and afterward to a hospital. Cured of his wounds, he was brought to trial and sentenced to death; and his demeanor throughout the examination went far to show that the origin of his insane and infamous attempt was, indeed, nothing more than an absurd longing to become known to the world, in no matter what character. He assumed in court the attitudes and gestures of a stage-brigand, and made a point of kissing his hand from time to time, and as often as possible, to his mistress, who made signs to him in return.

Some twenty years later, in 1857, Paris was again the scene of an attempt to destroy the chief of the state by a means which deserved, quite as much as the machine invented by Fieschi, the epithet of "infernal." Felice Orsini made his attack upon Napoleon III. with hand-shells containing a new and terrible fulminating powder composed, if not invented, by himself. Orsini was a born conspirator. His father had conspired before him; and the young Orsini was enabled by his father to take part in various plots before he had attained the age of reason or even of manhood. The result of the paternal teaching was, that Felice found himself at twenty-four years of age sentenced to penal labor for life. Restored to liberty in 1846, he took part in various insurrections. When the revolutionary era of 1848 to 1849 had come to an end, Orsini visited England, where he made the acquaintance of Mazzini, who intrusted him with several secret missions. In 1854 he was arrested in Hermannstadt, the capital of Transylvania, and taken to the fortress of Mantua, whence, in 1856, he succeeded in making his escape. In 1857 he returned to England, and there published an account of his captivity, entitled The Austrian Dungeons in Italy." This same year he undertook the most formidable, and, for excellent rea

sons, the last of his "secret missions." The object this time was to blow up the Emperor Napoleon, whom he and his confederates regarded as the great obstacle to revolutionary changes everywhere, and especially in Italy. Orsini had three associates named Pieri, Rudio, and Gomez. The conspirators remained some time in Paris, preparing the details of their scheme. At last, on the evening of January 14, 1858, as the Emperor and Empress were approaching the Grand Opera, three shells were thrown under their carriage, which, exploding, killed or wounded a large number of persons belonging to the imperial suite. Orsini, Pieri, and Rudio were sentenced to death. Gomez, however, escaped with hard labor for life, and, at the intercession of the Empress, the death-penalty was also commuted in the case of Rudio. Orsini went to the scaffold calm and courageous; and only a few days before his execution he addressed a letter to the Emperor Napoleon exhorting him to liberate Italy. Whether or not Orsini's diabolical act had any effect upon the Emperor's decision, certain it is that a year afterward Napoleon III. made, in alliance with Victor Emanuel, the campaign which resulted in the liberation of Lombardy. In all probability joint action against Austria had already been determined upon at the time of the Crimean war, when the Sardinian contingent fought with the army of France against the Russians.

Until 1863 Paris was the only city in which endeavors had been made to assassinate the head of the Government by means of shells, manybarreled pieces of artillery, and other "infernal" devices. But the Poles have always prided themselves on their aptitude in appropriating French ideas; and, toward the close of the year just mentioned, the members of the revolutionary body known as the Polish National Government resolved to try the effect of explosive missiles on Count Berg, the Emperor's lieutenant in Poland. Count Berg, on assuming the governorship of Poland at a most critical moment, had formally announced that any future attempt made upon the life of one of the governing authorities (and the Grand Duke Constantine, the Marquis Wielobolski, and others had all been attacked with pistol or with dagger) would be visited with the severest penalties; and it was in particular set forth that, in the case of shots being fired or missiles thrown from a house, the house would be at once destroyed by artillery, the question as to how the occupants would be treated being left in reserve. In the autumn of 1863, when the insurrection was failing, and when the somewhat theatrical interest taken in it by the Western powers seemed to be coming to an end, the National Government of Poland resolved on striking a great blow. One

afternoon, when Count Berg was driving along one of the principal streets in Warsaw, several shells were hurled at his carriage from a large building known as the "Zamoiski House,” the property of the well-known Polish magnate whose name it bore. Five shells were thrown, and several horses and one or two aides-de-camp were wounded. Count Berg received the splinter of a shell in his cloak, but was not otherwise injured, either in person or in apparel. The Count, without stopping, drove straight to the Castle, his official residence, and immediately afterward troops were dispatched to the Zamoiski House, with orders to enter it and arrest the numerous inhabitants. Artillery was at the same time sent forward, and on arrival took up a position in front of the building. It appeared certain that the order on the subject of missile-throwing would be carried out. But at the last moment it was decided not to destroy the Zamoiski House, but to confiscate it, after subjecting it to the process of sacking. The soldiers were ordered to seize all articles of furniture and cast them into the street, where they were burned in a huge bonfire, which was fed, among other articles, with valuable historical manuscripts, the property of Prince Lubomirski, a great collector of archæological documents, and with Chopin's favorite piano. Some four or five different pianos were thrown out of the various floors; and an indignant, but more or less self-contained, amateur of music afterward related, to the correspondent of the "Times" present on the occasion, in what manner the pianos of Erard, of Pleyel, and of other makers, had borne the effect of the fall. The pianos of Viennese make were worth nothing, he said, on such occasions. They smashed to pieces on contact with the ground. A well-made Erard, on the other hand, pitched from a second floor, suffered only in its legs. As for Chopin's piano, it fell, as this observant connoisseur declared, with a deep sigh, in which he fancied he recognized the soul of the sentimental, romantic, fascinating composer, who had so often given effect to his inspiration on its ivory keys; and it was asserted that one Russian officer of a sympathetic disposition played fragments of one of the composer's nocturnes on Chopin's piano before he allowed the instrument-broken into fragments by its fall to be consigned to the flames.

From Poland the process of attacking high authorities by means of "infernal machines" was sure, sooner or later, to reach Russia, as all the secret machinery of the Polish insurrection of 1863 has penetrated into that country in the form of Nihilism. But the firing of the mine in the cellars of the Winter Palace need not here be spoken of.

Pall Mall Gazette.

an absence of gêne which is pleasant to see, and an almost touchingly good-natured make-believe that they are doing something very secret and romantic.

The general popularity of the play has made it the most productive of praise and profit of all forms of literary activity in Spain. The poet or novelist, though sure of a better public now than at any former period, is not nearly so well paid, either in money or reputation, as the successful playright. Hence, to succeed as a writer for the stage has been and is the ambition of most Spanish men of letters. Some of the most successful plays of modern times were written by Martinez de la Rosa, the Liberal statesman and novelist. What little literature of any value Spain produced in the last century was destined for the stage. The comedies of the younger Moratin, a writer who lived into this century, are still played occasionally; and one of his successors, Breton de los Herreros, is probably the best writer Spain has to show for herself since the partial revival of her literature. Nor are plays written only in Castilian. The Catalan stage can show some dramatists who rival the great men of old—even that wonder of ready-writing, Lope de Vega-at least in the quality of fecundity. The popular Barcelonese Serafi Pitarra is probably the most productive playright in Europe. With the exception of Lope de Vega, none of the writers we have mentioned are associated in the minds of foreigners, or indeed of Spaniards, with that Spanish drama which has taken its place among the great literatures of the world. Beginning with Moratin, who was almost a copyist of Molière, they have been powerfully influenced by France, which has thus paid back the debt which it owed to the earlier Spanish stage. During the last century that influence was so strong that Lope de Vega and Calderon were looked upon by many of their countrymen as little better than barbarians. These writers have, however, had their revenge, and are now as frequently played as the great masters of French or English dramatic literature are in their native countries. Their works are read, and a large party is striving to bring back the stage to the peculiarly Spanish models which they created.

We are accustomed to hear the Spanish stage spoken of as a storehouse of plot, intrigue, and incident. The reader of Molière is aware that many of the stock incidents, and some of the characters of his comedies, were taken from the Spaniards; that he even directly imitated them in a few of the least successful of his works, and that from him and before his time these intriguing plots found their way on to our own stage. But this justice is rendered to the Spaniards by tradition, not because the foreign reader is directly ac

quainted with their works. In point of fact, the Spanish comedy is now scarcely seen except by the light thrown on it by that of France. Guillen de Castro is remembered because his "Mocedades del Cid " inspired the masterpiece of Corneille. Every reader of the "Médecin malgré lui" has heard of the "Acero de Madrid" of Lope de Vega; but how many have read it even in a translation? The French theatre even attacked and for a time subdued the Spanish in its own land. The French dynasty which ascended the Spanish throne in the first years of the eighteenth century brought with it French customs and literature. The old national stage had expired, as far as that was possible among a people essentially mimetic, during the evil times of Charles II., who figures among Spanish monarchs as the bewitched." When a revival came in happier days it did so under the influence of the classic school. The highest ambition of Moratin and his followers was to write with a due regard to the unities and the customs of good society. To them the rules of the classic school were the holy of holies, their native dramatists of the seventeenth century barbarians, or at best beginners, to be patted on the back and condescended to. Bohl von Faber, a disciple of the Schlegels, known as an editor of the Spanish ballads, had to fight Calderon's battles against the poet's countrymen. But delivery came from the country which imposed the yoke. Spain, following the lead of her neighbor in literature as in politics, returned to the study of her own theatre under the leadership of Victor Hugo, then fresh from his victory over the classic party. Her numerous playwrights now swore by Lope, as they had lately done by Molière. Gorostiza, Breton de los Herreros, Martinez de la Rosa, and many others, have kept their country supplied with plays which rival those of their great days in at least two particulars-their number and their defiance of all rules. They are almost nervously eager to disclaim any imitation of the French, but we find some difficulty in accepting their protestations. They do, indeed, protest too much. The best proof they give of their nationality is an unconscious one. Their indifference to character and their love of incident and plot make them give a coloring of their own to the matter they take from France. The men we have mentioned are undoubtedly clever playwrights, but it is not of them we think when we speak of the Spanish comedy.

If the Spanish dramatists are more talked about than known, it is certainly not due to any neglect on our part of Spanish literature. Don Quixote is probably more read in England than in his native La Mancha. The sins of native editors have perhaps something to do with it. The