In the comedy "Life in Algiers" there cannot be said to be any plot at all. Cervantes brought back from his captivity an intense horror of Christian suffering in Africa; and he had it much at heart to awaken in the minds of his countrymen, not only sympathy, but a spirit of charity, that would lead them to assist in the redemption of captives. He thus brings forward various pictures of suffering, such as would best move the hearts of the audience, and such as he himself had witnessed. Aurelio and Silvia, affianced lovers, are captives, and are respectively loved by Yusuf and Zara, the Moors who own them. In the old Spanish style, feelings are personified and brought on the stage. Fatima, Zara's confidant, seeks by incantations to bend Aurelio to her mistress's will. She is told by a Fury, that such power cannot be exercised over a Christian, but Necessity and Occasion are sent to move him by the suggestions they instil by whispers, and which he echoes as his own thoughts. He almost falls into the snare they present by filling his mind with prospects of ease and pleasure, in exchange for the hardships he undergoes; but he resists the temptation, and is finally set free with Silvia. Besides, these, we have the picture of two captives, who escape and cross the desert to Oran, as Cervantes had once schemed to do himself. One of them appears worn and famished--willing to return to captivity so to avoid death: he prays to the Virgin, and a lion is sent, who guards and guides him on his darksome solitary way. To rouse still more the compassion of the audience, there is one scene where the public crier comes on to sell a mother and father, and two children: the elder one has a sense of his situation and of the trials he is to expect with firmness; the younger knows nothing beyond his fear at being tern from his mother's side. A merchant buys the younger, and bids him come with him. "_Juan._ I cannot leave my mother, sir, to go With others. _Mother._ Go, my child--ah! mine no more, But his who buys thee. _Juan._ Mother dear, dost thou Desert me? _Mother._ Heaven! How pitiless thou art! _Merchant._ Come, child, come! _Juan._ Brother, let's go together. _Francisco._ It is not in my choice--may heaven go with thee! _Mother._ Remember, oh, my treasure and my joy, Thy God! _Juan._ Where do they take me without you, My father!--my dear mother! _Mother._ Sir, permit For one brief moment that I speak to my Poor child--short will the satisfaction be, Long, endless sorrow following close behind. _Merchant._ Say what thou wilt; 'tis the last time thou canst. _Mother._ Alas! it is the first that e'er I felt Such woe. _Juan._ Mother, keep me with thee; Suffer me not to go, I know not where.