respective countries and their respective times: but never since the death of Shakespeare had there been so perfect and harmonious a fusion of the highest comedy with the deepest tragedy as in the five many-voiced and many-colored acts of _Ruy Blas._ At the age of forty Victor Hugo gave to the stage which for thirteen years had been glorified by his genius the last work he was ever to write for it. There may perhaps be other readers besides myself who take even more delight in _Les Burgraves_ than in some of the preceding plays which had been more regular in action, more plausible in story, less open to the magnificent reproach of being too good for the stage--as the _Hamlet_ which came finally from the recasting hand of Shakespeare was found to be, in the judgment even of Shakespeare's fellows; too rich in lyric beauty, too superb in epic state. The previous year had seen the publication of the marvelously eloquent, copious, and vivid letters which gave to the world the impressions received by its greatest poet in a tour on the Rhine made five years earlier--that is, in the year of _Ruy Blas._ In this book, as Gautier at once observed, the inspiration of _Les Burgraves_ is evidently and easily traceable. Among numberless masterpieces of description, from which I have barely time to select for mention the view of Bishop Hatto's tower by the appropriately Dantesque light of a furnace at midnight--not as better than others, but as an example of the magic by which the writer imbues and impregnates observation and recollection with feeling and with fancy--the most enchanting legend of enchantment ever written for children of all ages, sweet and strange enough to have grown up among the fairy tales of the past whose only known authors are the winds and suns of their various climates, lurks like a flower in a crevice of a crumbling fortress. The entrancing and haunting beauty of Régina's words as she watches the departing swallows--words which it may seem that any one might have said, but to which none other could have given the accent and the effect that Hugo has thrown into the simple sound of them--was as surely derived, we cannot but think, from some such milder and brighter vision of the remembered Rhineland solitudes, as were the sublime and all but Æschylean imprecations of Guanhumara from the impression of their darker and more savage memories or landscapes. OTBERT (_lui montrant la fenêtre_). Voyez ce beau soleil! RÉGINA Oui, le couchant s'enflamme. Nous sommes en automne et nous sommes au soir. Partout la feuille tombe et le bois devient noir. OTBERT Les feuilles renaîtront. RÉGINA Oui. (_Rêvant et regardant le ciel._) Vite! à tire-d'ailes!-- --Oh! c'est triste de voir s'enfuir les hirondelles!-- Elles s'en vont là-bas, vers le midi doré. OTBERT Elles reviendront. RÉGINA Oui.--Mais moi je ne verrai Ni l'oiseau revenir ni la feuille renaître!