ORGAN _and_ CHOIR. A defunctis suscitatur Furtum qui commiserat: Et Judæus baptizatur Furtum qui recuperat: Illi vita restauratur, Hic ad fidem properat. FIRMILIAN. No more was needed to confirm my mind! That stanza blows all thoughts of pity off, As empty straws are scattered by the wind! For I have been the victim of the Jews, Who, by vile barter, have absorbed my means. Did I not pawn—for that same flagrant stuff, Which only waits a spark to be dissolved, And, having done its mission, must disperse As a thin smoke into the ambient air— My diamond cross, my goblet, and my books? What! would they venture to baptise the Jew? The cause assumes a holier aspect, then; And, as a faithful son of Rome, I dare To merge my darling passion in the wrong That is projected against Christendom! Pity, avaunt! I may not longer stay. [_Exit into the vaults. A short pause, after which he reappears._ ’Tis done! I vanish like the lightning bolt! ORGAN _and_ CHOIR. Nicholai sacerdotum Decus, honor, gloria: Plebem omnem, clerum totum— [_The Cathedral is blown up_]. We back that scene, for intensity, against anything which has been written for the last dozen of years. Nay, we can even see in it traces of profound psychological observation. Firmilian, like Hamlet, is liable, especially on the eve of action, to fits of constitutional irresolution; and he requires, in order to nerve him to the deed, a more direct and plausible motive than that which originally prompted him. Hence we find him wavering, and almost inclined to abandon his purpose, until a casual passage in the choral hymn jars upon an excitable nerve, and urges him irresistibly forward. We shall presently find the same trait of character even more remarkably developed in another scene. We then come to the obsequies of the students, which, being episodical, we may as well pass over. There are two ways of depicting grief—one quiet and impressive, the other stormy and clamorous. Mr Percy Jones, as might have been expected, adopts the latter method; and we are bound to say that we have never perused anything in print so fearful as the ravings of the bereaved Countess D’Aguilar, mother of the unfortunate Alphonzo. She even forgets herself so far as to box the ears of the confessor who is officiously whispering consolation.