cheap and very convenient: they sail in one short scene. The period of covered boats drawn by horses; and in the action is the reign of Augustus these you are sure to meet people of all nations. Here the Dutch slumber, the Cæsar, and the subject is the French chatter, and the English play at friendship borne by the philocards. Any man who likes company may have them to his taste. For my part I sophic Greek, Gisippus, to the generally detached myself from all so- ambitious Roman, Fulvius, to ciety, and was wholly taken up in observ- secure whose happiness he suring the face of the country. Nothing can renders his own. Having made equal its beauty; wherever I turn my eye, sacrifices for his highest contrast. There hills and rocks fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, unequalled grottos, vistas, presented themselves; but friend; having passed, for his when you enter their towns you are charmed beyond description. No misery sake, from honoured love and is to be seen here; every one is usefully worldly esteem into solitude and employed. "Scotland and this country bear the his friend apparently heedless or beggary; he finds himself at last, intercept every prospect: here 'tis all a forgetful of his sufferings, a slave. continued plain. There you might see a The lessons of the Academy and well-dressed duchess issuing from a dirty the Porch (so often taught in close; and here a dirty Dutchman inhabiting a palace. The Scotch may be unison in the later Athenian day) compared to a tulip planted in dung; but on this desert their old follower, I never see a Dutchman in his own house and the character takes colouring but I think of a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated to an ox. Physic is by from that middle-ages romance no means taught here so well as in Edin- which furnished Boccacio with the burgh: and in all Leyden there are but subject on which the play is four British students, owing to all neces saries being so extremely dear and the written. Fulvius meanwhile, movprofessors so very lazy (the chemical pro- ing on from conquest to conquest fessor excepted), that we don't much care with the old Roman stride, heedlong my stay here may be; however I ex-less of what he has while there is pect to have the happiness of seeing you to come hither. I am not certain how at Kilmore, if I can, next March. Thou best of men, may Heaven guard anything he has not, has mounted nearly to the top of the ladder of fortune. He is Praetor and in the midst of an Ovation, with neither contented, when his former friend, in squalid ragged wretchedness, planting himself in the streets before him, fixes upon him a glance, which, though steadily returned, leads to no recognition; and, on the seeming miserable beggar persisting still in his desire to have audience of the In brief justification of the Praetor, he is struck by the Licopinion I have expressed of this tors' fasces. The result is that, tragedy, and of the interest I feel deliberately resolving to place in its writer's memory, I subjoin himself in the way of death, he is D. (PAGE 153, 154-) THE PLAY OF GISIPPUS. sentenced to execution by Ful-| Gisippus. I am glad you do so, for my vius on the false charge of a Somewhat unfriendly to me.-World, thoughts were growing murder he has taken on himself. farewell; heart, well! Pray walk this way. This Fulvius, your young Praetor, by What follows is at the scene of And thou whose image never left his execution. It is brief, and in mere Sweet vision of my memory, fare thee writing not of the highest order; but infinite feeling and suffering are crowded into it. The laugh with which it closes tells us this; and in the thought "not worth the notice" of the Roman soldier, there is all that the Greek had studied by the Porch and in the Grove, on appearance and the realities. Decius. Better breathes not. Gisippus. A just man, and a grateful. man, Upon his friends sometimes; a liberal To his clients and his household? Gisippus. A gallant soldier too? In many a desperate fight. Gisippus. In short, there lives not Gisippus. Good.-Look on me now, look I am a villain, am I not!-nay, speak! A secret, sudden stabber. 'Tis not pos- That you can find a blacker, fouler character, END OF VOL. I. PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS TAUCHNITZ EDITION. VOL. 1374. OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE, ADVENTURES, AND TIMES BY J. FORSTER. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. |