were only stirred by startling surprises and barbarous events. Let us go still further. Dryden would set up on his stage the beauties of French tragedy, and in the first place its nobility of sentiment. Is it enough to copy, as he does, phrases of chivalry? He would need a whole world, for a whole world is necessary to form noble souls. Virtue, in the French tragic poets, is based on reason, religion, education, philosophy. Their characters have that uprightness of mind, that clearness of logic, that lofty judgment, which plant in a man settled maxims and self-government. We perceive in their company the doctrines of Bossuet and Descartes; with them, reflection aids conscience; the habits of society add tact and finesse. The avoidance of violent actions and physical horrors, the proportion and order of the fable, the art of disguising or shunning coarse or low persons, the continuous perfection of the most measured and noble style, everything contributes to raise the stage to a sublime region, and we believe in higher souls by seeing them in a purer air. Can we believe in them in Dryden? Frightful or infamous characters every instant drag us down by their coarse expressions in their own mire. Maximin, having stabbed Placidius, sits on his body, stabs him twice more, and says to the guards: "Bring me Porphyrius and my empress dead:-- I would brave heaven, in my each hand a head."[395] Nourmahal, repulsed by her husband's son, insists four times, using such indecent and pedantic words as the following: "And why this niceness to that pleasure shown, Where nature sums up all her joys in one.... Promiscuous love is nature's general law; For whosoever the first lovers were, Brother and sister made the second pair, And doubled by their love their piety.... You must be mine, that you may learn to live."[396] Illusion vanishes at once; instead of being in a room with noble characters, we meet with a mad prostitute and a drunken savage. When we lift the masks the others are little better. Almeria, to whom a crown is offered, says insolently: "I take this garland, not as given by you, But as my merit, and my beauty's due."[397] Indamora, to whom an old courtier makes love, settles him with the boastfulness of an upstart and the coarseness of a kitchen-maid: "Were I no queen, did you my beauty weigh, My youth in bloom, your age in its decay."[398] None of these heroines know how to conduct themselves; they look on impertinence as dignity, sensuality as tenderness; they have the recklessness of the courtesan, the jealousies of the grisette, the pettiness of a chapman's wife, the billingsgate of a fish-woman. The heroes are the most unpleasant of swash-bucklers. Leonidas, first recognized as hereditary prince, then suddenly forsaken, consoles himself with this modest reflection: