The tragedist has generously bestowed upon wicked Queen Athaliah a certain loftiness of spirit which, in its display in the final catastrophe, almost redeems her to admiration, if not to sympathy. There is nothing in the play more nearly sublime in declamation than the final speech in which Athaliah greets her own doom, and blasphemously forecasts, for young King Joash, a future of apostasy from God. With this admirable piece of rhetoric, resembling a burst of blasphemy from Satan in "Paradise Lost," so far as French poetry may be allowed to resemble English, we conclude our representation of Racine. Athaliah has now just heard the announcement of things that assure her of the overthrow of her usurpation. She expresses herself in a speech, the first words of which were, no doubt, designed by the poet to recall the celebrated traditional exclamation of Julian the Apostate, uttered at a moment of irretrievable disaster to his impious hopes--"O Galilean, thou hast conquered!" as follows: God of the Jews, 'tis thou that dost prevail! Ay, it is Joash; all without avail Seek I to cheat myself with other thought: I know the wound my weapon on him wrought; I see his father Ahaziah's face; Naught but brings back to me that hated race. David doth triumph, Ahab only fall-- Unpitying God, thou only hast done all! 'Tis thou that, flattering me to hope in vain For easy vengeance, o'er and o'er again Hast with myself myself embroiled anew, Now pangs of conscience rousing, not a few, Now dazzling me with thy rich treasures rare, Which I to burn or pillage did not dare. Let him, then, reign, this son, thy care, thy toil, And, so to signalize his new-got spoil, Let him into my bosom plunge the knife, And take with filial hand his mother's life. Hearken what wish for him she dying breathes-- Wish? nay, what hope, assured hope, bequeaths-- That, disobedient, proud, rebellious, he, Faithful to Ahab's blood received from me, To his grandfather, to his father, like, Abhorrent heir of David, down may strike Thy worship and thy fane, avenger fell Of Athaliah, Ahab, Jezebel! With words thus rendered into such English verse as we could command for the purpose, Athaliah disappears from the stage. Her execution follows immediately. This is not exhibited, but is announced with brief, solemn comment from Jehoiada. And so the tragedy ends.